TO4Z

i was checking the intercooler section on horsepowerfreaks.com and I this liquid to air barrel kit and I was wondering if this would be feasable on a fc, a front mount would be better from all my reading but i would like to have something that has a little stealth, to it.has anybody had any experience with it at all? or know any thing about it, please share!

SnowmanSteiner

Yes it is possible, it will take more fabrication than your average fmic. An HMIC or V mount is the way to go if you want to retain a sleeper look.

- Steiner

TO4Z

i've seen only vmount only on fd's or an fc with an fd engine is possible of the 13b to be vmounted in a fc that is. still want to know if anybody ever used it or is it relatively new technology?

RETed

Waste of time for a street vehicle.


-Ted

NZConvertible

Excerpts from an AutoSpeed article on water/air intercooling:

Water/air intercooling is used less frequently than the air/air approach. However, it has several benefits, especially in cramped engine bays. A water/air intercooler uses a compact heat exchanger located under the bonnet and normally placed in-line with the compressor-to-throttle body path. The heat is transferred to water which is then pumped through a dedicated front-mounted radiator cooled by the airflow generated by the car's movement. A water/air intercooler system consists of these major parts: the heat exchanger, radiator, pump, control system, and plumbing.

Technically, a water/air intercooler has some distinct cooling advantages on road cars. Water has a much higher specific heat value than air. The 'specific heat value' figure shows how much energy a substance can absorb for each degree temp it rises by. A substance good at absorbing energy has a high specific heat value, while one that gets hot quickly has a low specific heat. Something with a high specific heat value can obviously absorb (and then later get rid of) lots of energy - good for cooling down the air.

Air has a specific heat value of 1.01 (at a constant pressure), while the figure for water is 4.18. In other words, for each increase in temp by one degree, the same mass of water can absorb some four times more energy than air. Or, there can be vastly less flow of water than air to get the same job done. Incidentally, note that pure water is best - its specific heat value is actually degraded by 6 per cent when 23 per cent anti-freeze is added! Other commonly-available fluids don't even come close to water's specific heat value.

The high specific heat value of water has a real advantage in its heat sinking affect. An air/water heat exchanger designed so that it has a reasonable volume of water within it can absorb a great deal of heat during a boost spike. Even before the water pump has a chance to transfer in cool water, the heat exchanger has absorbed considerable heat from the intake airstream. It's this characteristic that makes a water/air intercooling system as efficient in normal urban driving with the pump stopped as it is with it running! To explain, the water in the heat exchanger absorbs the heat from the boosted air, feeding it back into the airstream once the car is off boost and the intake air is cooler. I am not suggesting that you don't worry about fitting a water pump, but it is a reminder that in normal driving the intercooler works in a quite different way to how it needs to perform during sustained full throttle. However, the downside of this is once the water in the system has got hot (for example, after you've been driving and then parked for a while), it takes some time for the water to cool down once you again drive off.

Both air/air and water/air systems have their own benefits and disadvantages. Air/air systems are generally lighter than water/air, especially when the mass of the water (1kg a litre!) is taken into account. An air/air system is less complex and if something does go wrong (the intercooler develops a leak for example), the engine behaviour will normally change noticeably. This is not the case with water/air, where if a water hose springs a leak or the pump ceases to work it will not be immediately obvious. However, an air/air intercooler uses much longer ducting and it can be very difficult to package a bulky air/air core at the front of the car - and get the ducts to it! Finally, an air/air intercooler is normally cheaper than a water/air system.

A water/air intercooler is very suitable where the engine bay is tight. Getting a couple of flexible water hoses to a front radiator is easy and the heat exchanger core can be made quite compact. A water/air system is very suitable for a road car, with the thermal mass of the water meaning that temperature spikes are absorbed with ease. However, note that if driven hard and then parked, the water within the system will normally become quite warm through underbonnet heat soak. This results in high intake air temperatures after the car is re-started as the hot water takes some time to cool down.

Here's an excerpt from another AutoSpeed article on IC water sprays:

In my high-boost Mira Turbo I ran a water/air intercooling system. The water/air heat exchanger comprised a highly modified ex-boat multi-tube copper heat exchanger, with a few litres of water in it. An electric pump circulated the water through a separate front-mounted cooling core. Intake air temp was measured using a thermistor and a dedicated LCD fast-response meter.

In normal point-and-squirt urban driving, the intake air temp remained the same with the intercooler pump switched either on or off! Why? Because when the car was on boost, the heat was being dumped into the copper-tube-and-water heatsink, and when the car was off-boost, this heat was fed back into the (now cooler) intake air flow. Of course, if I was climbing a long hill (ie on boost for perhaps more than 15 seconds) the pump needed to be operating to give the lowest intake air temps. But even in that tiny car, 15 seconds of constant full boost would achieve over 160 km/h from a standstill...

The latter shows why water/air intercooling in road cars is so successful - but why most race cars use air/air intercooling. Water has a very high thermal mass, so easily absorbing the temp spikes caused by a road car's on/off boost driving. However, race-style boost (say on full boost for 70 per cent of the time) means that the system has to start working far more as a real-time heat transfer mechanism - which is best done by very large air/air intercoolers.

Here's a pic of an RX-4 that uses a 13BT with the stock TMIC converted for use as a water/air heat exchanger:



It should be noted that the author of these articles has experience with both OEM and his own custom water/air intercoolers, and when discussing them has never used the word "useless"...

poor_red_neck

Wow, very good read.

Thanks.

RETed

Added complexity...
...more chances for something to go wrong.
Can you imagine what will happen if the pump or all the water / coolant leaks out of that system?
You end up with an enclosed IC core with no airflow for heat exchange.

They are basically "useless" for a street vehicle.


-Ted

NZConvertible

That's pretty obvious, but if that's such a big worry then we shouldn't add anything to our cars. Turbos can go wrong, 4WD can go wrong, ABS can go wrong, traction control can go wrong, A/C can go wrong, lots of things we have been fitting to cars for ages can go wrong. That doesn't necessarily mean they will. Do you have that little faith in your ability to choose quality components and properly fit them?

Much the same thing that would happen if all of the coolant drained out of the engine, but that doesn't stop up from using water-cooled engines. Again it comes down to the chances of that happening, barring stupidity or ignorance.

[QUOTE]You still haven't said anything to back this statement up, or to dispute anything I posted above. However judging by that fact that it's been around for ages and is still used, many other people (including numerous manufacturers) seem to disagree with you.

RETed

Cause, it's about thinking about it logically, and most people will come to the same conclusion.

I've argued against them ever since BDC liked to push them.

My base argument is what advantage does this the A2W have over the A2A?
You can argue compactness; I will argue added complexity.
It all comes down to a street driven, daily driver, the A2W ends up being a fancy-schmancy A2A when the initial cool temps of the water is overcome.
So where is the advantage?


-Ted

BlaCkPlaGUE

REted is way to cocky to accept the fact that his opinions may not be accepted by other people. His response to your post convertible is pretty closed minded and ignorant, but whatever.

Watercooled intercooler setups are great space savers. They are also excellent for less air resistance! There are typically less bends in ducting for an water-air intercooler setup, and usually and increase in throttle response becuase of the less piping. If done properly, you can have a very reliable system, and if fabricated yourself it doesn't have to be expensive. Water intercooler setups are perfect for the street, and are used on some stock cars! so you can't say that its useless for the street, if anything, its perfect for the street.
Water intercooler setups are never gonna achieve lower charge temps than an air to air FMIC, but like I said above, they have their advantages.

RETed

Talk about "cocky", "closed minded", and "ignorant"...

Please do your research before you start to spew misconceptions.
Although "anyone" can retrofit an A2A core into a A2W IC, this is not the most efficient way of doing this.
Go argue with Spearco about having a properly designed A2W IC core, and none of this getto-rigged, band-aid set-up's...


-Ted

NZConvertible

So unless it has a brand-name and costs lots it's a "getto-rigged band-aid"? In this part of the world that attitude is usually just laughed at, then proven wrong...

Besides, the pic I posted was simply an interesting example of a familiar set-up, not my preferred set-up. Off-the-shelf heat exchangers are best if you have the money, but small air/air intercoolers what flow well have been proven to make a good basis for heat exchangers many times before. However saying "anyone" can do it is just silly. Anyone can order an off-the-shelf heat exchanger, but not anyone could fabricate one as good as the one pictured.

pengarufoo

I like the air to water configuration.

Just like you have a coolant temperature gauge so you know when your water pump has failed, if you go to a air to water intercooler you should definitely have AT LEAST a intake air temperature gauge if you do not already (you really should have this regardless when you have a forced induction setup).

Now for the obvious advantage here that makes the air to water really shine over the air to air, you can achieve colder than ambient air temps with an air to water IC by doing things like adding ice to the water bath, which will be very helpful for that day at the drag strip or money race in 100 degree summer temps. This may have been touched upon in the autospeed article, if so my bad, I didnt read the whole thing... liked the picture though

RETed

I'm sure there's formula or charts laying around, but we're talking about a minimum amount of water / coolant for "buffer", minimum heat exchanger core size on the turbo and ambient side, proper water / coolant flow rate from the pump, and minimum amount of airflow through the ambient side heat exchanger core.

Or does it come down to what-you-can-fit philosophy?

All of this just for something that will cool the intake charge down to ambient or maybe just a few degrees over ambient?
Oh wait, doesn't an A2A already do that...


-Ted

SnowmanSteiner

Note that one of the main benefits is for cramped engine bays, the FC's engine bay is far from cramped. Most people switch to an electric fan when converting to an intercooler that is not mounted in the stock location, this gives lots of room in front of the engine compartment. I have to agree that for the street it just doesn't seem like it is worth it. For the track yes, since the car will only be running wot for a short period of time. But if you are doing daily driving, a FMIC and an upgraded radiator are the simplest and cheapest ways to go. Why overcomplicate something?

- Steiner

rotarygod

iTrader: (1)

Your car isn't under boost 99% of the time on the street. The water isn't heating up. It will find a steady temperature and stay there. When you do get under boost, it will take 4 times the amount of heat out of the system in the same amount of time that an air/air does. Therefore it cools the air down better than the air/air. This does have it's limits though and it is time under boost. It will also take longer to heat soak. Usually you are only under boost for a few seconds and then you are off again. This isn't enough to really affect the overall water system temperature.

On a drag track we all know it is a better option. On a road course it isn't.

Yes, it's more complex and weighs a little more. It is simple from the standpoint that you can put it anywhere it fits. They don't need to be as large as an air/air to be equally effective. One of their better mounting spots is not in front of the radiator blocking cooling air from the engine. Neither system is better at it's job under EVERY circumstance. To say otherwise is ignoring fact. I can argue for an air/air too but the point is that it works and would probably be a very good alternative for most people here. The biggest problem is that most people think they are driving race cars when they are really only driving stripped down uncomfortable street cars.

RETed

Haltech datalogs shows that intake temps do no go over 120F.
This is with an ambient of about 60F.
If we were able to get a 50F drop in intake temps (which I doubt - that's 100% efficiency), what would the intake temps be?
There's formulas out there which can easily give you this number.

Shift to here in Hawaii...
70F to 80F ambients, 140F max inteke temps
How much of a drop do you get?
How does this translate into power?

What about heating of the intake temps from the intake manifolds and engine parts that the intake charge has to go through?

Is it worth it?

Hmmm...how about a show of hands of how many FC owners are running A2W IC's for a street-driven daily driver?


-Ted

Not Stock

We just datalogged my 94 fd , I converted an apex front mount to air to water. Before,
we saw 115-125 degrees f. With ice water we saw 60-80 degrees f. This was at 16psi
and we made 406rwhp at 5500rpm and 15 degrees timing. He let off because we were starting to lean out, on a map that was fat before! We accessed areas of the map never used before and the temp correction map was one of them! I dont like this setup b/c
it blocks radiator. I' ve ordered a pwr 10inch to try. I'll let you guys know how it turns out. I am sold on air to water at least for now.

t-von

iTrader: (8)

Would this be the 10"X 6" diameter PWR that flows 920 cfm? If so I'm thinking about that one myself. Be careful because you may run into an overboost condition because it is sure to have less pressure drop than your Apex IC. Also let us know how much your throttle response improves?

patman

iTrader: (3)

A2W is slightly better than A2A. it is also a pita, since you have to custom fabricate most everything.

on a side note...Ted has always been against A2W, and I might point out to you guys that it is a complete waste of time to argue with him, as this is one thing I'm willing to bet he will never, ever change his mind about.

pat

CrackHeadMel

iTrader: (2)

I was torn between a2a and a2l for a while and almost went with air2l. However a few things really changed my mind threw my own research to ditch the idea and go to a2a

First major one was the radiator for the a2l setup had to be 4x larger than the liquid intercooler for it to be proved effective at speed's i could justify i would be traveling at (it was under 80 iirc)

Also, it was freakin heavy, i had figured on 5gal total of liquid in the system, the barrel, the rad, a pump, not to light

There was also the issue of the pump failing, alot of the higher volume pump's that i wanted to run had something like 10k hours of continous use. now that might sound like alot, however i spend 12hr's a week ATLEAST drinvg just to/from work (daily driver 7 for me) not including the eveywhere else i drive, pump dying on me somehwere would really **** me off

thats what i learned, and why i changed my opinion, the only way i see it really working for ME was to move the rad all the way to the left or right of the car, and have an equal size rad on the other side, and run some sort of mechanical pump, however, screw that, ill go with a2a at a cost to me of 250usd

-Jacob

digitalsolo

iTrader: (2)

I run an air to liquid intercooler on my other car (Grand Prix GTP). The efficiency is excellent, and there is equipment out there to monitor the flow, and warn you if there is a pump failure/leak.

FWIW, Sy/Ty guys run these types of setups into the 10s, in 3600lbs trucks. The quickest AWD (most go to RWD only) in the country lives in my town, he's run an 11.1 on his old setup, and currently has about 130 more HP then that pass, still working on getting the power to the ground now though.

But then again, listen to ReTed, he's built how many air/water setups?

AusTexRex

Ted isn't saying A2W is terrible he's just saying that it is a waste of time and money because the A2A works just fine for street applications.

I personally don't fully agree with either side.

RETed

I just love it when people assume ****, and they try to talk **** to you when they have no idea what they are talking about...


-Ted

Cover_Yellow

I think both systems work great. Just depends on your application. You guys get so emotional on these boards.