To me it was more important to get good flow to the IC. I didn't want to put fans on it to pull air through it. Now on the other hand the stock FD fans pull crazy amounts of air, a lot better than most aftermarket fan kits. I retained the stock fans and tilted the radiator a little more than most kits, I think. With proper ducting and a center divider between the IC and the radiator this should not be a problem. My coolant temps stayed consistently low, the way you see it in the pics with no ducting. I put 3000 miles on it this way with out one temp problem.

As far as the reversal of the angle of the radiator. I don't think the G forces that the car will be able to produce will be able to affect the flow of water through the radiator in any adverse way.

Just my $.02
Brandon

 

What can be said about most of the setups people have posted is they're not as efficient as they could be. As you'll notice almost none of them are properly ducted. There should be some sort of air splitter to direct air to the IC and to the radiator to force it through.
All of these setups will work better then stock but not as good as they could work if properly ducted, I'll put it that way...mine included.

 

I was wondering if it would be efficient enough to keep the forward mounting of the radiator and use some sort of custom ducting to get air to the intercooler?

 

I very much agree with this statement. You want to make the air travel were it is needed. Not take the easiest path which will be around the coolers, rather it be IC, Radiator, Oil cooler, or even your air filter.

A center divider, I think is critical in the V-mount set up. With some adjust ability to choose which component gets more air would be even better. I think HKS makes there's this way and I believe that KINETIK_FD3S fabbed his with this also. All of this will be done to mine by the time it comes out of storage this year.

 

I understand your point... the 90 degree turn that charge air must make isn't optimal, but from a packaging standpoint it's unavoidable... and certainly no worse than any of the upgrade stock-mount set-ups

 

You mean like stock?

 

Guys, the stock radiator sits at a 30 degree angle. It really doesn't matter whether that's 30 degrees with the high-side in front, or 30 degrees w/ the high side in back.

What the reversed radiator angle allows is much more incoming air to be directed at the IC without it having to climb up and over the radiator in that convoluted duct. You DO accept that if you're directing more incoming air at the IC, you MUST be directing less at the radiator... but the reverse angle of the radiator has nothing to do with that.

I will reiterate that what I see in these photos are some MONDO gaps... strangely even at the apex point where the radiator and IC should theoretically meet. What's up with THAT? That's probably the worst place to have a gap... you're just blowing all of your incoming air right at your main pulley!

I also think that without a sealed and dedicated intake box, you're wasting alot of incoming air into the gap by the intake, and not all of it wiull be absorbed by the intake. Remember, air follows the path of least resistance, so it's heading right for the holes instead of being squeezed through either core.

Even without a divider, significan't air should go through the IC, because the core is less dense than the radiator (see: least resistance)... but what worries me about a no-divider set up is, if you'rer sitting relatively still with the rad fans on, they are likely pulling air down and backthrough the IC core in reverse. Probably not much, because there's a lower resistance source at the nose of the car... but I wouldn't be surprised if it's some. I'm going top be testing that once mines built.

 

Yeah, kinda like the stock setup. I know it would be less efficient than the true v-mount setup but just wondering if it would be efficient enough?

 

ptrhahn,
While I do not have a degree in fluid dynamics or any background in aerodynamics I wouldn't say I know how the characteristics of airflow work. I agree with most of your post except for the statement about the V-mount stealing some air from the radiator. The stock radiator configuration seemed to push the air down the face of the radaitor and not through the radiator. But I could be mistaken, since when I think about it...the stock undertray and radiator create a sealed duct forcing air through the radiator, but once you remove that undertray then my statement becomes true

 

^^^^^

Well, you've only got X amount of air coming in the nose of the car. It can go any of 4 places. 1. Through the radiator. 2. Through the IC. 3. Into the intake. 4. Through some gap in the ducting and out under the car with the rest of the exhausted air.

In a V-mount, you are (hopefully) pushing more air through the IC than you would with that little duct on a stock mount setup (otherwise, how would would it cool more efficiently?), so as along as #'s 3 & 4 are equal, you litteraly HAVE to be directing LESS air through the radiator.

The undertray on a V-mount is just for protection... not for air sealing... Ideally, the angle means the low point of the radiator is against the nose of the car, so you've just got a couple wedge-shaped holes on either side to plug.... if you think about it, the air going to the IC in a v-mount set up is about the same as would've escaped through the hole in front if you left the undertray off of a SMIC setup. The hole's just on the top rather than the bottom.

 

One thing that can't be forgotten is proper ducting BEHIND the radiator and IC. Not saying that it doesn't work without it but it optimises the setup. The under tray should be properly modified for the hot radiator air to smoothly flow under the car, and then a vented hood to release the trapped IC air to escape. Or if you don't want an aftermarket hood, there is that mod that involves utilizing the vent behind the front wheels by cutting a circular hole in each upper corner of the engine compartment and ducting the hole to the vent. Not as efficient but better than nothing.

 

Pretty much Every V-mount in this thread and setup the same way as that one. It is unavoidable...

 

BTW, I haven't seen a v-mount kit that allows you to utilize the stock undertray.... You would have to chop the hell out of it making it pretty much useless.

 

Not completely unavoidable. I did think about this when doing mine. Notice the
red circle.



As far as the gap which is in between my IC and radiator, this will be closed up with proper ducting and a divider will be utilized as well.

 

That's why I'm making my own.

 

I got my undertray to fit fine. Just had to trim the passenger side really.

 

I had no problem using my stock under tray. The only mod I did was drill out the rivets holding on some kind of diffuser.

 

yes, if you remove the diffuser as you call it, it will allow you a significant amount of space. But as far as kits are concerned...I haven't seen one yet which will allow the undertray to fit.

 

Okey dokey...I'll prolly get lynched again for this.

I did a VMIC where I had the IC on the bottom so I can get the pipe coming into the endtanks in the same direction as the air flow. We also welded in vanes in the entanks to minimize turbulence and hopefully "encourage" the air to evenly distribute through the core. The other reasoning for putting the IC on the bottom was so that if I out drive myself and go offroading during a track day...and I happend to rip the piping and core off, I can still limp home. Can't say the same if I killed off the rad.

In addition, I did a splitter so that air going to the IC and rad core will get their own fair share of the flow. I got killed last time by ppl for the angles of the cores but it seems to work. Additionally, I thought to encourage flow through the IC core, I need to create less back pressure behind it. Thusly, I did a vented undertray that - when at speeds - vents the air pressure rearward and not straight down to minimize front end lift. I didn't wind tunnel this nor have sensors to see if it's causing lift. However, at a track event I didn't have any issues with high speed wandering or traction up front.

Insofar as how well it works, I forgot to log the air temp (although it's via the Datalogit so the heat soaked sensor underneath the UIM may be skewing the heat exchange results). Empirically, after one session in 26degC weather, I recall the "cool" side piping warm to the touch and the "hot" side too hot to touch. At an autox yesterday, after a 3 runs, it was cool to touch the cold side and again hot to touch the turbo side.

WRT water temp, my gauges were reading 90-95 during the lapping day for all 4 sessions. So far so good, I guess.

 

^^^^^

None of that sounds silly at all.... it realy shouldn't matter which heat exchanger is where, so long as the packaging works out.

 

can't believe that this is the only person that has elaborated on this point. Consider the fact that you have an airtight duct forcing all of the air through both the radiator and the i/c, (as this is the main point, getting more air to the i/c without having to mess with that tiny gap caused by the angle of the stock radiator, causing you to go fmic as teh other option.), when you force the path of air to a confined area, its pretty redundant to not have a way for the air to circulate out. Think of it as a slipstream, this would actually create MORE suction. A well vented hood would be almost necessary to utilize the FULL benefit of this setup.

 

^ so how much hp are we loosing with our "total crap IC pipe angle" or show us the results to your engineering test documentation.

ducting behind the radiator is almost impossible and there is no need for it i have zero issues with my water temp.

 

hey oorx7 do you still make those injector sleeves? i need a few.

 

I dont have my undertray on but experience np. I do how ever have a Scoot hood and my intake temps and coolant temps couldnt have been ebtter this summer. I never have to be worried about temps rising now. even sitting in traffic np!

 

kinetik, awesome setup. i have the RE monster v-mount and will be doing extremely similar ducting to yours.