Sure a V mount is still in the engine bay but it has access to a lot more air when moving very slow or even when sitting still. When your sitting still or moving slow with a SMIC you dont get near as much air because its breathing thru a 2x10 slot, then on top of that the air that is coming in is moving thru a super hot duct before getting to the core, the end tankes are super hot due to no air except what the radiator fans are providing it.

The V mount on the other hand is totally submerged in fresh air on the front side, endtanks and all. If the V mount was to get heat soaked it would cool much faster due to it having access to MUCH more air at slow speeds.

I'm not saying there is no way that a V mount couldnt heat soak cause sitting still I'm sure its going to start to get a little more hot than a FMIC would, but it should be better than a SMIC and still provide much more air to the radiator than a FMIC. I think it takes the strength of both the smic and fmic and merges them together.

 

I have to agree with wade here. What about Adam saruwatari? He ran 8's with a FMIC does that mean anything either?

Furthermore a lot of japanese tuners like FEED, RE Amemiya, etc... still run FMIC's on the track. Others run V-mounts. Very few if any run stock mounts.

 

FMIC seems to be better suited for drag racing where cooling of the radiator is not as crucial as in track events.

Just look at the Top Fuel cars. I don't think they even have water cooling as part of their engine since they warm up and run ET and turn the engine off.

The race last just seconds.

 

No intercooler is needed with the use of methanol.

 

Well, if tha'ts the case and the car is a DRAG STRIP ONLY CAR then air to liquid would be even better

 

The VMIC is still in the direct path of the airstream despite still being in the engine bay because there is nothing blocking it. The reason that the air intake temperatures would be lower with the HKS V-mount would probably be because the VMIC has a bigger and more efficient core to cool down the air intake temps? I've heard the type R core (HKS VMIC) is among the best there is.

 

Top Fuel cars burn nitromethane, not methanol, and they run Roots-style blowers, so there is no practical way to intercool the air charge.

 

"Kevin, are you only here to toot your own horn abour your accomplishments in the distant past? We've all heard it many times before."

When people are saying an FMIC is the best thing for drag racing, as a matter of fact, and nobody has still, 10 years later, surpassed what I did with my plain jane SMIC I think it's very topical and not just tooting my horn. How nice of you to suggest I was though. Of course something didn't smell right to me after you reported temps more than 300% higher than anyone else ever has.

"Street car? Only picture I remember seeing of your car at the strip I seem to remember it lacking headlights, the signal lights, it appeared to lack the bumper reinforcement, and I can only speculate that the interior was also stripped. You were presumably running race gas as well, and I could see the slicks. AFAIK it had no converters at all. That's your definition of a street car?"

Your memory is about as good as your test data : ) The car has never been started without headlights, the signal lights are replaced with ugly little amber covers in the corners for the turnsignals usign the OEM bulbs, my air filters sit below the headlights so the opening is a cold air source directly to the air filter (considering your reported temps you should really look into it .) The car has always, and still does, have a full interior except the rear bins were removed to put roll bar in, I even recarpeted the floor where the bins were. The stock stereo is fully in place as is everything else like the heater etc. Yes I ran race gas while at the track and used DOT legal M&H's. What do converters and rear tires have to do with being a street car? Oh and yes it was very much a street car at the time and even still is.



"We applaud your past RX-7 accomplishments. But your ET or MPH accomplishments prove little about your IC design. Ray Lockhead was running in the 8's in the 1/4 with a tiny horizontally mounted underhood IC. Steve the datalogit guy ran an 11 (11.1 I think?) with a stock IC. Using your flawed logic, a tiny underhood IC should be good for running 8's and the stock IC should be good for 11's."


You proved my point for me. I never said I had the best IC for drag racing but it obviously wasn't holding anything back either.


"It isn't that simple. The ASP IC keeps my intake temps thoroughly hot. ..."

You started this thread by saying you had a PFS IC, you don't own an ASP IC as far as I know. I guess this might be a little freudian slip.


"If you can't admit that there are flaws in the design of your intercooler, and that there are other designs that are clear improvements in many areas, then your bias is so great that I can't help but think that all you are doing is defending your IC because it's yours. Maybe it has little to do with design and more to do with your pride."

Heheh, I think you've missed most discussions about IC's with credible people. The usual concensus is that every design makes certain compromises. Each design is a balancing act with a slightly different focus. I was actually about to do a new IC but ended up deciding against it because some jerkoff would just make direct copies of all the new fiberglass masters I'd have to pay to make.

I don't know where this chip on your shoulder came from but why aren't you talking about PFS instead of me? Unless PFS pulled a Pettit, which I don't believe he did, the PFS is not the same thing.

Kevin T. Wyum

 

"I don't know where this chip on your shoulder came from but why aren't you talking about PFS instead of me? Unless PFS pulled a Pettit, which I don't believe he did, the PFS is not the same thing."

I don't know the details of this but the PFS race intercooler is the exact same size and dimension of your ASP large. Hell, even the duct is exactly the same. While I do not know the exact details this is a fact that I do know:

1. Peter has had that very same intercooler in his IMSA racecar since 1994 and has used it for road racing and drag racing.

2. The intercooler I use to have in my car is that very same intercooler with the words "PFS" inscribed on the endtanks. SkywarpR now has that very IC.

 

I seem to have mixed up a post by Wade and this person previously.

"I don't know the details of this but the PFS race intercooler is the exact same size and dimension of your ASP large. Hell, even the duct is exactly the same. While I do not know the exact details this is a fact that I do know:"

Unlikely as I've changed mine numerous times over the years.

The duct being "exactly" the same is a near impossibility if Peter truly made his in 1994. My fiberglass guy made a huge wooden master model from scratch in 1995ish. He was given my car with the first prototype IC held in place by the tubes and resting on the crossbar for the entire winter. The odds of two people creating an exact duplicate part given those circumstances, even given the space limitations, is extreme. I think you've fallen victim to conversational assumptions. I've never seen the Intercooler you're talking about (I have heard PFS groupies mention it over the years rarely) but I find it very hard to believe. The losers at Pettit on the other hand did try to make a direct copy of mine, including making molds from the exact duct.

I got quite a kick out of the Adam S mention btw. He did a nice job and spent a ton of money but it's not even in the same ballpark. You're talking about a car with modified stock turbos, stock block, stock transmission, stock differential and gears on street legal tires to a trailer queen with big single turbo, heavily ported motor, G-Force tranny that you need to come to a complete stop to downshift (read impossible for street use), different gears and diff with full slicks and a 50 shot of nitrous if memory serves me correctly. I'm not talking down Adam, he and I used to be rivals to a limited extent before he went with the Gforce etc. as a drag only trailer car. His car was damn fast and he was a good driver from my understanding. All the same it continued the lack of consistency with there being a specific type of IC best in drag racing which was my point anyway : ) Enough of this thread. I knew better than to post in a "this IC vs. that IC" but I couldn't help the BS about +25 deg cruise temps and mentioning mine when I knew it was false. Sorry I couldn't resist.


Kevin T. Wyum

 

What type of IC does steve kan use in his 10 second racecar?

Hm, maybe Peter's duct isn't the same, but it's a similar design. The intercooler core however is the exact same size. The endtanks and core is different though. I compared it with the M2 large and have seen that there are a lot of similarities to it. I will try to find some old pictures to post, but maybe skywarpr should chime in and post pics since he now owns that very intercooler that was in my car.

 

heat soak at a stoplight would reduce horsepower, but would that cause detonation? i would think it would be safer than peeling out at a stoplight under WOT with a cool intake charge? only drawback that i really see to FMIC is that the A/C condensor and radiator overheat which is a very bad thing on the FDs.

 

I think the advantage is VMIC would recover from the affects of heat soak quicker than the other.

 

From my experience and that of my FD buddies, the engine tends to detonate more often when the intake temps are down.

 

Lower air intake temperatures reduce the chances of detonation and increase horsepower. Higher air intake temperatures increase the chance of detonation and reduce horsepower. The flip side is that with lower air intake temperatures, the car runs leaner and with high intake air temperatures it runs rich.

 

Possibly, but we won't know until someone posts data points proving or disproving all of these theories.

 

Jim, in your opinion what would be the best type of controlled experiment to have in order to test which one of these setups work the best and how would one go about collecting and analzying the data?

 

You'd need 3 temperature sensors to find these three data points...

1. Ambient air temperature
2. Temperature before the IC
3. Temperature after the IC

That would tell you how hot it was outside, how much hotter the turbos are making the incoming air, and how well the IC is reducing it. Then you'd want to capture that data under the following conditions...

1. After sitting and idling for a few minutes with the car fully warmed up to simulate heat soak while sitting stationary in traffic.
2. After accelerating to and cruising at 30 mph for a few minutes to see how quickly the IC sheds heat from #1.
3. After a WOT run from a standing start to ~100-115 mph to simulate performance at the drag strip or whatever.

If someone autocrosses, it'd be interesting to see what temperatures were before and after a run, but I think the main argument for the V-mount is that it doesn't heat soak as readily as an SMIC, and in order to prove that, all you'd need would be #1 and #2.

 

That's what I meant.

 

Exactally

I am trying to figure out how a t-stat that opens sooner helps you keep temps down at the track. I would tend to think on a road coarse after a lap or two your t-stat is open all the time..

 

It doesn't help. Anytime the T-stat is fully open it means the cooling system is the limiting factor not the T-stat temp.

 

Then what good is it and why would you pay $70 for it?

 

I dunno. Many times if someone makes a modified part it is "automatically" better than OEM and people buy it.

 

You're assuming an inadequate cooling system, which is not necessarily the case with cars other than the FD.

A lower temperature thermostat opens sooner and allows the cooling system to start doing its job earlier. A cooler running engine allows you to use less octane (or more compression), advance timing, or increase boost, all of which can increase power.

Keep in mind that replacing the thermostat does not change the fan activation points in an electronically controlled system. The ECU must also be (re)programmed to lower the temperatures at which the fans turn on.

 

What no discussions of TMIC's? We have every other IC in this thread.