Anyone care to comment on such?
What would be the effect of using air to air cores for a liquid to air IC

 

pretty broad comment, you cannot just use an air-air core for a water-air IC as there wouldnt be water provisions in the core. is that what your asking? or do you want to ditch the water-air ic and replace the system with a air-air IC?

 

Ok, im sorry, to be clear.

The core, just the core, no end tanks. Do they differ? I am not speaking of ditching ours or anything like that.

I always assumed that they differ, maybe I am wrong. (probably)

So in theory, one could take an air to air IC, weld end tanks on to "convert it" to water and it would be fine?

 

Water is about 1000 denser and the design of the coolers is therefore much different. Air to Air exchangers have a nearly 1 to 1 ratio of surface area where the water exchangers have a greater surface-ratio due to the density and specific density advantages of liquid. The oversized "super 60" turbo air to air exchange on my 88 daytona is an example this 1 : 1 approach.

An intercooler system needs to have a balanced arrangment of absorbtion and heat rejection to work well. In the super cooler that I designed, I oversized the heat radiator to get as much heat out of the intercooler as possible. In part this is because the 'shade tree' modification of the intercooler just are not reasonable to attempt.

The factory heat exchanger was too small, VERY restrictive to water flow, and out of the air flow path of the radiators fan. When I was autocrossing at sustained 4000 to 6000 rpm operation for up to a full minute, my engine had power loss as the air temps exceeded the computer setpoint. With the larger aluminum replacement radiator, that issue has not occured again even in the heat of summer.

Enjoy W DY

 

Woody
So are you saying water to air is the best solution?
Or is air to air a viable alternative?

The "super cooler" you refer to, is that the Summit solution you made?
Thanks.

 

So are you saying water to air is the best solution?

It is the most compact and possibly more efficient as you have to move less "material". In essence our is an Air to Air exchanger as the intercooler removes heat from the s/c discharge airflow and heats the water that we pump up front and then expell the heat of the water to the atmosphere. Kinda odd to see it that way but that is what we have.

If would have been tough to pipe the large ducts to and from the front grill from the s/c (we have two manifolds too ). You also need to to consider the latiency time of the air in a heat exchanger, the air speed at full throttle at the throttle body is above 150 mph. After compression, the volume is decreased by about 1/2 but you need a goodly sized a/a heat exchanger to keep up with the heat load. Water due to its mass and specific heat( about 4 times that of air ) can soak up the energy for a while (1/4 mile ) and cushion the impact of the inlet air temperature rise due to compressor losses and abiabatic heating .

Remember that the air temp is probabily well over 200 degrees at the discharge of the s/c and it requires a lot of ambient air to adsorb this energy, to lower the manifold air temperature enough to keep the ECU happy.

If Mr. Answers is listening maybe SPLINTER could show us the limit of the inlet air temperature before the motor ECU pulls power, Jerry may also know that off the top of his head. I would love to have the chart that shows the temperature of the air sensor versis its output voltage, so I could monitor it on my Zetronic data logger....

Lets hope next year allows the society / economy to turn around and improve:

Or is air to air a viable alternative? Please see above

The "super cooler" you refer to, is that the Summit solution you made?
Thanks.

Yes the aluminum race car radiator that I modified is what I call the super cooler, it took welding aluminum and a few parts but holds 1 gallon of fluid which circulate thru it every fifteen seconds. At four gallons per minute of flow versis the stocker 1.3 GPM, it much less restrictive even though it has about 5 times the surface area. Due to its size if fits over the a/c core but in summer racing events I have not had temperature issues and thats with my homemade 180 degree thermostat.

Enjoy, Woody

 

If I wave my hands real fast towards the engine while driving will that help with cooling you think?

Just trying to think outside the box..

 

Yes, they do differ based on their design criteria, but both can be utilized to serve their purpose of transferring heat. With proper fabrication required to facilitate fitment to a specific engine/chassis, the cores themselves can often be interchanged. Thermodynamics is an interesting science, IMHO. May I suggest Corky Bell’s worthwhile treatises on the subject of optimizing forced induction engines? His Maximum Boost and Supercharged! directly address your topic and have earned their well-worn pages in my reference library.

Garrett manufactures many of the OE and performance aftermarket intercooler/heat exchanger cores used today, including our intercooler. Less than eight miles from here, their headquarters is an impressive facility with many bright engineering minds. They’ve also proven to be a worthy resource supplying technical data to a layman such as myself.

http://www.turbobygarrett.com/turbob...tercoolers.htm

Although our intercooler core is restrictive and lacking ultimate heat rejection capabilities, several here running prodigious supercharger boost have managed to keep their IAT’s to reasonable levels. Thanks to BrianBrave, waldig, MikeR and the others who’ve graciously shared workarounds. Much appreciated, gentlemen. When you’ve fit your C3P/Spearco core, would you kindly share its affect on performance?



OT for Woody and the other incorrigibles-

No answers per se, just my customary useless and irreverent perspective on matters of import to our community. As you’re already well aware, our ECU adjusts its spark timing and other directives based upon parameters from several sensors, one of which is monitoring the engine’s IAT. When data logging during extended (off-highway) WOT operation in its stock configuration, the following approximate adjustments were recorded in spark timing from the “cool air” WOT base maps between peak torque and redline:

exceeding ~110 degrees Fahrenheit = minus 4 degrees ignition timing
exceeding ~125 degrees Fahrenheit = minus 6 degrees ignition timing
exceeding ~155 degrees Fahrenheit = minus 10 degrees ignition timing

Respected tuners have confirmed similar findings, AMG-Jerry’s LET among them. It’s swell we can run so powerfully on 15+ pounds of boost with a 9:1 compression ratio burning 91 octane (CA’s ‘premium’) without granading the works. However, there is measurable power to be realized from properly controlling and minimizing intake air temperatures.

 

The reason I am asking, C3P advertised their intercoolers as using Spearco Liquid to Air cores, infact they took air to air core, modified it, and used two halfs, stacked (front to back).

 

I'm waiting for my Spearco/IC and have done a lot of datalogging with the Stock-Garrett core. I will post the results and differences. What I have seen from Brandons dataloggs with the C3P-IC is, that the biggest difference is the better (faster) Recovery-Cooling when you let off the pedal. Peak-IAT reduction is nearly the same in my opinion, but I have to do more datalogging with longer boost-runs. This will be interesting...