Well, it's a very debatable subject and i'm about to go to bed. But, with the air/air you have an unlimited supply of ambient air to cool with. With the water to air you have to rely on two heat exchangers, the intercooler and the heat exchanger for the water. You can only cool to the temperature of the air or water cooling the ic. With the water to air you have to take into consideration that the water won't maintain ambient temp because the heat exchanger won't be 100% efficient. Therefore, you have warmer than ambient water doing your cooling, thus making the coolest possible air temp the temp of the water. Now comes the fact that water cools better than air. The question is how much? A good air/air intercooler can be about 85% efficient. If your heat exchanger for the water/air is only 70% efficient then you've got that to take into account as well. It's really all speculation as far as i know, I don't know anyone who has actually done a back to back comparison. I have seen the air temps of both on the dyno though. The water to air is consistently warmer than the air/airs that i've seen. The dyno being the place where the water to air should be beneficial too! Just the other day Bob Norwood had a twin turbo testarossa over there on the dyno and the air temps were 165 F. at only 20psi on 60-1's with two spearco water/air coolers and a big heat exchanger. I've never seen air temps like that with an air/air. Keep the water/airs for the track....

 

thats exactly the problem, the water cooler to ambient (a second radiator of sorts) is not going to be 100% efficient so you will have losses when compared to an air to air. Also, the water pump heats the water up...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by FFgeoff &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">thats exactly the problem, the water cooler to ambient (a second radiator of sorts) is not going to be 100% efficient so you will have losses when compared to an air to air. Also, the water pump heats the water up... </TD></TR></TABLE>

This was my understanding as well which is why I questioned it. Seeing the streets as in going out to 'street race" for an hour is one thing, but pulling daily driver duty? Even with a 5 gallon cell I would figure with the types of temps even with a heat exchanger set-up my guess would be you probably would not get that far. It has also been my understanding and it looks like others as well that a water/air set-up is not gonna be as efficient at keeping intakes down as an air/air set-up will with out ice water and even so you are gonna have to change that after every hard run be it drag or dyno because it will now be to hot. So I guess that's why most see it as a track only type of set up. It's more efficent then air/air for that one run but that's it. So in street applications it seems air/air would be a smarter choice, but if it's going to be a mainly drag car then of course water/air would be the way to go. I mean technically it still works on the street, just not the best. You can always stop by the grocery store and pick up a bag of ice if the right "race on the street comes along" i guess.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Mr Milano &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Seeing the streets as in going out to 'street race" for an hour is one thing, but pulling daily driver duty? You can always stop by the grocery store and pick up a bag of ice if the right "race on the street comes along" i guess.</TD></TR></TABLE>

The days of fatkid's car being a daily driver are LONG gone.

 

what if you had say a 12 gallon fuel cell that you pack with ice and say a second radiator. that should be enough to keep the temps down.

im just going by what i was told by my tuner.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by fatkid &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> </TD></TR></TABLE>

nice stepside good luck