Wondering what you guys think of these setups.

I just finished setting up one of these on my BB2 prelude.

I'm still running stock internals for the mean time, so I'm going to limit myself to sound 8lb.

But my real question is, how do you guys feel, and what do you think about liquid to air intercoolers.

Pics of my setup,




And the start up video, complete with a 20c tour of the engine bay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHBUV...eature=channel

The specs on my intercooler setup are as follows.

Intercooler has a 3.5x4x11 inch core.

The heat exchange has an aluminium core of 12x20x1 inch obviously with it's own water supply.

Thoughts.....?

 

I guess it could produce more consistent and lower IAT. Do you run ice water? Track car or daily driver? Plans to dyno tune?

 

Liquid I'm tuning is just water with a small amount of "anti freeze/anti boil".
Mainly just to avoid corrosion in the intercooler or heat exchange.

It's my daily driver. Or at least will be, once it's tuned properly.

 

Really no difference over air-to-air unless drag racing on the line. The air inlet temps were the same.

 

Inlet temps about the same, but with less pressure drop, and a lower volume of charge air. Which would account for the lower pressure drop.
(if you believe the manufacturer. LOL)

But the theory sounds firm.....

Anyone had direct comparison experience?

Our any experience with this kind of setup at all?

 

How does the total installed cost compare to an air-to-air intercooler? You running any fans on your radiator or condenser?

 

I had this on our older car with the PWR Air-to-water cooler with separate reservior.





From what we saw on a regular driving basis as well as the drag strip, the lower volume of charge air didn't really occur at any different rate than an air-to-air cooler. The difference was really during staging and waiting at the line for the car to leave. With the air-to-water, the lower IATs were only at the staging lane, and made slightly better power at take-off, but after the first 200m, the Air-to-air did better.

A lot of people use Air-to-water due to lack of room and space in the bay, but it was not significantly better.

 

One of the largest factors I could think of with an A-W setup would be legality in racing, as many classes in the US don't allow it. Looks like the OP may be an Aussie, so it may not matter, just a thought.

 

Yeah, OP's an aussie. But more to the point, OP's car isn't being competed.
So legality issues don't effect me.

But the IATs being lower during heavy traffic driving will make a difference to me.

And yes, I've fitted fans now.

Was going to fit fans on the heat exchange, but fitment was an issue.

Now it has a heat shield on the back of the radiator, with 2 electric fans.
Flow is around 1350CFM each, (2700CFM) Everything stays nice and cool now.

This is what I did for my fan set up.....

Pull the rad out.... Thats the easy part....


Here is the heat shield, and my plans for it....


Bolt thorough and fix the bolts with nuts from the back.

With nylon luck nuts to hold the fans......

Bolt them down, nice and tight......

And a piece of rubber seal along the top an bottom to reduce rubbing, vibration and wear....

And all finished, ready to go back in.......


I didn't get pics of me putting the rad back in.
By that time I was way too frustrated to take pics... LOL (Not to mention the things I accused it of having done to my mother....!)

But it is back in, and everything works, and it stays cool while running,


Though, the top radiator tank does seem to get quite hot, but the engine temp is good while running....