I am putting a custom turbo kit on my gsr and I was thinking about intercooler mounting locations. I saw in last months issue of super street, the turbo issue, that the top fuel dc5 has its intercooler mounted inside the engine bay, where intake plumbing would be. Endtanks pointing towards each end of the car. Please refer to the pic in super street, i'll try to find one for better clarification.
I would like to do this to my car, I like the idea of it, but it worries me that engine heat would heat soak the intercooler. To prevent this I was considering running some kind of ductwork into the engine bay, as well as ceramic coating the side of hte intercooler that would face the engine.
Since I dont know too much about turbo setups, i wanted some of your guys opinions. I'm not definitely doing it, I just liked the idea of that mounting location.
Oh and the topfuel integra does not have a hood scoop or any kind of body work to promote airflow to the intercooler, that was the first thing i looked into. I have the JDM front end on my integra and it has that open grill in the front, do you think that would provide enough airflow to adequately cool the intercooler.
thanks and sorry for being wordy...

 

I'm willing to bet it was either A) an air-to-water IC or B) running on alcohol and didn't have an intercooler.

 

no it's air to air...and it looks like it'll get heat soaked pretty damn fast.....especially if its a daily driver......and in a civic/integra/del sol you'd need some odd dimenseions to make it work......like the vortech aftercoolers

 

I would not worry about top fuel car, I dont think they drive their car everyday. I would just do front mount.

 

Thats what I will probably end up doing, I just wanted to do something interesting and different if at all possible.

 

Well there is a reason the wrx guys go with a front mount..

 

Can i just paint a front mount black so no one can see it? I dont plan on boosting very high, like 6 or 8 pounds, so maybe I can hide one of those dsm sidemounts?

 

you can paint it black , just be sure to coat it lightly. Very sleeperish.

 

don't do the in hood setup...The DC5 has practically no room behind the bumper for a proper intercooler so top fuel did that setup. But in the real world, you will always want the IC exposed to ambient air as much as possible. Remember, Top Fuel makes show cars as well so don't copy everything they do thing its the best way to go