Air to water intercooler

[AntonioS]

I have a legacy air to water intercooler and i was thinking of using it with a water pump reservoir tank and use an oil cooler as the cooling method. will this benefit me more than using a front mount. how good are theses legacy air to water intercoolers???

* Registered users of the site do not see these ads.

[marcus12]

no clue specifically about the Legacy air-to-water IC, but I've heard that if set up properly air-to-water is very efficient. They're a PITA to set up as far as I've heard...but no more of a pain than a FMIC.

cheers,
//marcus

[AXXE]

I have the factory A2W i/c on my GMC Syclone. It is good for one run, then it heats up. If it is hot out, it is very difficult to cool it down while cruising the street. I am not familiar with the Legacy system.

[subiekid]

There are several articles on this subject. If you track the car then the water will get too hot and not do any good, but in stop and go trafic the air/water ic can stay cooler then and air to air.

[bseeling]

Originally Posted by subiekid

There are several articles on this subject. If you track the car then the water will get too hot and not do any good, but in stop and go trafic the air/water ic can stay cooler then and air to air.

ummm thats not true . Air-to-water is more efficient then air-to-air, but only if its set up correctly.

But for a street application I would user air-to-air just because its simpler to set up and maintain.

For the track I would use air-to-water, for the fact that you can add ice into the reservoir witch makes a big different. And when I say track I mean the 1/4 mile.

But again for daily uses and track uses just stick with the air-to-air!!

[ErikAnderson]

Stealth WRX did this to his car. relocated his battery and put a 3 gal ( i think) tank there. from what i have read, if you run it through a cooler, it can be up to 14x more effecient than the stock tmic.

[phattyduck]

Originally Posted by bseeling

ummm thats not true . Air-to-water is more efficient then air-to-air, but only if its set up correctly.

But for a street application I would user air-to-air just because its simpler to set up and maintain.

For the track I would use air-to-water, for the fact that you can add ice into the reservoir witch makes a big different. And when I say track I mean the 1/4 mile.

But again for daily uses and track uses just stick with the air-to-air!!

I belive subiekid was talking about a road-race type track, not a 1/4 mile track. For 1/4 mile, a water-to-air will allow you to run ice in the intercooler, raising your efficiency over 100%. On the street, this isn't possible, and on a longer track you will just melt all the ice.

My understanding is that you should use air-to-air unless you have some special needs (packaging or purpose). I'll be running an air-to-water intercooler on my Camry because there is absolutely no room to run pipes up to the front of the car without hacking up everything...

-Charlie

[subiekid]

Originally Posted by bseeling

ummm thats not true . Air-to-water is more efficient then air-to-air, but only if its set up correctly.

But for a street application I would user air-to-air just because its simpler to set up and maintain.

For the track I would use air-to-water, for the fact that you can add ice into the reservoir witch makes a big different. And when I say track I mean the 1/4 mile.

But again for daily uses and track uses just stick with the air-to-air!!

No, it is true ya damn n00b. For track use (not drag racing) the water gets too hot and does not have enough time to cool down.

Stealth WRX did a custom air to water ic, from what he says the stock air to water ic is crap.

[no-coast-punk]

I run a custom fabbed AWIC. There are lots of mis-conceptions about the things. First they are INSANELY efficient. Second... not all of them are sealed. I run a beefy radiator that started life as the tranny cooler on a full sized GMC truck in the front grille with a big pump that is constantly circulating water through the core to that radiator... all the benefits of a massive front mount air/air unit with none of the lag.

[Kevin Thomas]

Was talking to someone today about air/water intercoolers because I'm interested in having one installed. I already have it in my garage so it's just a matter of getting it on the car. I have an air to air unti that I'll be using temporarily (it's for another car) until I get the air/water unit installed.



I do not have a water tank so I was asking this person about it. The person asked me is there any reason why I couldn't just plump the air-water tubing to the cooling system (which would eliminated the use and installation of a separate water pump).

So, is there any reason why I couldn't or shouldn't hook up the heat exhanger and intercooler to the car's cooling system?

[no-coast-punk]

I'm running air/water and I totally hate 1/4 mile. It is an absolutely amazing setup, because water has a greater heat capacity than air, it can such just as much heat out of the hot charge to the motor as a MUCH larger front/top mount. But the HUGE advantage is that you only have to pressurize a very small core. I don't really have a good way to quantify this other than to say that I've got a better spool up than the 2.5 guys running VF-34's and I'm on a VF-22. The other advantage is that all the expensive fragile bits are tucked up inside the car and you only have to worry about rocks/bugs damaging a cheap radiator as opposed to an expensive IC. IMHO there is not a better set up for situations where quick spool up is important.

Running an isolated tank is simply retarded and best left to 1/4 mile retards. When you start running an external cooler things get MUCH more interesting. For the first few seconds at WOT your efficiency is through the roof, but once all the water in the system makes a pass or 2, it becomes heat soaked, and then the efficiency of the system drops to about the level (a little lower) of an air/air the same size as the heat exchanger you are running.

My setup is a spearco 2-231 air/water core with a small tank welded to it (not for storage, just to allow for expansion). With a 4.8gpm pump circulating the water to a scavenged GM tranny cooler off an old full sized truck that completely fills the empty opening in the front grille of my '98 RS.

Kevin, that looks alot like one of the IC cores that proecm is producing. Is that true? Also you do not want to run the IC water to your cars cooling system. This will cause 180+ degree water to be heating the incoming air charge, instead of ambient temp. water cooling the charge. The only benefit to running a larger tank in the system is giving you a slightly longer time before the system gets heat soaked and your efficiency drops off to to the level of an air/air. But this must be weighed against the cost of adding alot of water weight to the car. The pump I'm using is so large though that within 3->4 seconds of being off boost that water temps. have returned to near ambient.

I'd be happy to answer more questions if anyone has them.

[Kevin Thomas]

Originally Posted by no-coast-punk

Kevin, that looks alot like one of the IC cores that proecm is producing. Is that true? Also you do not want to run the IC water to your cars cooling system. This will cause 180+ degree water to be heating the incoming air charge, instead of ambient temp. water cooling the charge. The only benefit to running a larger tank in the system is giving you a slightly longer time before the system gets heat soaked and your efficiency drops off to to the level of an air/air. But this must be weighed against the cost of adding alot of water weight to the car. The pump I'm using is so large though that within 3->4 seconds of being off boost that water temps. have returned to near ambient.

I'd be happy to answer more questions if anyone has them.

Thanks a lot for your response! *Just was reading about your 5mt to 6mt swap when I came across your response here. *

The intercooler is from ProECM. I purchased it last year in an attempt at turbocharging one of my XT6s at Rallispec. My money quickly dimenished as I became aware that all the turbo bits I had for the XT6 would not work (including the air/water intercooler) and I had to start from scratch yet again. So the intercooler as well as other turbo parts just sat in my garage.


I was thinking of somehow plumbing the heat exhanger after the radiator so that it would be responsible for cooling the 185F water as much as it could before it went through the intercooler. After the intercooler, it would go back into the cooling system somewhere prior to the radiator. I have LOTS of room under the RX turbo's hood (the car it'll go into) since the spare tire was mounted there stock.

So you are saying that I should simply get a tank for expansion and not for expansion/storage? If so, what do you recommend I get? I have no welding skills so the tank (whether plastic, aluminum, etc) has to have an inlet and outlet on it already. Also, where would/should I hook up the water pump (electrically)? I had electrical stuff but I'll try it out. I don't want my money going to waste as I spent a fair amount of money getting this air/water intercooler setup. That's why I don't want to just use the air/air unit. It'll be temporary!

[subiekid]

Originally Posted by Kevin Thomas

T

The intercooler is from ProECM.

are those expensive? i looked at them once, they look like great quality, but look expensive.

[Portly]

Originally Posted by no-coast-punk

. With a 48gpm pump circulating the water to a.....

Is that a typo? 48 gpm is an unbelievable amount of water. We're talking "fire pump" volumes here.

If that's for real, what pump are you using?

_Jeff

[dwx]

I'm probably going to be getting a ProECM core for my SM autocross car next year. Not all guys with external resevoirs are "drag retards", most that run a custom turbo/supercharger setup for autocross use air/water setups with ice boxes of some sort. I'll definitely be using a 2-3 gallon resevoir that I refill with ice. Most do not run a heat exchanger at all, I'm undecided about that. I have a nice small C&R radiator that would work pretty well, and running water hoses is a hell of a lot easier than IC piping.

[no-coast-punk]

HAHA! yeah, it is a typo. 4.8 GPM is what it really is. It's a very large pump, canibalized from an RV. No idea what kind of pump it is, other than it's about the size of a tennis ball can and has 4.8 GPM stamped on the housing.

Oh, you guys also realize that running ice is very verb oten in Solo2? I'm not entirely sure about doing something like having a system to hold lots of super chilled water in the grid, and exchange hot water with chilled water in grid, in which case a large tank might be helpful, however in something like auto-x the weight offset of carrying around 30lbs of extra water would hurt you way more than an extra 20hp or so would help you.

[dwx]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with running ice. Come to a national event sometime. Most guys are just using Igloo 2 gallon coolers as resevoirs. Generally you are only doing 3 runs so you don't have to exchange anything in the actual grid area, it lasts long enough for all the runs. The other thing is guys don't fill the entire resevoir right away, they usually add more ice in between runs, so there isn't really any exchanging going on.

The 30lbs doesn't hurt you when you are using it to make a minimum weight. The FMIC I ran this year in my WRX weighed about 25lbs by itself.

I don't know if it will be worth it or not, I'm mainly doing it for throttle response. The car will be around 425hp, if I can make it 450 then so be it.

[no-coast-punk]

Hmm... that's really interesting about the chilled water, I had remembered hearing from a few different sources that any type of refrigerated or chilled charge air cooling system wasn't OK. I don't have a copy of the solo2 rulebook on hand (mine got lost in one of the 4 moves I've done in the last 2 years) but if somebody can come up with something concrete either way for what is allowed in street mod. I'd be very happy.

I also didn't realize you were running up against minimum weight issues, if that's the case, then by all means, throw the biggest most bada$$ insulated iced down tank you can possible throw at the thing. If refrigerated systems are allowed... I will definately have to re-think a few things...

<---- is EPA certified to do all sorts of fun things with automotive AC systems.

[Kevin Thomas]

Well, if any of you peeps know of a decent shop than can install these things in the Delaware/Maryland/New Jersey/Philly area, please let me know. I just need a tank and a few lines and that's it.

[dwx]

Originally Posted by no-coast-punk

Hmm... that's really interesting about the chilled water, I had remembered hearing from a few different sources that any type of refrigerated or chilled charge air cooling system wasn't OK. I don't have a copy of the solo2 rulebook on hand (mine got lost in one of the 4 moves I've done in the last 2 years) but if somebody can come up with something concrete either way for what is allowed in street mod. I'd be very happy.

I also didn't realize you were running up against minimum weight issues, if that's the case, then by all means, throw the biggest most bada$$ insulated iced down tank you can possible throw at the thing. If refrigerated systems are allowed... I will definately have to re-think a few things...

<---- is EPA certified to do all sorts of fun things with automotive AC systems.

It's specifically illegal in Street Prepared since you can't modify the intercooler system but the "drivetrain is unrestricted" allowance of Street Modified supercedes that.