Turbo Intercoolers Air/Air or Water/Air?

[TheSilverBuick]

On another forum it's being suggested I put a water to air intercooler in the Firebird instead of an air to air with the thought that it'd be a smaller package and be more efficient.

For my particular application, of 99% street time with the occasional blast down the track, is there any distinct advantages to using a water to air intercooler over air to air? It appears to cost and weigh more with a bit more plumbing than a simple air to air intercooler.

I did get a nice picture of someone that installed an air to air intercooler on a Firebird to pattern mine after for fitment, etc.

[Aircooled]

If you were using stock style intake and exhaust manifolds with the carb and exhaust flanges located in the middle of the engine, I could see an argument for Air-to-water inter-cooling.
However, with your forward facing throttlebody located forward of the #1 cylinder and a custom exhaust header, I would stick with Air-to-air.

[Dynoroom]

On the street or part time racer air to air.

[DanStokes]

Mike sort of took my answer and trumped my reply. I was going to say:

Depends on your usage. My opinion is that running engine coolant isn't much advantage over A2A but on mine it'll be a cooler full of ice water for track-only use.

You might check Silicone Intake Systems for your intercooler needs. There's a segment of their website devoted to intercoolers and support stuff.

Dan

[TheSilverBuick]

Sounds good to me! Back to plan A.

[BigAL]

Just remember nothing removes heat better than water. My concern living in the southwest is how efficient is an air/air when the temps outside are 115 degrees. Also water to air coolers have a smaller footprint which might make mounting it easier if you don't have a lot of room up front. Then your mounting the cooler in front of the radiator which is restricting the air that pass though the radiator not ot mention heating it up. My design for the Monte is to run two smaller water/air intercoolers, one for each turbo and then have a reservoir with water that has it's own external radiator to cool the water. You can mount the reservoir radiator under the car with a couple small electric fans on it.

[Orange65]

If you want to go air to water, look into what Shane of the Krusty Nova at DW had on his car. He used the air conditioner to cool the water in his air to water cooler from what I understand. My thoughts would be to stick with the air to air for simplicity. Heat transfer is driven by the difference in temperature between the fluid being cooled and the fluid doing the cooling. If you could run ice water all the time, the air to water would be the way to go. But for daily driving, the ambient air temperature is going to be cooler than the cars coolant, so if the efficiency of the intercooler is the same for both air to air and air to water, the air to air is going to remove more heat.

You could also rig it such that you sprayed nitrous on an air to air intercooler when you race for the extra cooling effect.

[Beagle]

I'd think version 1 turbo uses air to air. The plumbing is a lot easier for air to air, weight (antifreeze is not anti-gravity), simplicity (no pumps, only one heat exchanger to start with). I'd consider air to water if I couldn't get reasonable IAT with an air to air, but like has been said, eventually you heat saturate the fluid too.

[squirrel]

KISS

[Matt Cramer]

We've used both on turbo car builds at the shop. Air to water works well for short runs (drag or Bonneville, maybe autocross) or cars where there isn't good airflow for an air to air (Jerry's MR2). For street or road course work, air to air is generally your best bet. The water does a good job of removing heat from the air, but if you have it running for any length of time, you end up with the problem of getting that heat back out of the water.

[Barry Donovan]

I am still compiling gadgets for turbo use, little engine.

my dads rigs, now into 550 hp and 1800 foot pounds... always air to air. Never seen a water one..maybe the turbo itself.
Cars and trucks playing with 1000F fires do not care if its 115F outside, outside is always trivial to a good tune, nothing more.

I only post to an unusual scenario where more power is added, retarding timing... my liquid boxer drops heat right out, and actually gets cold tuned all year at its most power.

the water to air has purposes, must not be too common...the turbo with water, that is clever.

[BigAL]

If you want to go air to water, look into what Shane of the Krusty Nova at DW had on his car. He used the air conditioner to cool the water in his air to water cooler from what I understand. My thoughts would be to stick with the air to air for simplicity. Heat transfer is driven by the difference in temperature between the fluid being cooled and the fluid doing the cooling. If you could run ice water all the time, the air to water would be the way to go. But for daily driving, the ambient air temperature is going to be cooler than the cars coolant, so if the efficiency of the intercooler is the same for both air to air and air to water, the air to air is going to remove more heat.

You could also rig it such that you sprayed nitrous on an air to air intercooler when you race for the extra cooling effect.

On a water/air intercooler you run a separate tank for the water that cools it, you do not run radiator coolant through it.

Maybe this pic will help you understand.

[Beagle]

On a water/air intercooler you run a separate tank for the water that cools it, you do not run radiator coolant through it.

Maybe this pic will help you understand.

C'mon man, didn't you see the 1* picture from Randal's thermometer? You run antifreeze/coolant through it when it's below freezing or you risk having to replace a lot of parts every year.

I own a air to water cooled heat exchanger / intake air charge cooled vehicle, I understand how they work. Orange65 knows this too if you read his post. It says he (Krusty Nova) uses the A/C to cool the water for the cooler. I wonder if you missed the point - running the core in the air conditioner ducting gets you MORE than ambient cooling. It's a great idea! There's a lot more air conditioned cool air available than ice water that melts. It'd maybe keep a hairy edge combination from going wonky on the street. I bet you get a lot more HP back from the inlet air cooling than you lose running the a/c compressor! Not as easy to do when one of your heat exchangers is here though:



More edit... thanks for posting your picture. It really starts to demonstrate how much more complex and space consuming the system is.

[TheSilverBuick]

No A/C on the car and likely never will be.

Short of bagging ice into an air/water cooler, it's not going to cool the air below 115ºF on a 115ºF day either if all the water is up to ambient, which would happen fairly quickly given the intercooler's radiator can pick up heat when under ambient temps just as efficiently as it can give it off when over ambient temps.

A sizable air to air intercooler shouldn't have any issues getting close enough to ambient for my purposes.

And you don't run the intercooler core in the A/C ducting, you install a system similar to a rear A/C unit on a Suburban where there is a second evaporator in the intercooler's reservoir.

[Deaf Bob]

Water to air is like running that blue bottle, gotta make sure it is full, (cool) ...... I wonder if guys on other forums want you to try stuff they don't have the balls nor smarts to?.... Barry's reply on trucks and Jim's KISS reply tell it all.. I suppose Randall needs the brain exercises.... sounds like you already knew your answer, but wanted verification?