How many on here are running Air to Water Intercoolers?

Lets not get into the discussion about how ATW intercoolers are overkill for street cars and are only beneficialin full race cars.

Do any of the Tuners make a Kit.

I know Turbo trix does in there race car, anyone else?

 

I don't think there are any kits but it wouldn't be difficult to have one made, just buy the IC and go from there with the plumbing. BTW, its not overkill for a street car...its stupid. You'll run out of coolant and it doesn't last for long periods.

 

How do you figure you would run out of coolant on a closed system?

Do you know what i'm talking about? I'm not saying a water squirter......

 

okay, I have been havig thoughts of something along these lines for almost a year now and I've never really asked anybody about it, so now's as good a time as any. I am a cogenerator technican by trade and for our turbocharged generators, we have to use ATW intercoolers (they don't move..). Anyway, the way it works is a closed loop chilled water system goes thru an absorption chiller and circulates this 30 degF water thru the intercooler and dramatically lowers intake temps. I had always pondered the idea of somehow integrating the cars own AC system (basically, the "chiller" in this application). I don't know enough about automotive AC systems to really know if this would be feasible or even worth the trouble, but I daydreamed the idea of just basically tapping into the refrigerant line and running copper coils thru the inside of intercooler pipe, say, from the outlet of the intercooler, to the throttle body. The air travelling from the intercooler thru the UICP passes over the chilled copper coils and further cools the air...

Like I said, this may be WAY off base and totally unfeasible and might not even work right, but I would love to get someone else's expert opinion on this one...

Ever since I started doin maintenance on these generators, the ATW intercoolers have caught my interest as it is totally independant of the outside temps or how fast the car is moving...

 

I am going to be running the pwr barrell intercooler and we are working on the piping as we speak. You can contact Jay at Mynes performance (480)969-5609 on how it is getting done as he is also working on a kit for his shop drag car as well.

 

FWIW, I have run an A2W intercooler for years on a non Mitsu 2.0. It has its own resevoir (a combination of water, glycol and Water Wetter) heat exchanger and pump.

I consistently see IAT's ~30*F over ambient, whether sitting in traffic or under heavy boost conditions.

The positives with water is the thermal mass providing cooling at any road speed. Properly designed heat soak is not an issue, quite the opposite. The down side is it is a bit more complex than A2A since you need a resevoir, pump and some wiring.

They are also stealthy... what with not having a big ol' intercooler up front... but you guys riding Evo's ain't about to fool anyone!

At the track, whether drag or road race you can add dry ice to get sub-ambient temperatures.... for a while.

A2W is effective and different and not for everyone.

 

Sounds cool..any thoughts on using the vehicles own regriferant to do something similar? It would, in effect, make the UICP the heat exchanger...but Iguess you wold have to run the AC compressor to make this work and then you have the parasitic drag the compressor makes...maybe not worth it, huh?

 

Cobra's and lightnings have a setup that runs the Freon in the AC through the heat exchanger but i don't know all the details.

My goal would be to get near freezing water to run through the Air to water intercooler prior to each pass or session.

the resevoir and pump are usually housed in the cab or in the trunck and some 1/4" rubber lines are more than enough to get the water moving.

 

I don't know of any companies making a kit specific for an EVO but I'm running an A/W IC system that I put together on my VR6 Turbo. Basically it consists of a 5 gallon fuel cell from Jegs to hold the "coolant". I use straight water with a little bit of coolant in the summer for corrosion protection. In the winter I use a mix of water, windshield washer fluid, coolant & water wetter. I have a 35psi @ 5gpm pump that supplies the IC core with water and an old oil cooler I'm using as a heat exchanger. At the track I dump an 8lb bag of ice in there! Here is a pic of my setup... its VERY stealthly with the exception of the open WG dump.





at 25psi I made over 450whp on a stock block with 7 gallons of 94 octain mixed with 1 gal of c16 and a bunch of boost leaks.





Over the winter I'm going to redo some things to make the system more efficent, one of them is a new copper core for the heat exchanger. Over all I am extreamly happy with the performance and results.

 

nice looking setup. what core are you running?

 

I also ran a A/W IC setup on my turbocharged VW. THere is a space problem in the VW's and I didn't want to hack up my bumper. I ran a very small core that I custom made to fit in the stock IC location. Gained 15whp with the ice water in the system.

 

i was planning on relocating the battery to the rear and mounting it in that area with a heat exchanger where the stock FMIC went.

 

Would cooling the air quite so much not cause condensation?

I had a discussion on a similar subject with friend a long time back and this seemed like a pretty major problem. If you cool the air down significantly then you will start getting liquid water condensing out. If there's anywhere in the system that this can collect, it will build up and all of a sudden gets sucked into the engine. Even if you don't you will get actual water droplets in the air flow into the engine rather than water in the air in the form of humidity/moisture.

I (we) may be wrong, but it's pretty humid where I live.

 

well, we use this application with all out turbocharged generators with no problems. There is heavy condensation on the outside of the heat exchanger and the lines in/out of it, but that is all....nothing actually entering the system.

 

any minimal condensation would be no worse than water injection.

Water only becomes an issue when it leaks into a cylinder while the motor is off and subsequently hydrolock the motor and bends the rods, when the amount of water in the motor is more so than the amount of air.