I've got one of those I will sell you for a very reasonable price

EVOlutionary

 

It is absolutely 100% certain to me at this time that most of the guys entering this arguement only "read" the parts of each topic they want to debate. I notice this quite often. I'd appreciate it if anyone is going to copy what someone says and comment on it if they would also refer to what was being commented on first. Commenting on half a story is just that, commenting on half of it. It seems it is always the half that someone doesn't like.

Trinydex,

You seem to be one very intelligent guy. Seriously.

I have said it time and again, there are people here much smarter than I am.

With that being said, keeping things simple and having YEARS of testing under my belt I come up with what works more simply. The dyno is a decent indicator of what makes power and what doesn't. In this case I don't see a better way with the facilities that any of us have to do a test on two intercoolers, headers, 02 housing, etc.

Please actually read this next part:

Both intercoolers were dyno'd quite a few times. The results were consistent from morning to afternoon. The problem was the weather changed. This made it hard to get the STARTING AIR TEMPS THE SAME FOR BOTH INTERCOOLERS. That is why instead of just saying, "That's good enough" and posting results I took the time to once again swap our race FMIC back onto the car. This was done in 19 minutes from one dyno pull to the next. This also explains why the starting air temp was 64 degrees on both pulls.

Yes, had I turned the boost BACK DOWN with our race FMIC and dyno'd again the car probably would have made the same power. What is important here is I didn't turn the boost up! The boost simply went up because our core has that much less pressure drop through it. I WAS NO CONCERNED SO MUCH WITH POWER NUMBERS AS I WAS AN EQUAL TESTING OF PRESSURE AND AIR TEMPS.

Through this test I successfully proved that our intercooler does have a little bit less pressure drop and a little bit better cooling. PERIOD. End of story. Forget the dyno numbers if you like as I admit at the same boost levels they will probably make the same HP. BUT the fact is if you have the Nisei intercooler on the car you will have to turn the boost controller up about 1 psi to reach the same boost level ours does.

OK. You can stop paying attention now.

I have performed 1,000's of dyno pulls, made 1,000's of passes down the drag strip and performed more road pulls than I should admit too. Hundred upon hundred of miles of WOT pulls on the street. Through these I have measured all kinds of inputs. Air temp being a major one.

I stand by the fact that I have NEVER seen an air-to-air intercooler drop outlet temps below ambient air temps. If the intercooler is being cooled by air that is 60 degrees the lowest the tempurature is going to go is 60 degrees, that's the real world. I don't race in the rain so I could care less about that. I also don't use intercooler spray bars or even the factory sprayer. I am talking about being cooled by air as in air-to-air intercooler. Remember, the air going into the end from the turbo is HOT, 200,300+ degrees F. Argueing further on this and the "college" side of it is fine for you guys. For me the real world that I have tested in has proven to me that it won't happen.

The Nisei test wasn't the same test I performed. They tested theirs against our Deluxe, I did not. Their test also was started at two completely different temps, mine was not. Their test had temp probes being moved around to find a good spot, mine was not.

I also have NO problems with the outcome they had with our Deluxe FMIC kit as I said before in this thread. It had virtually no pressure drop just like we say and the temps rose 33 degrees in 5 gears. I'm not unhappy with that.

From the beginning my problem has been there -7 drop in temps, which I say isn't possible in a real test and that through all the pumping up of their intercooler they forgot to mention the fact that our intercooler had less pressure drop than theirs. I mean if you are going to test you have to point out the good with the bad.

Have a good day.

David Buschur
www.buschurracing.com

 

If the ECU or boost controller is looking at manifold pressure to regulate the wastegate accordingly, then the same manifold pressure should be finally maintained (once wastegate starts regulating and manifold pressure stabilized) regardless of pressure drop across the intercooler no?

I can understand a difference in boost rise vs time as being better due to less restriction or spikes in pressure above target because of different levels of tract restriction not matching a fixed gain setting, but final settled boost pressures (say in an upper gear spending a few seconds sweeping through an upper RPM range) should be the same shouldn't they?

 

David if u are refering to me as one of the "guys entering this arguement " i am not one of them yardies that like to argue for no reason. i have read every single post on all 16 or so pages. i for one support u and all your products.

for the one who said that the intercoolers should both be tested with the same boost, as david said u would have to turn up the boost with the Nisei to get the same pressure going into the manifold because of the pressure loss . so
essentially they were tested with the same boost going into the test.

this thread has turned into a pissing fight, where it was supposed to be a sugestion thread. i know for sure Buschur racing has proved themselves worthy with all there products, and it seems that Nisei is making a name for itself too. so we will have to see how these intercoolers hold up seeing they are new.

for me fitment issue is a big thing . when i owned a 2000 golf 1.8t, i basicly made my own huge front mount kit and trimming the bumber and support sucked beyond belif. soo fitment is a huge factor with me.

 

David,

I am reasonably in-experienced with modding turbo cars, but have two questions (others may jump in if this is real simple).

1. What is the pressure loss of the stock FMIC?

2. If an intercooler can be designed to cool air from greater than 200F to ambient (or very close to ambient), then the air to air intercooler must achieve temperatures significantly below ambient (continously warmed by the hot intake temperature). Why then would it not be possible that the intercooler would ultamately cool below ambient?

I am looking for a plane english explanation. I have read all the previous posts (I am not an engineer and have not tried to decifer the more scientific posts).

Thanks for your help.

 

deadtrac, I was not referring to you at ALL!!

SeanSG, I am not using any boost feeback to control boost. The BC was set exactly as it was for the other runs. The only time the boost changed was when I swapped from our intercooler to theirs and then back again.

David Buschur
www.buschurracing.com

 

Simplest explanation I can give... The ambient air passing over the intercooer is the same ambient air being sucked in by the turbo... lets, for arguments sake, say it's 70 degrees.

70 degree air gets sucked in, heated and compressed by turbo to 200 degrees, the enters the intercooler that is at the ambient temp of 70 degrees. As the hot air passes through it, the heat from that 200 degree air is being absorbed into the aluminum of the FMIC, cooling it. The heat added to the intercooler's mass is then removed by the ambient air passing over the outside. This is a continual process as the car drives. The coolest the intercooler can ever get is ambient temperature unless another cooling source is found.

Unfortunately, the velocity of the hot air inside and the temperature differential between the hot air and the intercooler dictates that the heat from the intake charge hot air will be transfered into the IC at a faster rate than the slower moving ambient air. Convective Heat Transfer (air passing over a solid) works on two driving principals, the "delta T" (difference in temperature) and the velocity of the air moving over it. The higher the velocity and the greater the delta T, the faster the heat will transfer. That is why intercoolers get heat soaked over time, the heat is coming in faster than it is going out.

Hope this helps and was "lamens" enough

- Steve

 

Steve,

That does make sense. When I asked the question, I was not focused on the "heat soak over time" issue. I would love to see a graph of outlet temperatures over a 45min open track session. Do people generally monitor these temperatures during open track sessions?

Anyone know the answer to the pressure loss question on the stock FMIC?

Thanks.

Stephen

 

ok im not sure about this but im going to say what is on my mind about ?#1
we use the stock intercooler as a base for pressure drop with aftermarket intercoolers. any intercooler is going to have pressure loose due to filling up the volumetric area of the cooler. bigger intercoolers are going to yeild a bigger loss in presure. to my knoledge the only way to test pressure is to bipass the intercooler completly and dumping the boost directly into the manifold. we use the stock intercooler as a basline for other upgraded big front mount cooloers.

 

also, we see a presure loss due to the turbo haveing to work harder to fill the bigger intercooler. if it were a perfect world there would be no pressure drop there would just be more lag .

think about it... if it is a perfectly sealed system, then the pressure would not be lost anywhere but it would just take the turbo longer to fill the larger volume of the bigger intercooler, there for the lag. but seeing how we live in a far from perfect world, most cars will see a pressure loss due to a lot of factors such as leaks, longer pips, peroids of time ect.

 

The vendors debating the merits of their FMICs have stated various pressure losses from thier FMIC. I am curious, on the same basis that they are describing pressure loss, how does that compare to the stock FMIC?

Thanks.

SF

 

i think this will help.. when a vendor tests their car with the stock intercooler , we will say for agument that they get 20 psi. now when they take off the stock peice and replace it with there larger intercooler they do the same test with the boost set they same as it was with the stock intercooler, except this time the boost gauge might read 19 psi instead of 20 psi. that is how they can say " our intercooler has only 1 psi pressure drop" . i hope this helps

 

Superhatch, very intelligent post, well explained, even I can understand it. That is what I have been trying to say this entire time.

deadbeattrec,

I don't agree. A larger intercooler if it is any good at all will have LESS pressure drop than the stock intercooler. The larger intercooler can add a little more lag as it takes longer to fill but normally with the more efficient core this lag is offset and not noticed.

The stock intercooler is restictive and not very efficient in heat transfer either. I don't care what these companies that don't make intercoolers tell you about how great the stock intercooler is, it is not.

I have done back-to-back installations on the dyno, not taking the car off, of our deluxe and standard FMIC's. Power gained on both has always been a solid 15+ whp. The boost has NEVER gone down, it has actually gone up everytime.

Not argueing, must putting in some other facts I have seen myself.

David Buschur
www.buschurracing.com

 

David,

If your third test had been to bolt on the stock FMIC, can you posit a guess as to what the PSI would have read? I understand that the FMICs discussed here are much larger so we would expect better cooling and better resistance to heat soak. But, would PSI go up or down from the race FMIC?

Thanks.

 

u are correct in the sence that the stock intercooler is restrictive and its flow characteristics suck. ok say the cores were exactly the same but one was half the size of the other one, then there would be a "lag" from the turbo having to fill up more volume.

when i installed a large spearco on my golf , the pressure actually went up so ur are right, i forgot to mention that flow and design has a major part in pressure loss and gain.