First the Facts. As a car enthusiast first, and businessman second, I want to inform fellow enthusiast about what is going on here.

Nisei tested our standard EVO VIII upgrade intercooler (not our race core).
Again if you look at the test results here what I find wrong.

Nisei core starts out in an ambient temp of 53.6 deg F
AMS core starts out in an ambient temp of 63.6 def F

Why is there a 10 degree difference in ambient temperature?

Nisie core outlet temps at the end of 2nd gear is -4 deg ambient!!!!!
AMS core outlet temps at the end of 2nd gear is +9.9 deg ambient.

Again this is not possible for the outlet temp to be below the abmient temp unless the core itselt started out below ambient temperature. The only way this is going to happen is if the core was sprayed with a cold liquid, or sprayed with a liquid such as (alchohol) which uses energy (heat) when it evaporates (changes phase).
None of this has been outlined in the test procedures. As a matter of fact there are no test procedures!! If you are going compare two products you better be damn sure that you have all your bases covered, otherwise you will look foolish.

I will post up a log of one of our test sessions at a road coarse where the car is under much more load and prone to heat soaking than just a pull on the road. Ambient temps where about 33 degrees, the hottest the outlet temps ever got was 46 deg F!!!!! that's only a 13 deg difference!!!

Another very important point is pressure drop (delta P). Two things determine how well an intercooler works, pressure change (delta P) and temperature change (delta T). These two variables have a relationship in that as core design changes to make one better, usally the other suffers. For the same size core you can change the fin configuration and change the relationshop of delta T and delta P. A thicker core density (more turbulators on the charge air side) will make the temperate drop greater but you will also lose more pressure.
For example.

Inlet temp Outlet Temp Inlet Press Outlet Press
200 100 20psi 19.5psi (less dense charge air fins)
200 85 20psi 18.5psi (denser charge air fins)

The general rule of thumb is that you gain 1% horespower for every 10 deg cooler air. So a car making 350hp will gain about 5 horsepower with 15deg cooler air temps. depending on the turbo selection a 4 cylinder will make 10-15 (or more on big turbos) hp per 1psi of boost. The core with less dense fins allow 1 psi more into the engine, which will make the 10-15 more horsepwer. Which would you rather have, 5 hp or 10-15hp gain?
It's also very important to know that the turbo is making the same boost with both cores, 20psi, but the engine is seeing more boost with the less dense core. The problem with cores that have high pressure drop is that as airlflow increases the problem compounds itself. As airflow goes up the pressure drop increases and the engine sees less boost. So now you turn the boost up to make up for that loss, but with higher boost the turbo outlet temps skyrocket and now you are fighting a losing battle.
The reason intercoolers are rated at a certain horespower for 1psi of pressure drop is because after that power (airflow) level the pressure drop starts to go way up and the intercooler becomes totally inefficient.

Sorry for the long winded post about pressure drop but it leads into my final point.
Please take a look at Nisei's pressure drop. Notice anything?
They are getting anywhere from 1.2-1.8psi of pressure drop!!!
Our core (AMS) is only .5psi of pressure drop!!!
You can see this on their MOTEC logs. look at the bottom graph of each test and you can see that our inlet an outler pressure lines are on top of each other. Nisei's core clearly shows the difference between their inlet and outlet pressure.

http://www.nisei-evo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=26

So on a car with a stock turbo running 20psi, it seems their core is already exceeding the limit of what a manufacture rates their cores at. Imagine a bigger turbo and 25psi of boost, I bet you'd see 3-4psi of pressure drop, totally unacceptable.

If you notice on their forum site, they compare out intercooler to theirs and fail to mention that we have THREE supports for our core, not one like theirs. Our outlet are 2.5 inch outside diameter and 2.4" inside diameter. Their outlet inside diameter of Nisei's core is only 2.25" because of the thick casting.

If somebody wants good test results please send me a Nisei core and I will outline a complete test procedure in which all the variable under my control will be held the same. I will also use high quality test equipment, not innacurate GM temp and pressure sensors. They are fine for automotive use but not lab quality at all. I have a Magnahelic pressure differential gauge (4 psi resolution) and thin wire thermocouples (quick reacting and not prone to heat soak).

Again I'm not being biased, I just want to point out the facts and truth's about intercoolers. I hate to see someone selling an apple that looks polished and shiny on the outside but rotten on the inside. We also posted on their forum about their test and they deleted our post.

Here is a log of our IC (standard core) temps on the road course.

 

Here is the log file that martin ment to post.

 

Can A get a slow clap........


Well Done Martin.

Thank you to Nisei for deleting my post on there forum too, guess they were not insterested in answering my very pertinent questions.

Eric

 

Thanks for that mate. After my post I got thinking about it and couldn't sleep. Trying to look for my books on thermodynamics and heat transfer. You saved me a lot of reading there.

oh, and it's 1:10am here on a Saturday. And no I have nothing better to do late Friday night than to post on evom and read books on thermo. And yes, I have that kind of books at home.

Please do not be alarmed. I am not that sad. Me and my gf went for a quiet dinner and I work 6days a week. [yes, i do have a girlfriend!!!]

Eric, I think you owe me a PM. Sorry to keep bugging you if you're working on it. And a hooray for AMS...

 

Sorry, just sent CTG an email. Ill shoot you a PM when they email me back

Eric

 

Very nice post from Martin @ AMS.

Better put your flame retardant suit on Martin! Be ready to be attacked as I was making the exact same statements and arguements about their testing and product.

I just went and visited their site and am pleased to say my posts were not deleted.

Good luck with this Martin, very hard to get through to some of these guys.

David Buschur
www.buschurracing.com

 

no arguement about it. As you stated earlier dave its simply impossible.

An intercooler isnt a refrigerator......

Eric

 

Has any vendor actually tested the pressure drop accross the stock FMIC?

 

It's like my old thermodynamics instructor use to say:

The fridge doesn't work unless its plugged in...

 

Yes, when we where designing our intercooler, we tested the stock unit Vs. our AMS unit.

 

Martin,

What did you find as the pressure loss on the stock unit (on the same basis that your unit has a .5psi pressure loss).

Thanks.

SF

 

I want to know this too. Because, when I see through the stock intake mani temp sensor, the temperature drops to the ambient temperature if I accelarate fast. I have to question myself " Do I really need intercooler upgrade for the stock turbo when the tempearture of intake is the same as ambient?"

 

The stock temperature sensor is in the Mass Airflow Sensor, not the intake manifold. That is why it drops very quickly to ambient temps when you accelerate.

Keith

 

I should be on a plane to Colorado (skiing) right now but as luck would have it got cancelled due to bad weather. The one vacation I try to take in three years get's screwed by the snow, oh well....
Anywho I'll have the test data somewhere at the shop but going from memory we tested the IC core when we where making roughly 360wph on our 2wd dyno, which to equate about 330-335whp on our AWD dyno. Our core at this level had almost no pressure drop (.1-.3psi) and I don't remember the delta T, but the stock core had about 1.5psi of pressure drop. Swapping out the cores we made another 10-15whp I believe. Obviously we gained over 1 psi of boost into the engine and the temps where cooler.

It's important that everyone understands the concept of pressure drop, because you can't just say "well duh, of course it made more power because the boost went up". The actual outlet pressure of the turbo stayed the same while intake pressure went up, meaning the turbo is doing the same amount of work but now most of that work is actually getting into the intake manifold. It's kind of like riding one bike that's well maintained and oiled, and the other with a rusty chain, bound up wheel and crank bearings. Do the same amount of work pedaling on each one and you'll find one goes much faster.

-Martin

 

No wonder !
Thanks AMS. that was good info you gave us.