I was just wondering if anyone has looked into water to air intercooling ? Why does do i not hear about it more often more work than its worth or just not good at all ?

 

Turbo Trix ran one on their orange Evo, other then them, I don't know. It could have something to do with room, not sure.

 

For automotive street applications, air-to-air technology is easy to install, highly effective, extremely reliable since it has no moving parts, and requires no maintenance. Air-to-water intercooler systems, on the other hand, are much more difficult to install as they contain an intercooler, a separate radiator to cool the water, a water tank, and a pump. But probably the biggest drawback to air-to-water on the street is that this technology requires the addition of ice to match the efficiency of air-to-air technology. Additionally, the requirement of ice and the possibility of pump failure or leakage means that air-to-water is also inherently less reliable.

For race-only applications, air-to-water works well since the need to add ice at the track prior to each run is not a big drawback. The other issues are the same as listed above for street applications, and efficiency will be comparable with the use of ice. (ProCharger.com)

 

+1 On a very good description!

 

Adding ice isn't required at all, it's just an additional way to further drop temps down. To the best of my knowledge, the Bugatti Verion & the Ford GT40 use air to water IC's. They are much more efficient than air to air as there is no such thing as heat soak. Space is also a non issue due to their compact size and the fact that they do not require a direct air flow like a FMIC. The biggest draw back was price & availability, but that no longer appears to be an issue either. My neighbor has been using one on his twin turbo mustang. he maid 850 HP with the FMIC, then he made some changes in the tuning & cams, added a air to water IC and currently is making 1032 HP & 1100 TQ on his Twin turbo 342 stroker.
Here's a link to a supplier of IC parts & accessories:
http://www.siliconeintakes.com/produ...b51d22216f2bd9

 

That's not true at all. Air to water can definitely heatsoak. When air to water IC's heatsoak it takes much longer for them to cool down than a air-to-air IC.

 

The only downside is the extra complexity and cost. On a roots type supercharger, you almost have to use air-water due to the physical packaging of everything.

Also, an air-water should NOT heat soak. We get heat soak with air-air because you're sitting still but pumping warm air through the IC with no external air flow to cool it off. With air-water, it SHOULD have water flowing through it keep it cool. What's keeping the water cool? The fan blowing on the radiator for it. Well, a well designed system should have a fan on it....

 

I used to own a Ford Lightning and my buddy recently decided to use a similar air to water set up in his wrx as the lightning has

like others said the negatives are working parts and complexity

 

I really am interested in trying it out. It really dont seem that bad when you can just mount that radiator either where your frount mount is but a little more protected and you would obviously have to have custom intake piping but i need to either way. If you go with the water to air you can cut down on how long it takes the air to reach the IC and cut down how long it takes to come out into the manifold.

 

Unless you have a race Evo, changing to air-water is just dumb. You already have an efficient intercooling system. If you want to make it better, just upgrade your core and the piping. If you really want the additional cooling, go with a meth or alcohol injection system. That way you can still buy the tank and pumps and all that, but don't have to get rid of your intercooler.

 

I ran a air to water system on my camaro. I pulled it off for a bigger air to water system(vortech's "aftercooler"). I can easily hide in in the nose of my camaro(which I am) with better cooling than an air to air. There are more parts, but worth the cost and trouble. Ice can help, but not needed. Air to water FTW!

 

Air to water works much better in race app. our race car uses 2 garret cores in it with a 5 gallon tank in the trunk filled with ice. Granted it is a mustang and not an evo we run a 72mm turbo per class rules so its not very big for a v8 race car but the air temp out of the turbo is on average 260 degrees and after the cooler it is usually 65 degrees on a 90 degree day, you will never get that drop from an air to air, but the liquid to air has a tendancy to heat soak the water after a period of time wile driving on the street and actually gets hotter then an air to air would.

 

Even with a kit that comes with a seperate radiator to cool the water ?

 

Garrett liquid to air cores are the lightest and most effective cores on the market right now, they are also the smallest for the temp drop they produce from what we have found . 1 core at the size of 4.5x4.5x11.5 are good for up to 1000hp we use 2 of them in our race car at the moment with a 5 gallon fuel cell filled with ice we get 65 degree air charge after the cooler and outlet temp from the turbo is 268 degrees at 17 lbs of boost on a Garrett GT4708 with the compressor cut down to a 72.5mm inlet from an 80mm with a 90 degree ambient air temp outside. With no ice in the tank and just water we get one quarter mile pass and the water has reached 93-95 degrees by the time we get back to the pits. On the Dyno we had noticed that after 3 short pulls the water in the tank had reached 135 or so degrees. The one issue with Liquid to air is a contradiction on how to use it, the cooler cores like to consume as much cold water through them as possable and to use a radiator to cool the water you need the volume to pass through the radiator slowly for it to cool, thats where things go wrong for street use. We found that the biggest pump works best to push as much cold water through the core to chill the core as much as possable while the radiator uses a small pump so as not to have too much volume through it so the water can actually have enough time to cool back down. Hope this helps a lil on the questions

 

we have built them for the subaru's...

they work, but complexity wise, an air/air is much nicer...

cb