What intercooler are you running and for what reasons have you made this selection?

[bison]

Guys, don't take this the wrong way as my respect for your knowledge is unparalleled.

Although not a direct comparison in cost, it is my believe we can learn and draw parallel philosophy from the F1 teams on end tank volume and flow requirements.
The piping should not be emitted from volume consideration.


Like all of you, I would like to see this succeed so providing some feedback.

View attachment 269265

It would be awesome to have the facilities and $$$ to support the r&d these race teams do. Likely spent a couple million on nothing but air flow research to develop an intercooler design for a given car. Hundreds of engineers with unlimited backing. Going back to the racking leaves comment I made earlier though. We're not looking to re-invent the wheel. Just be able to produce something that exceeds commercially available product without driving cost out of sight. We don't really have a cost limit like most do when they start a project but we don't want to have $2000 intercoolers on $4000 engines. Also when trying to compare to F1 technology we don't know specifically what sacrifices they made in their design. They may be reducing core are and angle/ducting, etc to reduce drag at high speeds. So many things to consider.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Mike Licht]

I am not convinced a dual pass is the answer. I think a wide thick core with vertical flow tubes is going to accomplish the goal. We can reduce the pressure drop and increase flow. We might lose some cooling but with E85 or Meth that should not be an issue

 

[Jerryl]

I am not convinced a dual pass is the answer.

It would be awesome to have the facilities and $$$ to support the r&d these race teams do. . . .

Agreed.

 

[ijames]

I managed to check with my old employer, and a 4x8' of 1/8" will be about $150 depending on the exact alloy and will yield about 22 tanks for a 4x20" core. This is doing them as three pieces, tank and two end pieces cut separately. Laser cutting them and bending them would be about $25 each, so a total of about $7+25 = $32 per tank, bent and ready to weld the ends on and to the core. Mike, not needing to roll a bead or add internal braces that would interfere with flow or any other steps just for stiffening is why I'm pushing for the tapered shape with four 45 degree bends, as it will be much stiffer than the simple box shape with two 90 degree bends. Anyway, just my suggestions. Bison, whatever shape you decide on, I'd recommend making a pair of tanks and welding them together without a core and checking on how much flex and expansion you get with pressure, and use water instead of air just for safety if you decide to find out where it ruptures . Good luck and have a great holiday; I'll try to check in every few days.

 

[TTipe]

I am not convinced a dual pass is the answer. I think a wide thick core with vertical flow tubes is going to accomplish the goal. We can reduce the pressure drop and increase flow. We might lose some cooling but with E85 or Meth that should not be an issue

Mike a lot of the pressure drop across the intercooler is caused by forcing the air to go where it does not like to go. Sharp edges, supports and corners in the flow path disturb desired laminar flow. Take a look at a stock tank and I 'm sure you will see radiused ends at the bottom of the core. Look at the old intercooler scoop and it is radiused on the top to help the air turn, and then look at the best SLIC (you know who) and see the sharp corners. The core (tube) entries can be brought closer to the core support to reduce turbulence (shorter sharp edges of a tube hanging in the wind). An air horn effect in other words. Surface texture (Ra) drives the Reynolds number higher and causes greater turbulence along the tank walls. Conversely if you can't manufacture the part at a proper price point then it doesn't happen. The points I have tried to make here are probably taboo to a manufacturer, but they definitely improve intercooler performance. Defining the core is a lot more work.

 

[SPOOLFOOL2]

More food for thought.

The proposed FMIC has about 8 feet of piping and a hand full of bends more than needed to feed a SLIC. There is a pressure loss for this 8 feet. Therefore, a SLIC could potentially be made with less tubes (or smaller) and have the same pressure loss. This leads me to a few thoughts. First off. What is the cost (in psi) of that 8 feet. I understand that a SLIC doesn't have the heat transfer of a FMIC. From the conversation in this thread, heat transfer isn't nearly as important though.

A front mount gets "clean air," right? Wrong. It's stacked up with AC, radiator, sometimes trans cooler and has a grill tripping the flow.

A stock location IC has not much behind it, and a crappy, choked off shroud to duct in the air.
Years ago, I modified the shroud of my V4 SLIC to optimize air flow. I will try to get some temp and psi data in the weeks to come. Here's a cheesy sketch of what I was trying to accomplish. In my sketch, I show a V4 SLIC. The PTE is similar. Sharp corners and a chock point at the sway bar.





Once again, great thread. Bottom line. We need data.

Mike Barnard

 

[bison]

More food for thought.

The proposed FMIC has about 8 feet of piping and a hand full of bends more than needed to feed a SLIC. There is a pressure loss for this 8 feet. Therefore, a SLIC could potentially be made with less tubes (or smaller) and have the same pressure loss. This leads me to a few thoughts. First off. What is the cost (in psi) of that 8 feet. I understand that a SLIC doesn't have the heat transfer of a FMIC. From the conversation in this thread, heat transfer isn't nearly as important though.

A front mount gets "clean air," right? Wrong. It's stacked up with AC, radiator, sometimes trans cooler and has a grill tripping the flow.

A stock location IC has not much behind it, and a crappy, choked off shroud to duct in the air.
Years ago, I modified the shroud of my V4 SLIC to optimize air flow. I will try to get some temp and psi data in the weeks to come. Here's a cheesy sketch of what I was trying to accomplish. In my sketch, I show a V4 SLIC. The PTE is similar. Sharp corners and a chock point at the sway bar.





Once again, great thread. Bottom line. We need data.

Mike Barnard

The pressure loss of 3" pipe on a small displacement v6 is negligible. The main factor in pressure drop is the pass through the core. As far as air quality is concerned once it's realized that the Intercooler is not doing a lot of real time heat transfer to the ambient air you can understand why a more massive front mount with a lower starting temperature has better heat sinking effect. Heat transfer is very important and is as important as pressure drop reduction. If one or the other will compromise the performance it needs to be balanced. We don't usually see heat rejection problems with commonly available intercoolers though. Pressure drop is a big problem. We have some idea about how to make a more effective stock location Intercooler. The problem is it will be costly, will cram the front of the engine further, and will be a large deviation from what's currently looked at as stock location. Maybe only sharing the fact it's between the engine and fan. We're beyond the drawing board at this point though and will be moving forward


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[NY Twin Turbo]

The pressure loss of 3" pipe on a small displacement v6 is negligible. The main factor in pressure drop is the pass through the core. As far as air quality is concerned once it's realized that the Intercooler is not doing a lot of real time heat transfer to the ambient air you can understand why a more massive front mount with a lower starting temperature has better heat sinking effect. Heat transfer is very important and is as important as pressure drop reduction. If one or the other will compromise the performance it needs to be balanced. We don't usually see heat rejection problems with commonly available intercoolers though. Pressure drop is a big problem. We have some idea about how to make a more effective stock location Intercooler. The problem is it will be costly, will cram the front of the engine further, and will be a large deviation from what's currently looked at as stock location. Maybe only sharing the fact it's between the engine and fan. We're beyond the drawing board at this point though and will be moving forward


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

What if you produced a front mount configured exactly like all the rest. Horizontal, wide and tall. The main goal your shooting for is less restriction and have it heat sink capable for about 10 seconds.. So why not just use a core that air moves more freely through it? Some of the tube and fin cores that have extruded tubes with fins integrated into the extrusions look like they have almost no restriction at all. The biggest problem is the dead ends between the tubes. If some one had the patience to spot weld little pointed caps on them it might cut down on the air turbulence trying to make it into the tubes.

 

[bison]

What if you produced a front mount configured exactly like all the rest. Horizontal, wide and tall. The main goal your shooting for is less restriction and have it heat sink capable for about 10 seconds.. So why not just use a core that air moves more freely through it? Some of the tube and fin cores that have extruded tubes with fins integrated into the extrusions look like they have almost no restriction at all. The biggest problem is the dead ends between the tubes. If some one had the patience to spot weld little pointed caps on them it might cut down on the air turbulence trying to make it into the tubes.

This has already been done. The cores are very heavy and block nearly all airflow to the radiator and condenser and still have some pressure drop in very fast cars. For a slow car (slower than 9.50 at 3600lbs) the proposed vertical flow designs will all have it covered by a large margin with very good heat rejection and very low pressure drop. I'd expect them to work into the 8's with less pressure drop than the horizontal flow units and still be good on heat rejection. For those very fast cars a more massive Intercooler is needed and can be built with a vertical flow design but will still require the condenser to be removed and aren't for a street driven type application that will be driven thousands of miles a year.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[vacuum 6]

CAS V2

Tony's shop was right down the street. Reviewed the quality and knew the industry he came from...no brainer. IMO - was and still is the highest quality IC.

 

[vacuum 6]

We use 1010 aluminum for the tanks, when we used to use 6061 they would crack over time if the tank is long we use a bead roller to put a rib in it to stiffen it and sometimes we put internal braces insdied the tanks. We try to cut them from one piece and bend them if possible to minimize welds.

I'm assuming this mostly happened on TSM cars (cracking and blowing out tanks)?

 

[turbobitt]

Treadstone tank variant of the vertical flow.
AG.

 

[turbobitt]

I am not convinced a dual pass is the answer. I think a wide thick core with vertical flow tubes is going to accomplish the goal. We can reduce the pressure drop and increase flow. We might lose some cooling but with E85 or Meth that should not be an issue

No offense guys but it is this very thought process that got us started on this thread and is why we are stuck on what's commercially available today. We are trying to reach a little out of the box and see what we find but obviously there are no shure bets on what is going to work and we won't know until we get our feet wet.
AG.

 

[TTipe]

I have heard folks talk about pressure drop from tube / bar & plate length between the tanks yet little or no mention of what type / dimension turbulators in the runners. I can have an 8 ft pipe or an 8 in pipe and have similar heat transfer values (J/Km*3) if the air is not worked by the turbulators /heat transfer surfaces in the tubes. Some intercooler configurations don't present the ambient heat transfer Air to the core well and even leave Air flow dead spots . Also it matters little if I present cold air to the core without an easy path out. Pressure drop is a summation of the pressure deltas from the air filter to the intake valve. Air distribution devices may help to equalize cylinder Air flow, but also create a pressure drop along with the intercooler. Pressure drop across the system is a function of how much the air is worked for cooling, and turbo out temperature at some pressure.

Treadstone tank variant of the vertical flow.
AG.
View attachment 269295 View attachment 269296

 

[Mike Licht]

I'm assuming this mostly happened on TSM cars (cracking and blowing out tanks)?

We have built quite a few custom intercoolers here and it has happened on even mild applications, this is an intercooler we built for our race snowmobile, it sort of follows what we are talking about here this is a 4" core it is about 17" wide it supported a tad over 600HP, for reference that is a 6262 turbo in the background.

 

[bison]

CAS V2

Tony's shop was right down the street. Reviewed the quality and knew the industry he came from...no brainer. IMO - was and still is the highest quality IC.

Do you have the pressure drop data on this Intercooler?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[vacuum 6]

I personally didn't collect any data. As you know here's Bob Dick's info...http://www.vortexbuicks-etc.com/combinationexamples.htm

 

[texasterror]

I have the old Kenne Bell big boy front mount that has both the inlet and outlet pointed towards the drivers side of the car. It is one of the smallest i've seen but works extremely well and doesn't block the air flow to the radiator like the big front mounts that are available now. I've driven in the high temps of Fl, and S.C. , Ga. and the engine never ran hot even with a stock radiator and fan.
I've used it with 52,54,67,and 70 turbos without any issues and performance has always been great on the street no lag in spoolup at all. The only drawback was the price i paid for it 18 years ago from Kenne Bell, but i wouldn't take anything for it,it works so well.

My first choice for a front mount was made by Tony DeQuick but it was on backorder with no date when it would be available. I was ready to buy and KB had theirs in stock and ready to ship.

No data to offer though.

Same one i have and i bought it for the same reason (and the friend i bought it from sold it to me at a deal).

 

[bison]

I personally didn't collect any data. As you know here's Bob Dick's info...http://www.vortexbuicks-etc.com/combinationexamples.htm

Those numbers don't take into account the mass flow and air flow requirements of what we would be dealing with today. Fwiw my Precision front mount has 4-5psi drop at mid 9 sec power (80+lbs/min) at 5800rpm on a 231ci and that's a pretty good core to begin with. I would expect and wouldn't be at all surprised if double or more the pressure drops listed there on some of those intercoolers applied to sub 10 sec power at 600-800 more rpm. Yikes


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[vacuum 6]

What are we trying to do here. Design the next game changer IC?

Assuming you have an IC with very little psi drop, does it really matter when running alky?