Sloth

What is the capacity of the factory intercooler. I was told that it can support up to 400hp. My car has a larger Garrett tubine, and a Tial wastegate and is supplosedly making ~400hp (no MAF).

Thanks.
<img src="graemlins/burnout.gif" border="0" alt="[burnout]" />

Danno

Hmm, well..... it's not really a matter of how much power an intercooler will 'support'. The rating you want to use is temperature and pressure drop at various flow rates. The Lindsey Racing website has some good measurements there that they've done. The stock 951 intercooler typically drops intake temps 100-130 degreesF depending upon ambient air temperature.

More extreme intercooling can be done, such as in Bob Norwood's twin-turbo Testarossa with 1000hp+. His intercoolers dropped intake temps over 200 degrees! On his Ferrari 308-based dragster, the intercoolers were good for a 250-degree drop...

I like what the Lindsey's did on their race car: mount the radiator in the back. Just imagine how much room that would free up in front for a simply massive intercooler! Heh, heh....

Luke

Danno,

why did they end up putting the radiator back in front? I never heard a good explanation.


And Sloth,

400 fly hp with the oe AFM? whoa? That must be a HUGE turbo. I was told you couldn't run a larger injector with a stock AFM? I am assuming you are running larger than the stock 37 pounders, right?

Danno

Hmmm, you'd also get clipping of the airflow signal from the stock AFM as well. Since 400hp is about twice the stock power, it's going to be twice the stock airflow. That means the stock AFM will be maxed out and sending a 5v signal from 3250 onwards...?

JonM..

Jim Brady and Jim Light were running well over 400hp (550lb/ft torque) back 10years ago with the stock afm and stock intercooler on 2.8L motors, they had no problems! Jim Light also had a 4 valve head installed.

Sloth

[quote]Originally posted by Lukesilver95186:
<strong>Danno,


And Sloth,

400 fly hp with the oe AFM? whoa? That must be a HUGE turbo. I was told you couldn't run a larger injector with a stock AFM? I am assuming you are running larger than the stock 37 pounders, right?</strong><hr></blockquote>

To tell the truth i am not 100% sure at this point. As far as i can tell the fuel injectors/ pump and many other components are stock (including the intercooler). I have just purchased the car for track use and have not had the opportunity to drill into the builder about specific items yet.

The turbo is a Garrett, the wastegte is Tial, Turbonetics blow-off valve. The head (8v) has been ported, o ringed, and flowed. The DME and KLR is custom programmed. The engine is a 2.5L.

I guess i am trying to figure out how much I would benefit from replacing the stock intercooler, if at all.

Luke

hmmmm, I know that pic worked earlier! <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

Danno

??? What pick? I don't remember any pic?

Sloth

I know that photo worked when I posted it. I have posted a few photos from that host here and never had a problem before. The strange thing is that if you goto reply and then hit the back button the photo reappears.

Strange...


...try this again! <img src="graemlins/yltype.gif" border="0" alt="[typing]" /> or...
<a href="http://www.986host.com/gallery/Sloth996?&page=1" target="_blank">Sloths photos</a>

John Welch

Sloth,

I believe that you would see a definite improvement if you're still running a stock intercooler. As Danno mentioned, the way to measure the intercooler's performance is through temperature drop, and pressure loss. If you can increase the temperature drop, and decrease the pressure loss, you're going to get even more HP.

The problem with intercooler upgrades is that their full benefit will NOT always show up on the dyno. The airflow in a garage is not a good simulation. I think I remember people reporting decreased quarter-mile times though.

400hp... I'm jealous!

TurboTim

We have dyno proven our intercooler even though it was supposed to be impossible. We made gains of about 14 horsepower and 18 ft/lbs of torque at the rear wheels on a car equipped with a catylist. These are huge gains by just removing a restriction on the intake. Our intercooler is also capable of flowing in excess of 1050 CFM (at a slightly higher presssure drop then the 1.5psi pressure drop at 750cfm qouted on our website) regardless of what our competition is saying about it. The good news is that you dont need to change your nose panel out with some funky fiberglass piece(which has me wondering about the impact on aerodynamics). We also dropped the price of our front mount intercooler package to $1200 bucks. This includes all piping, hoses, brackets, etc.... to make it a complete bolt-on. So if you want a bolt-on intercooler that has proven itself then come talk to us.

TCarrera

Sloth,
You would find a very noticable improvement by replacing or upgrading the stock intercooler in your car.
The cooling capacity of the stock intercooler core is really quite effective for it's age. Definitly state of the art at the time. The problem lies in the ability for the air to flow through the cooler with the least amount of restriction.
I have flow tested every single component in the 951 intake system and found several interesting results. Since we are discussing intercoolers, that is what I will talk about.
Using 28 inches of water column for our test parameters, the stock intercooler flows 205 CFM.
Our stage I upgrade increases this flow rate to 248 CFM. The Stage II increases the flow another 12 CFM to 260. Our Stage V is flowing 280 CFM.
Spearco quotes their flow numbers for their cores with no tanks installed, some people like to quote these 'potential' numbers rather than real world flow numbers after the flow potential has been choked severly by installing inlet and outlet tanks.
Our Stage V intercooler uses a custom built Spearco core which they claim has the flow 'potential' of over 1000 CFM, similar flow numbers as other aftermarket manufacturers. This number drops like a rock when you install a tank on the unit.
Just as a comparison, we took a stock intercooler and removed both tanks, then set up a test base so we could mount it directly to the flow bench and test the flow capacity of the core itself. Then we tested the 1000+ CFM core bought from spearco in the same manner, guess what? The stock core flowed within 10% of that the Spearco did. So all the trash talk over that past months about the stock intercooler's capacity and performance is BS.
The stock intercooler with enhancements to the flow is more than adequate for most applications.
The higher inlet temps created by sustained 18 pound boost levels is pushing the limit so we wanted to develope a new cooler which would meet this demand and not interfear with engines cooling system.
We invested nearly 100 man hours designing and flowtesting the new tanks for this Stage V cooler.
Every shape and design possible was tried and even a few that would not physically fit in the car, just to see what would happen to the flow. After three weeks of hair pulling sometimes frustrating work, the 280 CFM design that we have settle on came about. Trying to make air turn sideways and flow through the core is much more difficult than most might think.
Smooth flowing curves rather than sharp edges is one of the keys to making the air do what you want it to. This knowledge is now being applied in the developement of our intake manifold which will be realesed later this summer.
The molds are now complete for the cast aluminum intercooler tanks and we just received our first batch of them today as a matter of fact.
I didn't intend to turn this into a sales pitch so I will stop here.
To finish this, everything you can do to the engines ability to flow air more easily is what you are trying to accomplish, for the same reason you install a conical air filter, so the air flows easier. The MAF lets the air flow easier, so does porting, cat-bypass pipes, mufflers etc.
If you can move more air through the engine without having to turn up the boost to overcome these restrictions, the longer and and more dependable the engine will be.
Sorry for the lengthy reply but there is so much to say on this subject, but the average person really has no idea just how much knowledge can be gained by flowtesting.
Mike at LR

Danno

Mike, what kind of temperature drops are you seeing with your Stg.V intercooler vs. the stock one? I've seen the stock intercooler drop from 100-130 degree-F typically.

86944turbo

My car uses parts from 2 stock intercoolers. Instead of 10 row, it has 15, or approx. 50% more capacity. This intercooler, with decent ducting is adequate for 450, or so H/P. To instal this intercooler only minor, non essential material needed to be removed. To run a larger intercooler you need to remove a lot of sheet metal. I also use a very large Ron Davis radiator, so the engine comparment is very tight. I was finding air intake temps in the 60C range on days with ambient close to 100F, so additional cooling was neeeded. I have a 3+ GA. reservoir in the spare tire well (below the Accusump). It pumps water, using a stock windshield washer pump, to a spray bar infront of the intercooler. I use distilled water. The MoTeC is programmed to activate the pump at 40C and off at 39C. It keeps intake temps at, or below 40C, even on 100F days. It works well.

Water944t

That is a very cool solution to the problem which would work on any intercooler, but you now added 25lbs to the rear of the car? Granted, by race-end you would be a lot lighter...

And would that much water weight be more effective in the engine? A la that sweet UK misting system?

Seems like it would be fairly easy to set up a mister like that with stuff from Wal-Mart garden center. Hmm... I do live in the desert where it is awful hot.