Custom intercooler
 

I was thinking about ways to improve my F/I set-up and have an idea I would like to share and ask for you opinions & input.

Do you think a custom made intercooler could be designed to incorporate one or more of the following: oil cooler /cryo /meth

I was thinking of soldered tubing that travels either thru or around the intercooler that would carry each type of fluid separately. My thinking is that such a design would save space and make maximum use of the intercoolers charged air.

Any feedback??

As far as the oil cooler, you would be either over cooling the oil, or heating the charge temp higher than you would want. The ideal temps for intake air, and oil aren't close enough to make this a good idea in my opinion. I could possible see running the oil through the radiator similar to the way manufactures handle the transmission cooling duties, but you always have a potential of leaking internally and not knowing about it until its far too late. I think a proper oil cooler set up with a thermostat is still going to be your best bet here.

I hope you don't mind my input on this but I have a few thoughts on this.

Incorporating some sort of cryo/meth system in the intercooler is very simple and has been done for years. You can simply mount a spray bar and mount it in front of the intercooler. This will chill the intercooler right before you make your run but it won't last very long. A lot of people mount their NOS purge nozzles in front of their intercoolers to get the same effect.

In regards to mounting the oil cooler into the intercooler, I would stay away from trying to do this for a few reasons.

1) As the gentleman above me posted you would be running completely different temperatures in each system. The oil is going to overheat the intercooler and greatly reduce the performance of the intercooler. I think your idea is good and I understand your desire to try something different to improve cooling and airflow to to your coolers in a confined space. Unfortunately I don't think it would be the ideal setup.

2) The charged air coming out of the intercooler crossing over the oil cooler would create some pretty high temperatures. On the flip side the heat being put out by the oil cooler would reduce the performance of the intercooler.

Most modern cars are designed with a cooling system that at some point crosses through or near the engine oiling system as well. This design is supposed to help the both fluids reach and maintain operating temperatures more quickly. It works very well for street purposes but when being pushed hard on the track it can cause issues with overheating. Take for example the Ford GT supercar. It is an incredible car that can run over 200 miles per hour stock and can do 0-60 in nearly 3.0 seconds. But, if you take it to the race track, it will start overheating in about five laps. That car has two issues. 1) limited airflow to the coolers and too many coolers in the front end. 2) it has this same oil/coolant sharing system.

http://d5otzd52uv6zz.cloudfront.net/...0334eb-350.jpghttp://www.streetandcircuit-shop.biz...er-sprayer.jpg

It would be an interesting idea to automatize it to spray when post-cooler air temp reaches a certain level. It would be an anti-heat soak system.

Kyle, would something like this be a lot more effective when it is cooling water, like in your air-to-water system? Its kind of a dumb question because I know water is a much more effective heat exchanger so yes it will, but I don't want to make any assumptions about how the temperature of the water running in the system affects your manifold mounted cooler.

I guess what I'm trying to ask is whether this would be worth the price to develop due to the greater effect it has on an air-to-water system?

Ive seen in other forums with turbo cars that have done this and even just used water to spray and some had it hooked up to only spray on full boost. But I think the best thing to do would be a water/meth kit but dont get the timing adjusted and this would cool the air to allow more fuel and the cars ECU would adjust timing a bit for more power. But by not adjusting timing you dont have to worry about running out of the water/meth mix and hurting your car as timing wasnt adjusted to begin with. In the end it does the same thing, keeps the air cool going in.

^ Actually man, Meth/water injection is used to raise the octanage of the air/fuel mix so it doesnt pre-ignite in the cylinder. Its like runing race fuel... its not to cool the intake charge..

You are correct and we are working on something!

At the end of the day the effectiveness of an air to water intercooler greatly relies on the temperature of the water flowing through it. The cooler you can make that water, the more temperature you will pull out of the air crossing over the heat exchanger.

I never thought about setting up some sort of a temperature probe/trigger system for a sprayer like this...It's very interesting and I'm going to talk with my engineer's about that! Great idea!

You are correct and some O.E. companies even offered this as a standard option. Mitsubishi Evo's came with a little button that you could press to spray water on the intercooler.

Another kickass idea I've always liked was done on the Ford Lightning Concept a while back.. they dubbed it the 'SuperCooler'.. where it would use the A/C system to store up and blast the intercooler with chilled air, resulting in a 50hp bump for 30-45 seconds at a time..

Ford Lightning Concept - Ultimatecarpage.com forums

^ Josh thats pretty cool and would be an alternative to using compressed gas/liquid as the cooling agent. You could technically just cool water using the A/C and then route that to spray all over the cooler. Could use water from the windshield washer reservoir, quick refill after each track session.

Check this out.... cools everything.
http://www.qri.biz/images/CryO2-illustration.jpg

http://www.qri.biz/faqs_cryogenic_intake.html

A lot of people use their windshield washer fluid reservoirs as their meth injection reservoirs. Definitely a possibility.

There was an article in Turbo Magazine years back (probably late 90's) about a dodge truck running a set up like that. The truck was built to run high speeds in the desert for a sultan or something like that. Very complex system but seemed like a cool idea. I think that setup was designed for a constant cooling effect though. I may have to pull the magazine out of my archives and re-read that article.

Okay so i actually dug back and found the magazine ...

Turbo magazine July 1998
Article is "Ramming Speed" by Evan Griffey

Basically the IC system consisted of:

Spearco air/water IC
12 Gallon ice chest (in the bed of the truck)
A/C evaporator from an MR2
dedicated A/C compressor

Charge temp out of the twin T04b (told you this was a while back!) is 250°, with an ambient air temp of 125° (Abudabi dessert)
the system is capable of giving an intake air temp of 59-65°

The big question is does the added strain of the AC compressor, the added weight of the full system and the weight of the 12 gallons of water justify the power added by the intake temp drop.

^ Either way its way too complex and involved to serve our purpose. CO2 is the way to go.

Of course its overly complex, and thats even the simple version of that system, there were fail safe units installed, and other gadgets that i left out of my summery.

Really in my opinion the best thing you can do is run a good sized air to air IC, and if it positioned right a good set of radiator fans (spal is my choice). The better Spal fans will pull enough air to hold a playing card on the front of the IC after pulling air through the radiator, condenser and the 3" IC core. I've had cars that the IC was still cool to the touch after being on the dyno all day in 95°+ ambient temps. Unless you have a full on drag car why keep trying to make things overly complex? and if you do have a drag car you can just spray the IC down between runs anyway.