I am making some progress on the water-air intercooler design. In its current state, it is definitely not mass marketable - too much fabrication required. I plan to get it on the dyno to determine what the gains are, then put together a package kit that is relatively easy to install. The big air-air intercooooler is also being completed, probably ready in the next week and a half or so.

Here are some pics of the water cooled design:







Stay tuned...

 

Looks nice Randy! Will it be mass produced evetually? Please? LOL Keep up the good work bud!

 

It looks like that's going to make the hood scoop non-functional? Say it ain't so Randy! I hate non-functional hood scoops

 

Well it would function, just not for the intended use. It would cool the engine bay more, like it is supposed to...but I guess it would be non-functional...

 

It looks to me like that steel plate over the former intercooler area is designed to block the hood scoop - I could be wrong so I'll wait for Randy's comment, but that's what it seems like to me.

 

It looks like the same dimensions as the regualr intercooler without the cover on it. As you may know, there is a gap when you take the cover off the intercooler. I would guess that being the same dimensions, that it would allow air to flow over the steel...Randy, can you explain?

 

It's not a steel plate, it's the aluminum that the water cooled intercooler is surrounded in - that's what makes the water jacket. I'm working on making the hood scoop a ram air for the intake. It will still cool the surface area of the intercooler - and I may add cooling fins to the upper jacket just to make it more effective.

Like I said, it isn't ready to market yet! I will need to have the ram air intake or fins on the intercooler.

 

I've been looking into this as well. I see a couple of problems:

that radiator in the photo is huge, good for cooling but how does it fit in there with the AC radiator?
pressure drop across the intercooler is a no-no. If you add more heat exchanging surface compared to the stocker, you will get more efficient cooling but if you don't increase the flow cross section, you will get pressure drop. The unit in the picture seems to have three problems in this regard:
-the cross section is no larger than stock and since the envelope has to include water jacketting on the top and bottom, front and back, the air flow cross section is no larger, or worse, even smaller;
-the longer the flow path, the more the drop. Water heat exchanging cooling can utilize a shorter path for combustion air in favor of a longer path for the water flow;
-water flow is up-down so the short length of heat exchange water path is requires the longer air flow path.
A water flow from front to back would gain water path length, placing the tanks front and rear instead of front and rear, bottom and top. This would allow a taller airflow cross section dimension and still fit under the hood, and a wider dimension to increase the water path length as well as the air flow section dimension.

The area is severely space limited, so the problem isn't easy, not to mention you have to mate efficently with those bullhorn snoots. On top of that, the cooling efficiency of an air-to-water-to-air system is less optimum than air-to-air; what you are really gaining is to take advantage the thermal inertia of the mass of water so you can use the off-power time to get rid of the heat in a more appropriate part of the engine compartment.

Finally, how much is someone going to pay for this kind of thing: a specially made water jacketted intercooler, radiator, pump and resevoir with hoses, etc. is not going to be a couple of hundred dollars; figure four times that.

 

Couple questions:

Why have the water tubes lined up? Why not put one on the top left and the other on the bottom right? Wouldn't that help cross flow of the water instead of concentrating it across the fins in the middle? What are your thoughts on this.

Is an overflow tank really necessary? Does the water get so hot it needs somewhere to expand to?


I'm a curious cat.

R

 

John,

Sheesh man!

First, the radiator fits perceftly - I'll show you the after picture with everything back on the car - if you look closely, you can see that the AC is still there.

The intercooler is basically a stock unit wiht the water jacket welded to it. I have to be honest and say that I don't get what you are saying. When I through some bags of ice on the stock intercooler, I make serious horsepower on the dyno. Using the same intercooler, but essentially keeping the bags of ice on the car (by cooling it with cold water), I don't see how the same effect is negated. The original dyno numbers proved this out as well.

The pump is pretty high flow, so as long as the water is moved quickly, it doesn't seem that the inlet and outlet matters all that much (althgough it isn't optimal - with the packaging of the MINI, compromises have to be made).

The flow path is actually pretty short (identical to the stock unit). It comes directly out of the supercharger, into the intercooler, into the intake and into the head. With packaging, I don't see how you could possibly make it much shorter.

As far as cost, it will be less than $1000. If it makes 15 hp (well, keeps the 15 you lose due to lack of effective cooling), and you already have a pulley, I think folks will line up around the block for an easy, effective system (and easy it's not yet).

The problem with the MINI is packaging. That's the reason the MINI uses the less than effective top mount intercooler. As you said, the real reason to do the water-air is to move the heat exchange to a more beneficial place - right in the airflow at the front of the car. That's the reason for this. It is not an ideal design, but it will work MUCH better than the stock set-up.

During rallies in New Zealand, this same set-up provided a cool outlet side, while the intake side was too hot to leave your hand on. It also made 15 horsepower on a warm car. As soon as it is up and running again (and we don't have SNOW) I'll get it on the dyno here.

This is one solution. I am doing parallel development on a larger air-air cooler. I am tackling as many possibilities to determine the best course of action.

The overflow tank is the reservoir.

 

Cool - This could definitely help with hot - heavy traffic heat soak issues.
Wes

 

>>Cool - This could definitely help with hot - heavy traffic heat soak issues.
>>Wes

But if you're in traffic is heat-soak really problem? Wether you have 160hp or 2000hp if you're in traffic you're going no where fast anyways.

Paul

 

Got to be ready to respond to every opportunity!

 

Suhweet!!!

 

Hey Randy,

this is really very cool and interesting!!!
Allow me a few laymans questions:

I may have missed that part, but how is the pump for waterflow powered?
Is it electric or driven off the charger belt?

Regarding the comparison to ice on the intercooler: with ice on the cooler, you get not just the air-water heat exchange, but you also get evaporative cooling. Sort of like a combination of a water intercooler AND airspray system. It will be nice to see the dyno runs of the completed system.

Now, what do you think about the idea of using an air fan to force air through the stock air-air intercooler? This might reduce the problem of heat soaking the intercooler when not moving fast enough. Like the electric engine cooling fans, this fan could be electronically controlled via both the intake air temperature and car speed, to come on only when moving slowly. This could be a cheaper solution that might have fewer gains than the air-water, but could be quite effective eg for auto-xing (low speeds). I have no idea of course where to fit such a fan.

Any thoughts on that?
Cheers,
Markus (not Gronholm )

 

Randy, didn't Targa say that the price was around $500? Is the $1000 estimate for a pre-fabricated version? How much work would be involved in doing it yourself?

 

The pump that targa used was used, and the price of $500 was for the whole used system. If I do end up doing a full package, it will be slightly more than the $500 for new components and everything pre-fabricated.

The pump is electric - the one on this system is from a Subaru of some sort, but I am probably going to source a different pump (the one I was looking at for another project).

I totally agree with the ice analogy. My point is, if we can keep the intercooler cold, whether that be with water or ice or more air, there are definite power gains to be had.

I don't know if a fan would be enough to make power. My other concern with that route is the lost area for ram air cooling at speed.

Like I talked about before, there is a parallel development going on with an air-air intercooler (that also includes a water sprayer in the price of the unit).

I'll let you know what the horsepower differences are between the two once both are here.

Randy

 

I may be missing something but the ice example and the water cooler are different. Lets suppose it is 90 degrees and we are losing power because of poor cooling. Icing the intercooler brings it down to 32 degrees. Stock has 90 degree air going over it. The best you can hope for with water is getting it down to air temp which is 90 degrees so you can't get the same power as icing. Is it really possible to get a 15hp boost? I guess the dyno runs will tell us.

 

That would be nice, ram air and a water-air intercooler. Is the air-air front or top mount again.

 

Randy:

i have spent an hour or two on the phone with the engineer at Corkyt Bell's intercooler company ( http://www.bellintercoolers.com/ )who did a calculation based on the hp requirements and boost at 15psi (240hp was the number used) to arrive at a suitable airflow cross section. His advice was that anything as small in section as the stock unit couldn't provide adequate cooling. I directed him to this site and the targa report in particular. His un-equivocal recommendation was to flow the water front to back, not top to bottom and and use a thicker (top to bottom) and wider (front to back) and shorter (left to right) intercooler.

they seem to know their stuff. The first test I would do is measure the pressure drop across the stock intercooler when it is flowing 15+psi and make a decision based on that. Most of my notes are at work, biut I recall the goal was to have less tahn 1 psi drop.

 

I spoke to my turbo guy and he said basically the same the core needs to flow water from front to back and NEEDS to be much thicker. I don't understand why one wouldn't start with a better core?

 

We'll see. I'll post the dyno results ASAP. I agree that it could be made more optimal - but if we see gains using this method, and I can get it to market for $700 or so, it may be a reasonable solution.

There just isn't room to flow - the intercooler is just about touching the intake on the underside. To go larger would require a shaker hood, or a complete redesign ($$).

If I could cool the temp to 90F, that would be a huge improvement.

I was basically sharing the development road with you guys. It is by far not ready for market (as I stated). If I can learn how this system works, and find the drawbacks and try to fix as many as possible (packaging will always remain an issue), then I met the goal. It would allow me to bring a good product to the community.

The larger air-air is still a top mount, again due to packaging issues. It still shows promise.

Randy

John - do you know what the stock drop is across the intercooler?

 

I've been nagging ANdy to check it out with his Magnehelic, but he hasn't been able to tap aling into the snoots yet. that will be prime info however.

 

If you think I could make a good seal by poking holes through the rubber connecting boots, I'll do it. Those are cheap enough to replace.

 

Randy,

I think it's pretty damn cool of you (ooh - unintentional pun) to show the development process. So far I think you're the only guy out there in the aftermarket business that's doing that. Please keep doing so! There are those of us that really enjoy reading what you write here.

-Andy