Alrighty ladies and gents, let’s have ourselves an argument. I was at the dealership today looking at the IC assembly of a Lightning that was disassembled. I said, I sure wish I could have one of those. One of the technicians suggested that I get an air to air model. I explained that I did not have the ability to pipe the output from the SC to the cooler and back to the intake (as might be possible with a centrifugal SC). He said I could use a pre-cooler that drew through a radiator type assembly.

I said what good would that accomplish? If I’m drawing air in at ambient temperature/pressure across cooling coils over which the same temperature air is flowing that it would do no good.

So first I must ask are A-A intercoolers actually marketed as pre-coolers (whether the air flowing though them is at ambient pressure? Second, I must ask am I mistaken when I think that this setup will draw NO heat energy off the uncompressed intake charge.

Just to confirm, I fully understand the effectivity of an A-A intercooler when used after the air is compressed (at this point the intake charge is above ambient so the air flowing across the cooler will actually remove some heat energy). I could even see where a pre-cooler would work if it were sprayed with something the would evaporate (pulling energy out through the process of evaporation, but an A-A at ambient air temperature and pressure?

 

Have you considered water/methanol injection? Do a search for Snow Kits

 

You are right - you need a air-fluid intercooler (like the one off the Lightning). An Air-air intercooler (like the ones used with Centrifugal superchargers and turbos) would be completely ineffective due to the piping - as you mentioned.

That technician I don't think quite understands what he is on about.

 

^Yea, but folks are telling me they *market* A-A ICs that are upstream from the SC. I gotta go do some research and see if its true. If it's something I'm missing, fine, but I think this is just another example of taking people's money.

 

Putting the intercooler before the supercharger/turbo(s) is illogical because the air pre-compressor is ambient - same as the airflow going through the intercooler.

When you pressurize anything, the molecules become much closer together and this in the end results in heat.

You want the intercooler after the compressor, regaredless of type. And there always is a way to plumb it into the system, even if you have to be a bit creative. I managed to wedge a paxton centrigual supercharger and an intercooler into a FWD Lincoln Continental.

The difficult part was not making bracketry for the supercharger, nor was it the tuning afterwards. It was fabricating the tubes to and from the intercooler. There just isn't a heck of a lot of room there. However, after moving the radiator back 2", we managed to find some room.

I'm a big fan of water to air intercooling. I mentioned this before - on my old 75 Dodge, twin turbo pickup, I used a "huge ***" howe radiator, and used the cooling system to cool the intake charge. yes, I know, the coolant sits at almost 200 degrees, however for my purposes this was actually fine - the intake charge was much closer to 300 degrees, and that's about where I'd start to be annoyed by detonation. So using the cooling system, as funky as it sounds, worked well for my particular application.

It wasn't a useful system at low boost as I was essentially heating the intake charge. But when the boost went from "reasonable" to "silly", this worked very well.

A good friend of mine is experimenting with nitrogen cooling. Essentially it's an EFI actuated high pressure valve, between a series of brazed coils inside the intake plenum, fed by a large bottle of gas. He's already split several coils either from the pressure or the pressure combined with the coils freezing even while hot boosted air is surrounding. Definately complicated, and amusing to watch.

Another option is to use CO2 released under pressure against the face of the air to air intercooler, I've seen interesting results with that. Of course, nitrious and alcohol/water do very nicely being shot into the air stream post turbo to absorb heat. And nitrious and alcohol burns, while the water cleans the piston tops to a near sterile condition.

 

^Is/was he using gasseous Nitrogen? I can get geeting a cooling effect from a state change from liquid to gas, but not , oh yea, I gues even gass expanding can pull out some heat.

Anyhow, what about these folks marketing these pre coolers. I cry BS.

 

I agree about precoolers - BS.

Not sure what my pal is using... big chrome tank. I'll know more next time I head up there or he has something that works well enough to brag about

What makes any kind of cooling system effective is it's ability to change the temperature delta. Cooling incoming air from say, 85 degrees to 70 degrees is such a minor change as one could gain from cooling a 300 degree post turbo temperature down to say, 200. That is where the most gain is to be had, as the temperature is highest leaving the turbo/supercharger.

Of course until things get heat soaked. lol