DIY intercooler question

Jaym14

New Member
Jan 26, 2009
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Long Island, N.Y.
Looking for opinions on the feasibility of running an air-air inter-cooler directly inline between the blower (passenger side mounted centrifugal supercharger) and the intake. I'm sure it could be fabbed but would it actually work to lower intake temps? Here is a pic I photoshoped to illustrate what I mean... please forgive the crudeness of the pic.
intercooleridea.jpg
 
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Well giving this a little more thought... One could rig up some small fans to the intercooler and keep some air flow moving constantly through the fins. I'm certain this would reduce intake temps.

So you could suck hot engine air through the intercooler...

That setup would be heatsoaked in no time, the intercooler would be too small, why try and reinvent the wheel? Like shaolin said, the vortech powercooler would be a much better setup.
 
Ahh the rare and elusive "interheater" haha. :D In all seriousness though, that setup would not do much good for lowering IATs. I toyed with the idea of hacking up a WRX intercooler (the small one that pulls outside air directly from the hood scoop) and molding some kind of grate into the hood, but it would be an exercise in futility. The internal flow area of a heat exchanger that size would not have a high enough thermal efficiency to outweigh the boost pressure drop across it. It's even likely in a low boost application like yours will be, that the charger won't even be heating the intake air to a temperature higher than the air under the hood. In that case the intercooler would be a heatsink and actually perform the opposite function you intended it to (read: "interheater"). As stated earlier, the Vortech aftercooler or water/methanol injection would be much more effective for your purposes. In any case, good luck!
 
You could start with something like this, then put your inventing hat on.
But short of the Vortec setup, i havent seen anything that short.

Pic of one on Ebay i had in watch list

There are other radiators/coolers but this one looked like the vortec. Its also not real expencive, but I would need to build or collect all the other parts, including the tubes, pump and tank for it.

Did you ever concider a Methonal Injector system? It wouldnt take up much room.