If I mount the intercooler down in front of the radiator, does it affect the radiators ability to cool? Also Since I will only be running around 10lbs of boost or less on a Wet Intake for now, would an intercooler cool the air too much? ALso how could I mount it so no damage occurs to the intercooler from debry and still be able to have cool air cool the radiator? :confused:

 

Deja vu!
Yes, the ATI systems for the 85-89 cars show this. Some of the guys posted that they were overheating when they put that ATI intercooler inside the radiator shroud right in front of the radiator.

No. Not going to happen. Cold air is a good thing.


Use a screen over it to block crap from getting caught in it?

The ATI system for the 92+ cars mounts the intercooler above the radiator shroud (The fiberglass thing that is over your radiator directing outside air to it). I think this is the best way to go, but that is just my opinion.
The intercooler is not mounted in front of the radiator this way, it is on top of it, seperated by the fiberglass.

Now you can cut a hole in the top of the radiator shroud and have the air that gathers in there push up into the intercooler. like how the vortex rammer works.

Or you can get one of the license plate ram airs that would push air into the intercooler like that, or you could do both, cut the radiator shroud and the ram air plate. Not sure which one works the best due to the aerodynamics involved and the volume of air from each.

You would have to convert your radiator to the laster system (92-96) since yours is not designed for this if you wanted to do this. The later system is layed back more.

Now some C5's (TT Z06 from halltech) and montys C3 have the intercooler against the radiator. Meanys car had this as well.
I am waiting for when monty starts cruising his car on the street to see if he posts about any temp problems.

 

So, I could mount the intercooler about a couple of inches away from the radiator? And then build a kind of wall or scoop for it so it can scoop up some of the air underneath the car and then that air would cool the intercooler? I also dont want to go too extreme and change my Radiator. But I got the Maximum Boost Book and it says for every 100 Turbocharged Estimated HP, you times it by .06 to get how much face or surface volume you need for the intercooler. But then you need to times that by 2 because half of the surface is air vanes. So for my application I would need about 42sq inches of surface volume. Maybe 10inches by 4.5? Or 9x5? Also says that you should make the inetcooler have more shorter vanes and you should have many of them in the intercooler. Instead of like a 10x10 square

 

Like Bill said, it will cause some cooling issues.

I had to build a scoop under my car not to get air on the intercooler but to the radiator.

A friend of mine made the forced air piece in the front of the car where the tag hole is. It works great putting air on the face of the intercooler.

I have always had cooling probems in traffic in the past. Hopefully that problem has been solved. We put a 18 inch fan with shroud on it a couple weeks ago and it is amazing. The car wont get over 190 degrees at idle now compared to the 220 plus temps we saw before.

The fan is a Ford fan off a Lincoln. I know, a Ford product on a Corvette, but it moves almost 5000cfm and it works great. We have several turbo cars with this fan on them and it has reduced coolant temps on all of them.

 

Sounds good, what was that a lincoln Contential or Expedition? OR I could just get an aftermarket one? ;)

Anyway do you got any pics of your intercooler? YOu corvette is similar to mine besides the CF injection, but I would like to see how exactly you got the intercooler in there. Thanks for the help :yesnod:

 

The fan is from a Lincoln Mark8. It is almost a perfect fit side to side but is about 2 inchs taller than the Corvette radiator.

 

Do you have any pics or suggestions of how I should mount the Intercooler and how far I should place the Intercooler from the Radiator? COuld I see some pics? :confused:

 

These are of Ex golds car
He has his web page right there in his sig, why dont you click and look around his page. He has tons of pics.


[Modified by bill mcdonald, 7:01 PM 3/19/2003]

 

I haven't experienced any problems, but I haven't driven it in the summer heat yet. I've put about 200-300 miles on it in the past couple of months during my "shake-down" runs and I have seen roughly the same operating temps that I did prior to the turbo system. I did run relatively high compression, 11:1+ before compared to 8.5 now, so that accounts for something. But I also run dual 11" Spal electric fans behind the radiator, so my system is more of a pull system, rather than relying on airflow over the intercooler and radiator from forward vehicle motion. There is about 1" between my intercooler and radiator.

 

Thanks, I think I'll just get some high flow Fans and space the intercooler about an inch from the radiator. Also Bill, do you know if any aftermarket company sells the that ram air kit that can feed into the Turbos? OR would I just have to fab one up from sheet metal? :confused:

 

Just to be clear, I was saying to use the ram air to direct air to the intercooler.

If you look at the second pic I posted, that is the A/O engeneering license plate ram air, that Ex-gold is using to ram air into his intercooler (you can see the intercooler inside).


Now, if you want to ram air into the turbo inlets/air filters. That would be tricky. More tubes to run around the engine compartment which is going to clutter stuff up. You might be able to run your turbo intake tubes to something which looks like this. buy it, build it, whatever


I have seen Naca ducts put in, like the early callaways Hoods(87's). You could put these cut outs above the turbo air filters.


Or there is a hood cowl that Doug said he was going to use on his C4 TT. it is from greenwood and has 2 slits at the nose of it to let air in which is right where his air filters are mounted.
It looks kind of like the later firebirds ram airs. http://www.greenwoodvette.com/options.htm





[Modified by bill mcdonald, 9:31 PM 3/19/2003]

 

Thanks Bill, I like the look of the Naca Hood Ducts. But where could I get them, I found one place but they were just fake add on, non functional ones. ANyway do you have a link to the A/O engineering License plate Ram Air company? :confused: Thanks Bill :yesnod: :thumbs:

 

A/O does not have a web page that I know of, but the kit is sold at Exotic Muscle, MidAmerica, and Ecklers. there is the kit which is a :eek: ~$450 or so. The plate piece can be picked up seperatly for less. I think it is 150.

As for Naca ducts, just doing a search there are these places. I have seen them in racing catalog though. http://www.gospitzer.com/prodline1.htm http://web1933.vs.netbenefit.co.uk/a..._Ducts_29.html http://www.mckinneycorp.com/bodycomp.htm http://www.bakerprecision.com/brkduct.htm <A HREF="http://www.ioportracing.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=IPRS& Category_Code=DAA" TARGET="_blank">http://www.ioportracing.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=IPRS& Category_Code=DAA</a>

 

Such a small intercooler would not only not cool but it would be far too restrictive it would not flow enough.
One problem that the ati intercooler has is that the thing is so small that the end tanks are in front of the radiator. Solid metal don't flow air for poopie.
This winter I replaced my intercooler with a custom built one it is 16x26 inches and I put foam rubber between the radiator and the intercooler so that it seals. All air must go through the intercooler not in through the gap at the bottom like ati could. Intercooler can not cool unless the air flows through it. I installed 16 inch spal fans in front and behind one pushes and one pulls.
I also installed the ram air that Bill made reference to it forces air directly into the intercooler. I have not driven the car in hot weather yet but have no concern about over heating since air flow through the radiator is far greater than a stock corvette I know that mine will run cooler. Some time in the future I will try to put up new pictures as the ones in my gallery are old ones car looks totally different now. I had all custom made parts chrome plated and it looks pretty good. :seeya

 

If you pick up Maximum Boost by Corky Bell in it he says that thats the method they use to find out what size intercooler would work with a certian Turbo application. I'm only going for 325HP for now. Then later on I'll change out the intake and heads and someother things to get to 600. BTW, get some pics, I would like to see how your monster setup looks like. :yesnod: :cheers:

Bill, thanks for the links, I just got another question, The naca ducts personally look really good. Do you know how big they were when they came out on the Callaways? Also what about rain? If I'm on the freeway and is happens to rain, how do I solve that problem? Also I think I'lll go with the License plate cutout and the Naca Ducts. I'll use the Nacas to feed the turbos and the plate to cool the intercooler.

Also Bart, What kind of fans are you using? Would two 2000cfm fans be pretty good?

 

I don't know anything about the book that you refer to but I can tell you that a intercooler needs to flow the cfm that the blower is rated at and not have more than a .05 lb. pressure drop.
A intercooler the size that you propose to use will flow less than 300 cfm hardly what I would use for a 2000 cfm blower. You need to understand that there are more things to consider than cooling the air you must have a intercooler that matches the output of your blower.

 

Bart, I am not going to be using a 2000CFM Blower nor a Turbocharger that can do that much. I am only going for 300-325HP Okay? The guys wrote a whole fat 250page Book about it. But I wouldnt want an intercooler that would take ages to fill up, anyway I'll see what kind I could find and I'll see how big of an Intercooler I could get. Thanks for your help :seeya

 

Hey guys....you might want to check this out. It's a link to the Spearco intercooler core page. It will tell you the size of the intercooler and the cfm it will flow with a 1.5psi drop across it. http://www.turboneticsinc.com/spearco/stdcores.htm

And here is a link to a cfm calculator that uses displacement, boost, rpm, and volumetric efficiency. http://www.smokemup.com/auto_math/airflow.php

I do have to say that I like the idea of mounting the intercooler to the top of the radiator shroud where the airbox used to be. Putting a fan under that should flow enough air across it to make it work well. This may take away from the airflow of the radiator, but there should be plenty of airflow if you are running the car at any real speed to need the cooling. When I do mine I think I'm going to go with two 800+cfm cores. If you put them side by side and give each an individual feed end and have one large output end that covers both core ends I think it would work very well. Then you don't need a Y-pipe to combine the twin turbo feeds into the engine. Can you have TOO big of an intercooler???





[Modified by mn_vette, 9:32 PM 3/21/2003]

 

I had to ditch the ATI intercooler for my supercharger cause it blocked all the radiator air. Horsepower makes heat and you need a good radiator + airflow + water pump to cool it. I use a Griffin 2x1.25" core alum racing radiator AND made a custom airscoop for it so it gets air right up front- not from underneath. Stays nice and cool roadracing in Phoenix in June....

Someday I hope to get a real intercooler and try it behind the license plate opening, but let the air exit above the top of the radiator shroud and out thru a hood vent- keeping it completely separate from radiator airflow. And at speed I'd have high pressure up front and low pressure from airflow over the hood; should move air pretty well thru the intercooler.

EX- nice pics of the twin turbo! One curiousity though- you're air intakes are down behind the radiator sucking hot air? How bout turning them toward the wheel well (above the shock mounts maybe) for some cooler air? (Only works if you don't have much rain or road crap)




[Modified by gcrouse, 5:08 PM 3/21/2003]

 

gcrouse, I had planned on moving the air filters on my car to a different place but I am out of room. The only place i have to go with them is air through ducts in the hood and I really dont want to cut my hood just yet. Next trip to the dyno i am going to turn them out over the tires and see what kind of hp. difference there really is.