I am in the final stages of building ny "stealth" intercooler. You'll see why I call it that when I post the pictures of it.. The top tank looks like a stealth fighter jet with hard angles (and yes, it will flow just fine).... anyway.. Moving to the bottom tank that will receive the air from the supercharger, it seems like common sense to me that baffles (or re-directors if you like) should be placed therein so the air is directed to flow uniformly through the intercooler. Or, the other part of me says that given that the bottom plenum is pressurized the incoming air will automatically find its way to the other core paths... my inlet is dead center in the middle of the lower tank.....Any ideas?

I'm starting to have fun with this aluminim fabrication stuff... does anynbody else need a custom intercooler... the Tig welder and the polishing wheel are all warmed up.

Thanks,

Tony


[Modified by TONYDEE64, 3:54 PM 2/19/2004]

 

It's hard to say with all your other customizations under the hood if it'll fit other L98/Lt-1 cars. Gimme some more info, stats and pics.

 

Well, you would not want the one I am making as it would sit too far forward for a stock radiator location...

These intercoolers (at least mine) take way too long to make.. I'd have to charge you exactly $1,000,000 + tax and shipping to come out even... calculating my time at $1/hr.

Honestly, I think a custom intercooler fabricator would pretty much need the car to do it right.. I cannot conceive how I would have explained what I wanted to someone else... mainly because your needs change as you engineer the install, we've all been there... right? I would have had to mortgage my house to get it done....

 

Tony... PSI/boost = Pressure.. boyles law states that pressure will be uniform given a gas in this state so making an educated guess that all of the cooler core paths would be filled with the same quantities of air at the same pressures unless...the engine is consuming enough air to the point that the supercharger can not continue to maintain a continuing rise in pressure (switches to vacuum) and the intercooler would then start flowing air through the most unrestricted path. but if your charger is putting out the boost the core paths should be equally pressurized for even cooling across the core fins...(variables such as the cooling air sharge from outside over the fins will dictate which core fins dissapate heat more efficiently then others. make sense?

Chris


[Modified by lcvette, 11:44 AM 1/15/2004]

 

hmmm....Sounds like a pretty educated opinion, so I have no leg to stand on, but one thing I know that people complain about the ATI intercooler is that due to the 90 degree inlet bend, there is a pressure drop which lowers the efficiency of the intercooler.

I've heard bends in intake can affect pressure and turbulence, but I know exhaust gases don't suffer the same pressure drops from to bends and turns.

Could the chemical makesup of these gases differ in some way?

 

After I posted my message I took a long nap and pondered my question (I wish)... You are 100% correct.. It would be impossible for there to be a variance in PSI within the lower plenum. Assuming there are no restrictions in each core tube or in the outlet tank.... Makes perfect sense to me. Thanks so much for the well thought out answer... That answer also saves me a few hours in fabrication. Of course I do believe that there is a difference in pressure and air flow.. For example.. if you have an inlet tank that tapers towards the ends.. depending on the severity of the taper and the space remaining for actual air movement you could have a problem with air flow at the outer core tubes... That is why I plan on making my lower tank much larger than the upper tank thus giving the air an unrestred path to the core. My theory is that once it enters the core it MUST come out, so the outlet tank is less crucial as long as it does not impede airflow exiting the core. For some reason this makes sense to me.

Thanks!

Tony

 

vvv90,

bends = resistance meaning the supercharger must work harder to overcome pushing air through intake plumbing.. the straighter the shot form the outlet of the head unit to the throtle blades the better off you are. on the exhaust side, the pressure exiting the cylinders is MUCH higher then what you see on the intake side especially when its closest to the exhaust port (hottest point of the exhaust system. as the tubing gets bigger further down the exhaust stream the air has the opportunity to expand and expanding gas has a cooling effect.. pressure and temperature vary directly so when dealing with matter in a gaseous state.. pressure drops so does temperature. this is why if you ever had a nitrous tank and opened the valve on top it will actually freeze itself shut.. or freeze the opening on balloons errr.. something like that..lol. (this is an extreme example as nitrous oxide's boiling point is tremendously lower then say water.. so the evaporating/boiling effect acts much like our bodies perspiring in a cooling sense). Due to the extreme pressures exhaust gas has, it is not as discriminate as intake charges at lower pressures when seeking a path to follow.. theres more ooomph behind it.


Tony,

as for the end tank design.. it is better to have a larger opening on the side at which the charge air is entering, and have the taper toward the far end of the tank.. this keeps the air from shooting across the end tank and bottlenecking itself.. as the tape narrows it forces the air toward the core paths and through the intercooler.. this also helps maximize the time taken to equalize pressure at the tank opening forcing the air into the beginning rows of the core path.. this is a hard turn for the air to make ..its a 90 degree turn. so the tapered design is the favored for flow characteristics. might wanna take this into consideraton when building the end tanks..

Chris

 

Once again, much appreciated... I've already got it figured out in my head how it will look... which hopefully will not be too far off from reality..

Take care,

Tony


[Modified by TONYDEE64, 4:09 PM 1/15/2004]

 

I'm just curious... For those of you that have intercoolers.... how does your plumbing to and from the intercooler route?

My tubing will be as follows: Starting with 3.5" tubing taking a right angle bend from the compressor straight down toward the bottom of the radiator. I built a 2.5" tall (for ground clearance) by 6" across rectangular plenum that has a 4" oval tube flange that will accept the 3.5" tube coming from the blower. Picture it like this: the tube comes down from the blower and shoots into a plenum that is much wider than it is tall (for ground clearance). My plenum has a curve at both ends to facilitate the flow from the blower and into the intercooler (it looks like a big strected out "U"). The intercooler outlet is right above the top of the radiator and will shoot via a 4" oval tube pretty much right into the throttle body with a slight angular upward turn as it reaches the throttle body. Is that pretty much the standard routing? Of course since my radiator is moved forward I will have to modify by brace that runs underneath the radiator...

Thanks!

Tony





[Modified by TONYDEE64, 9:20 AM 1/19/2004]


[Modified by TONYDEE64, 9:20 AM 1/19/2004]

 

Tony,

Nice ride man!

Dave

 

Dave,

I looks like your car has a straight rear axle in it... How hard was that to install? I'm guessing that's the route I'll have to evantually go if I want to Hook Up like you.. very impresive!!!!!

Regards,

Tony

 

Here are some pictures of my intercooler. It turned out OK for being my first project with my tig welder. I still have a little polishing to do but at least you can get the idea of how the radiator will fit inside of the intercooler sandwiching the condensor between the two. I hope this does not restrict my radiator airflow... we'll see...

I was just starting to really get the hang of my welder at the end of the project. The core is the biggest Turbonetics unit they had available and is good for 1500cfm (1000 h.p)


Tony

See page 4 of this thread


[Modified by TONYDEE64, 8:36 AM 1/29/2004]


[Modified by TONYDEE64, 10:41 AM 4/15/2004]

 

Getting message "Unable to resolve hostname" when I click your links...

 

The pictures are now posted.


[Modified by TONYDEE64, 5:00 PM 1/28/2004]

 

don't work for me

 

OK, thanks to my brothers willingness to host my pictures at his website I finally got them to post. Thanks D!

Last night I finished up the polishing (which is not reflected in the above pictures) and went back over a few of my welds to dress them up, and the cooler looks pretty good sitting in the car...Of course now it has to come back out to mount the fans and to build the rest of my duct work..

Regards,

Tony

 

Dang Tony!!

That's one NICE setup!! I'm here in INdy, so if you ever need someone to stop by and test drive it, let me know

 

DAMN! that is one big f'n box!!! It looks like the size of my radiator. I still can't believe you have room for that, and a blower, AAAAAND a big block!

 

It took almost as long to engineer it as it did to build it. If you look at the contour of the top it absolutely had to look like that because there is only about 1/8 - 1/4" clearance almost everywhere. I smoothed out and radiused every corner inside the upper plenum to promote air flow. Notice that I had to smash the upper outlet and thus made it larger my making it in a wider "V" shape.

The intercooler is mounted so far forward that the tabs you see actually mount on the back upper bolt of the hood hinge. It's a little tight in there..

 

Here are a couple of pictures of the intercooler installed. I still need to polish everything a bit, but you get the idea. I left the t-bolt clamps off of the upper duct because the intake has to come back off to solve my cooling issue.

Anyone care to guess how much H.P. this thing will make at 10 or so PSI? I haven't a clue....I really won't be surprised one way or another.

I'm getting closer...

Take Care,

Tony

See page 4 of this thread



[Modified by TONYDEE64, 3:45 AM 2/5/2004]


[Modified by TONYDEE64, 10:41 AM 4/15/2004]