my friend has a twin turbo setup, and we got to talkin about intercoolers and such, and i started thinking about air/water intercoolers.

i've seen a couple air/water intercoolers, and it seems pretty simple to setup, and im trying to debate one thing, since his setup uses the current air/air intercooler to combine the boost of the 2 turbo's instead of a Y-pipe, would it be benefitial to use both? only reason im asking is because i havent seen any 2-in, 1-out air/water intercoolers.

i've read that air/water intercoolers have very little pressure drop compared to air/air? the one im looking at is making a claim of less than .1 PSI???

edit:
also though of another idea for the water's heat exchanger. to put that hood scoop to actual use, depending on how much air would actually flow through it, cut an opening in the hood, and mount the heat exchanger there? wouldnt be too hard if you run the water lines up along the hood bracket so there is minimal movement? im sure a front mount heat exchanger would probably serve better though, just a thought.

 

with new a/a designs, the pressure drop is small you cant notice it. no different then air/water. no benefit to using both. unless its a track car, stick with the a/a. the a/w is nice for a track car because you can dump ice into it and since the car will only make a few passes all day long, the water will stay freezing cold. on the street, the ice will melt fast and then the water will absorb heat defeating the purpose

 

see, i've heard both sides of the story with a/w. i've heard that its bad because you can basically 'heat soak' the water (water becomes too hot) with it as a street application.

but i've also heard several people say thats not a problem if you have the right sized heat exchanger and pump?

i've also heard that in winter, you can run into problems with it freezing, but if your in a cold area you should know that water can freeze and you should be running some sort of coolant instead of straight water anyways.

honestly, i think i might try it out. i found a single turbo kit cheap (for 1600 who cares if it cracks? i can just have a shop mimic it afterward anyways)

im not sure how much pressure drop can effect performance. maybe i need to pull up one of those calculators on the interweb. .1 or .2 psi drop vs 1 or 2 psi drop? sounds like a big difference but i guess HP/TQ numbers are what really matter hmm?

 

After extensive research I found street cars should use air to air = track cars air to water but only with ice. Best explanation for all this garbage....

The heat has to be transferred to the air eventually if you do it through water thats just one more change it has to be make before being removed from your air. Basically your adding a step with air to water. So if your not going to use ice all the time - air to water is a waste. And its less efficient. I wish I kept the websites I researched this all from. I'll see if I can find them.

 

take a look at turbo forums there are a few guys running A/W coolers on there street cars with great results much better then you would ever think. but they are turbo cars not S/C. you could do a meth kit they work well and give a nice boost of HP. I am gone to put one on our car along with the A/A to help at the track on hot days when we start gone rounds to keep the heat soak down. I got our intercooler from VS racing it is some china made thing that work OK on the street but at the track the temps start climbing after a few back to back runs. the inlet and out let are straight across from each other on ours also.

 

air/water intercoolers are good in situations where you don't have much room or where iced water can be used. They do however require more parts making them less reliable. You can deal with heat soak by using a fan on the radiator side.

 

it has a large electric fan on it but like I said it still has some heat soak issues heck there are some times when we have been damn near back to back runs toward the end.

 

idea: phase change water cooler.

 

Yeah I don't think there's much you can do to help that one. That's the upside to water, while it is very good at dissipating heat, it also has the trouble of taking quite a bit to remove the heat from the water. It has to rely on that time when you're not in the throttle so it will be cool when you are in the throttle... not so good if you're on it all the time over a short period of time. By then you may as well have an inefficient air/air.

You mean like using freon? There are companies doing that. Using an a/c system along with an air/water setup. The a/c cools the water while idling, during wot bursts the a/c pump is shut off then turned back on to start cooling again. There's a video out there of someone driving his supercharged cobra with it the water in the reservoir gets down in the 60's in 100 degree weather. It's a good idea, but there's the drag on the belt while cruising that would lower fuel economy (which isn't a big deal for some). Then the complex part of it. Weight would be a toss up for those with small air/air would be at an advantage, those with big air/air would outweigh or come even with it. My ic in my ranger weighed 52lbs which I'm not the happiest about, but it also takes up the whole front end.

 

mmm i was thinking a totally seperate compressor. since i wouldnt want it to get any colder than 0 degrees celcius (to keep from freezing) as well as run anti-freeze, i would keep the compressor as small as possible(in the trunk), and i was thinking of running it off an electrical system. got the idea from my friend who's using phase change to cool his computers CPU. he's currently in the process of making a water cooler phase change system instead, as he wants to cool both the grafix card, cpu, and everything else at the same time. he see's temps of -50 F.

i had the idea of using a belt driven compressor too. still might. just gotta get a bracket and etc. or maybe i'll just "delete" the passenger air and use that compressor instead lol... not like i use it that much anyways...