Starion Intercooler

Alright im thinking about upgrading my intercooler to a front mount... The intercoolers from starions seem like the best bang for the buck. I just wanted to know how hard and how much work is involved when putting these in. Is it something that a couple I can do myself... or is it better left to professionals. Thanks.

I just thought of something... Would you be able to run two intercoolers? Like put in a front mount... run the lower intercooler piping from the turbo to your front mount... then instead of running the upper intercooler piping to your intake manifold, run some piping to your stock side mount... and from the sidemount to the intake mani. Would that work? You would prob get hardcore lag... but is that possible and would you get a gain from it? I dont know, just something I thought of while I sat and read the forums...

Search! This was discussed. It would not be worth it.

Haha alright... it kinda just hit me and I thought it sounded cool. I shoulda figured this wasnt the first time it was brought up. Ill look it up.

For all you lazy bums who don't want to search, here's a good explanation! http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=227101&highlight=intercoolers :bigthumb:

just dont repeat old threats man...its not that big of a deal but poeple get pissed.

For all you lazy bums who don't want to search, here's a good explanation! http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=227101&highlight=intercoolers :bigthumb:


Good find! Heres the bulk of it for the people that are not only too lazy to search, but too lazy to click the link.

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I know I wrote a novel on this a long time ago, but I cant find it...

Short version is that putting the two ICs in series will ADD to the pressure drop. Putting them in parallel will REDUCE the pressure drop. But in either case you have more volume to fill, which generlaly increases lag. By how much, depends on the turbo. Putting them in series wont do much for the temps anyway, I Did find this little snipit I wrote a while back on this point:

Ponder this law of physics:

The rate at which an object changes temperature varies directly as the difference between the temperature of the object and the temperature of its enviroment.

Don't ask me how the hell I know that, just trust me Basically what it is saying is that the greater the difference between the intake air and the air outside the IC (same as IC temp, given efficiency rating) the more the intake air will be cooled for a given area. Heres an example with numbers I will pull out of my ass. We have two identical ICs in series. Lets say ambient is 100. Intake is 300. The first IC drops the temp to 125, since the difference is 200 degrees. Now according to the law mentioned above, there will be a much smaller percentage of that original temp drop because now the difference is only 25 degrees. I wouldn't be surprised if in this example it only took 5 degrees or less out, compared to the 175 of the first IC. So its no longer worth its weight, complexity, or pressure drop.

BTW you can observe the effects of that temp law above by doing this (like any actually will ).... Take a thermometer at room temp and stick it in the fridge. Note how it drops fast at first and then tapers off and takes forever to go the last few degrees. It's not a linear function, but a curve.