Intercooler Question?

[freakonaleash1187]

i know that all forced-induction cars should have a intercooler, but i never really heard of a n/a having one. i wanna upgrade my car to its fullest, but i wanna keep it n/a (well, i dont have much of a choice cuz it is gonna be a n/a 300zx), so i was wondering how much an intercooler, if at all, would help a n/a? thanx.

[ivymike1031]

Originally Posted by freakonaleash1187

i know that all forced-induction cars should have a intercooler, but i never really heard of a n/a having one. i wanna upgrade my car to its fullest, but i wanna keep it n/a (well, i dont have much of a choice cuz it is gonna be a n/a 300zx), so i was wondering how much an intercooler, if at all, would help a n/a? thanx.

it'd hurt, not help. Compressing air makes it hot, the intercooler cools it off and makes it more dense. Dragging ambient air through an intercooler wouldn't do anything but make it harder to pull into the engine.

[freakonaleash1187]

damn, calm down. i wont be curious about cars anymore...............yeah right, they are my life.

[cvcc_wagon]

what is there to calm down about. question:answer. simple

[Kurtdg19]

Originally Posted by ivymike1031

Dragging ambient air through an intercooler wouldn't do anything but make it harder to pull into the engine.

Unless your driving........the Bat Mobile. hahah oh heavens, I lost my sense of reasoning. You gotta have fun every now and then.

[89Turbo944]

Ok well the purpose of the intercooler is to cool off the air charge from the impeller of the turbo. This is haot air due to the fact that the combustion gasses are only a couple inches away from the fresh air. The intercooler will cool that charge and send it to throttle body and throught the engine.

I have never really though of putting an intercooler in a n/a car but i think you could do it. One end would be like a CAI and then link to the IC and the other the throttle body. This might net you some power. But not much. Cause the air going into the filter will be the same air that is hitting the IC. But th IC does offer a greater area to aid in the cooling effect.

Hey do it , dyno it, and post the results. If it dosent work just sell the IC and thats that.

[Neutrino]

Originally Posted by 89Turbo944

Ok well the purpose of the intercooler is to cool off the air charge from the impeller of the turbo. This is haot air due to the fact that the combustion gasses are only a couple inches away from the fresh air.

that is a very common misconception...the heat transfered from the exaust side of the turbo to the compressor is negligible compared to the exothermic effect caused by the air compression


and an intercooler on an NA car would make sense only if your air intake would be in some ridiculously hot area.
But since any decent air intake will bring in air at the ambient temp and the intercooler can only cool the intake charge down to ambient temperature it makes no sense to have one
Not to mention the airflow problems an intercooler causes

[cvcc_wagon]

im not really convinced that you could get the air cold engugh to make a differance, i am up north rite now in saskatchewan and i was driving around in -20 to -25C and technically i should have been running like a ferrari. i mean with a turbo you want to get rid of the hot air and bring it to a term closer to notrmal but unles it is a extremly hot day i dont see the benefit. but i am no expert sp feel free to point out any holes in my logoc

[ivymike1031]

Cryogenic superchargers do work, for a while - use dry ice and acetone to cool one side of a heat exchanger, and run your intake air through the other side of the hx, and you'll see a noticable increase in power, until you run out of dry ice.

The difference in air density at -20C vs 20C is only 14% (1.396 vs 1.205 kg/m3), so that'd have to be a slow ferrari.

[SaabJohan]

There have been some experiments using an AC compressor to cool the intake air, the gains are however small.

[cvcc_wagon]

Originally Posted by ivymike1031

The difference in air density at -20C vs 20C is only 14% (1.396 vs 1.205 kg/m3), so that'd have to be a slow ferrari.

thats my point, is an intercooler going to get the air below -20C? if you say that there is such a small differance what would the benefit be on a N/A engine?
which was the origional point of the thread. so my suggestion would be to make sure you are getting fresh air in spend your money elsewhere.

[ivymike1031]

Originally Posted by cvcc_wagon

if you say that there is such a small differance what would the benefit be on a N/A engine?

As a few others have mentioned, a normal intercooler isn't going to cool anything on a N/A car (except maybe a few bucks burning a hole in someone's pocket). Increasing air density by cooling it does improve the power output of an engine, though.