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How to make a intercooler cool better

11K views 28 replies 15 participants last post by  1turbofocus 
#1 ·
My intake air temps on my drive home are pretty high. Below is a pic of my intercooler. If anyone has any ideas on how to flow air better while keeping the look decent i'm all ears. My initial thought is to cut out the grill that covers a couple portions of the intercooler but i'm not sure that i'm going to like the look of it, and how much of a difference doing that will make.

Your feedback is appreciated!!!!!

 
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#4 ·
While upgrading the intercooler would be ideal, have you made sure you're venting as much heat out of the engine bay as possible? Is your turbo manifold, downpipe, dump tube, flex pipe and turbo housing wrapped and blanketed? That's a very cheap job, and WILL reduce engine bay temps, reducing charge pipe temps, therefore reducing iat's. Also if you don't mind the look, hood spacers and removal of the rubber weatherstripping will vent the engine bay as well. Another thing you can do is make sure 100% of the air that passes through the lower grill is passing THROUGH the intercooler, not around it. You can make plates on either side of the ic where the couplers are, preventing the air from going past them and doing nothing productive.

If you are really good at fabbing (or willing to experiment) you can cut openings in your hood, weld a mesh grill in the opening, and voila- you have hood vents. People may call "rice" on you, until you smoke them :)

Matt
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#6 ·
To start I moved my intake. I was thinking it was going to be an expensive option but I happened to find a 45 that would make the job possible. Now that i have a cold air intake instead of a short ram i think that'll help. I very much so liked your input on the intercooler. I'm pretty handy when it comes to fabbing something up so i'll probably do the ducting on the end of the intercooler pipes this weekend. I'll be sure to post pics when it's done! Thanks guys.
 
#7 ·
Yea shrouds will do far more than removing even all of the plastic bumper that blocks the intercooler. You have to look at the surface area you have there. 1/2" of plastic that's 18" long, or two 6" square spaces where air is going past the ic. If my math is right, that's 72 square inches of surface area, as opposed to 9 square inches.

Matt
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#10 ·
Do none of you guys pay attention to the things I've done.....?????

The easiest and cheapest way to make it more efficient is to make a couple of pieces to direct more air through it.

I took a single piece of aluminum that was the same length as the radiator support bracket, bent it down and made a small scoop out of it that barely stuck out below the lip on the front of the car and used it to basically ram more air through the IC, radiator and condensor.

It dropped my IAT to ambient temps and the car (with a 180* T-stat) ran around 170* while going down the highway on a 100* day with 90% humidity.

Basically any thing you can do to make air go through the IC instead of around it will make it work better.... most race cars box in their IC's/Rad's to get maximum cooling.
 
#11 ·
Something else you can do is take a couple of washers and hinge up the back of the hood and remove the rubber seal... this will allow more hot air to escape the engine bay.
 
#13 ·
Lol apparently you guys didn't read MY post, I listed all of those things haha

Matt
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#15 ·
Your intake temperatures are getting high not because of the intercooler, but because of the engine bay temperatures.

In order to lower your IAT, you should consider ceramic coating your hotside, manifold, o2 housing, and maybe even the downpipe. After that, stick a turbo blanket over it and wrap the pipes up good. I doubt you'll have temp problems again. Additionally you can have your piping and core 'performance' coated, which will help keep heat out. Also take a look at your intercooler, fan, and radiator setup. If there is nowhere for the fans to draw air, it's going to trap it all under the hood. Maybe get some more efficient slimline fans?

I recommend TCC in San Antonio.

 
#16 ·
OEM fans outflow all slim fans. Been tested many times. A shroud will make a huge difference as others have said. These cars don't have "O2 housings" like DSMs. I agree with turbo blanket.
 
#19 ·
Your cooler needs to get air to work properly , if you want it the best MAKE the air go through the cooler , Air will always take the path of lease residence

You need a piece of alum droping down about 1 inch then out about 3 inches like a scoop picking up air from under the bumper then you need 2-3 inches all around the IC to hold the air and make it go through the IC

The turbo header isnt a hugh issue the raid causes more under hood temps then anything at about 200 deg x the size of the raid so any place you can rought the piping away from the raid and I would wrap the piping in the engine bay then see with the scan tool is and by how much they drop

Tom
 
#27 ·
Thats what I was looking for. I ended up making a heat shield for my alternator to fix the problem with the rear bearings failing. The real test will be the next couple months as the Texas heat is starting to climb. The back of the alternator went from 300 degrees F plus to 124 degrees after a 20 min hwy drive.

i'd like to cut the bottom of the bumper out a little to open up the bottom 3 1/2 fins on the intercooler. Though I don't want it to look horrible. What did you use to finish off the edges. Your turned out great.
 
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