THE BLARG MOD: Intercooler tilt: increases temp drop across the intercooler

[turbo_bxr]

i made some pieces at work in hopes of them tilting it a little better but na.... but i did tilt mine none the less.

[blarg]

I think it might be possible to get a better angle on the tilt using a 45 degree coupler for the outlet (which would have to be cut to fit), and a 90 degree elbow (which would also have to be cut to fit, and a helix IC adaptor, which has a cast aluminum y-piece, and a 90 degree hose to connect to the turbo. Unfortunately, since my efforts are currently focused on finishing my water sprayer, and paying for a laptop I just had to buy because the dog knocked my old one off the table, that experiment will have to wait a bit. I think it would be cool to stand up the IC at a 45 degree angle on top of the motor, which would give you the low lag of a TMIC and the efficiency of a FMIC, and a huge scoop like a supercharger (if you like that sort of thing), but it will have to wait.

Like I said, this was the $3 version that anyone can do. The extreme version will be far more complicated, expensive, and the appearance may not be to everyone's liking, but I do have a person who is willing to make me a custom hood...but I'd still have to buy another hood, and the piping for the mod...I'm probably looking at about $1200 for the experiment. Of course if I can make something like that happen, I'd see if enough people were interested to make a few kits and sell them (I even have access to a person in China that can organize manufacturing some parts for me, but I'd probably have to order a minimum of 500 units or so.

Like I said, its a cool idea, but I'm not sure if people will like it, or how well it will work, or if it will work well enough to be worth the money it would cost to do.

When I DO get around to trying this mod, I'll probably be doing it with a larger aftermarket TMIC, like that cheap eBay one. It requires some work to make it fit anyway, so why not see if I can make it fit at 45 degrees?

[wrxdrvr]

well I finally got to do some testing, including 2 runs to Santa Barbara from L.A. on two consecutive days, one with the tilt and one without.

I did see a temp drop of an additional 5 degrees or so. Sometimes more, sometimes less. However the noticable difference is in the shorter time it takes for the temperature to start dropping when you're heat-soaked and start moving again. It cuts that time by about half. It also makes the IC a bit more effective at speeds below 40 MPH, which without the tilt showed little to no difference (no more than 10 degrees) from intake to outlet temperatures for me once the car was warmed up. With the tilt I'm getting a cooling effect down to 25-30 MPH.

As for the long drive (about 80 mile trip), Without the tilt my outlet temp was right around 110 degrees for the trip, with the tilt it was hovering in the 103-105 range - not a huge difference, but certainly worth $3, but like I said, for me, the more important effect was the quicker heat soak recovery.

I would suspect the reason you are not impruving the cooling effect below 25 MPH is you don't have a seal from scoop to IC to guide airflow into it. On my'n the temps start to drop quite rapidly within 1 block of starting out. You might want to look into fabing one up. I realy think that will impruve cooling in slower driving situations.

[blarg]

well, I get a little, its just not much. I think I might let it go until I go all-out and get a bodyshop to completely re-do my hood for the REAL tilt mod.

I'm really starting to not like this hood. It flexes at high speeds, and attracts too much attention. If I could find a cheap blue OEM hood I'd be all over it. Maybe when I have the custom body work done for the 90 degree tilt, I'll buy another aluminum hood and have them mod that rather than my CF hood. I think they're like $400 unpainted, and its going to need to be re-painted anyway.

[wrxdrvr]

Yes , The 90 degree tilt would for sure be as good as a front mount. It would be different. But now I have my set up working good enough to feed ambient air into engine 95+% of the time. On a 70 MPH cruse it actualy gets 24C air into engine on a 25C day. Here's my version of how I impruved the IC efficiency, It's not good looking may even be a little ghetto but it WORKS and when hood is closed it gets by and nobody actualy sneeres at it, I hope. I have some pics at, http://photobucket.com/albums/b111/wrxdrvr/ There's 2 albums wrxdrvr and ICmod for all the pics....so what do you think ??

[blarg]

It definately shows some thinking!

I'm trying to do mine a little bit cleaner, but we'll see what happens. I think a BIG part of my problem is the aluminum mesh too. it cuts the airflow coming in by a lot, but there's just so much crap flying around here that I just don't want to leave the IC open. I will be using a finer mesh next time, but the metal tabs that the hood manufacturer put into this hood are so weak and cheap, I think most of them would break off if I tried to replace the mesh I guess that's what I get for buying a cheap hood. I don't think I'll buy another CF or fiberglass hood. A CF panel might be ok, but its just not as stiff as the OEM metal hood, and at high speeds it flexes (the scoop actually bounces up and down...it sucks) I miss my stock hood.

I don't think the sideways IC will be TOO ugly. The scoop shouldn't need to be MUCH higher, I think about half of it will be below the hood, and the body shop will be cutting into the hood to open the scoop by extending it DOWN towards the motor, and it should only need another inch or two at the top. It will definately be a BIG scoop though. I'll have to start telling people I have a supercharger on top of the motor.

I'm actually seeing temp drops at slower speeds now. I've been trying to pay attention, and L.A. traffic is such, that when you're going slow, you also spend a lot of time not moving, so yes, I see a temp drop after a block or so, but chances are, when I'm going that slow, I won't get to drive long enough to see a change. I guess I just have different driving conditions. I was really generalizing when I said I don't see an effect below 25 MPH, what I should have said is that when I'm in traffic, I really don't get to drive a long enough stretch of road to get the heat soak out.

I have vents on my hood too, and they have reverse vanes on them. When I'm moving, airflow over them sucks hot air out, but they don't work as well when I'm standing in traffic (although I can still see hot air coming out of them).

What do you do with those fans when it rains...do you cover them or are they waterproof?

Hopefully, soon my water tank will be finished and I'll be able to install my IC sprayer

P.S. - have you seen my dual temp gauge? it rocks! 0.1 degree resolution, and I get 2 displays in one 52mm instrument. Also, if I ever want to use it for pressure, EGT's, fluid levels or RPM all I have to do is buy the right sender, re-program the gauge, and I'm good to go!

[wrxdrvr]

I always get myself in trouble when I start to do some thinking. But yes i'm going to have to do some tidying up & puting some thought into makeing it a bit more tidy under the hood. So far I was experimenting to see what worked. The fans have been there for 2 years and only had to replace one, the car washer sprayer did it in, so now I tape up the vents when spraying. Other than that they are in the open. They also help much at stoplights sucking out the hot air, keeping airflowing even when stopped. You will find the water spray a huge help in keeping the IC cooler. Yes your temp displays are great, but my'n cost less

[blarg]

Yes your temp displays are great, but my'n cost less

well I needed to save up my dash real estate for the PDA

I'm actually setting up a 300 gig HD that's going to live in my glove box. I'm loading all my music and the entire Tom Tom GPS map set for North America...there's a reason I don't take on too many projects...I don't do anything half-assed...heck I don't do anything full-assed...I always end up doing things about 3.5-assed.

[blarg]

Well a brand new "huge eBay intercooler" has unexpectedly dropped into my lap at a very good price...so the experiment might be moving ahead a bit faster than I thought it would.

[blarg]

HOLY POOP!!!

this thing isn't just huge...it is many large chunks of hugeness!!! I don't think I realized how big this thing was until I just picked it up!

I think I'm going to have to re-think the 90 degree tilt because it would require about a 13" high hole!!! I think 45 degrees may be the best I can do. Did I mention how HUGE this thing is??

here's a picture of it next to my dog. A German Shepherd. WOW!!! It does look like a very solid piece though....bar and plate design looks much sturdier than the OEM one. I put a screen mesh in my scoop to protect the OEM IC, but I think this one would take a bullet and be fine. The whole thing is made of 1/4" Aluminum stock!

[turbo_bxr]

HOLY POOP!!!

this thing isn't just huge...it is many large chunks of hugeness!!! I don't think I realized how big this thing was until I just picked it up!

I think I'm going to have to re-think the 90 degree tilt because it would require about a 13" high hole!!! I think 45 degrees may be the best I can do. Did I mention how HUGE this thing is??

here's a picture of it next to my dog. A German Shepherd. WOW!!! It does look like a very solid piece though....bar and plate design looks much sturdier than the OEM one. I put a screen mesh in my scoop to protect the OEM IC, but I think this one would take a bullet and be fine.

yeah thats huge

[Trainrex]

HOLY POOP!!!

this thing isn't just huge...it is many large chunks of hugeness!!! I don't think I realized how big this thing was until I just picked it up!

I think I'm going to have to re-think the 90 degree tilt because it would require about a 13" high hole!!! I think 45 degrees may be the best I can do. Did I mention how HUGE this thing is??

That's why I was curious how you were going to do this. Most of the aftermarket TMICs are quite large.

[creditcards]

HOLY POOP!!!

this thing isn't just huge...it is many large chunks of hugeness!!! I don't think I realized how big this thing was until I just picked it up!

I think I'm going to have to re-think the 90 degree tilt because it would require about a 13" high hole!!! I think 45 degrees may be the best I can do. Did I mention how HUGE this thing is??

here's a picture of it next to my dog. A German Shepherd. WOW!!! It does look like a very solid piece though....bar and plate design looks much sturdier than the OEM one. I put a screen mesh in my scoop to protect the OEM IC, but I think this one would take a bullet and be fine. The whole thing is made of 1/4" Aluminum stock!

hey morris,it was nice mettin you,man. i got to see some more pics when u r done with this crazy setup.. i might try to do a tilt on my sti as well.. i told u it was big and good luck with the project. how did u like the fast and on time shipping? .

[blarg]

hey morris,it was nice mettin you,man. i got to see some more pics when u r done with this crazy setup.. i might try to do a tilt on my sti as well.. i told u it was big and good luck with the project. how did u like the fast and on time shipping? . my girl was getting a lil nosy about the price of the intercooler. "she was like, how much did u pay for it?" i had to tell her it was the same price i am selling it to u. if she knew how much it really was. i am a dead man. you gotta keep this on the dl.

no problem. It was nice meeting you too. I think what I'm going to do now is tilt it 45 degrees. Then I should only need to raise the scoop about 2 inches...especially in the back where the top of the IC will end up. It will certainly be cheaper than having a whole hood made.

I'm probably also going to tap the IC for my temp sensors rather than installing them in the hoses like I have now. 1/4" aluminum shouldn't have any problems holding on to temp sensor.

Damn that thing is HUGE. Apparently all the "huge" intercoolers (Helix, APS, and several others) use the same Spearco core. Even Cobb is using that core...but they got this funky "fan" inlet on it.

So did you guys make it to Roscoe's?

[creditcards]

[QUOTE=blarg]no problem. It was nice meeting you too. I think what I'm going to do now is tilt it 45 degrees. Then I should only need to raise the scoop about 2 inches...especially in the back where the top of the IC will end up. It will certainly be cheaper than having a whole hood made.

I'm probably also going to tap the IC for my temp sensors rather than installing them in the hoses like I have now. 1/4" aluminum shouldn't have any problems holding on to temp sensor.

Damn that thing is HUGE. Apparently all the "huge" intercoolers (Helix, APS, and several others) use the same Spearco core. Even Cobb is using that core...but they got this funky "fan" inlet on it.

So did you guys make it to Roscoe's?[/QU

i couldn't find that damn place. i don't even know how to use my navigation system. so, iwent to cerritos mall instead. i guess the marines is turning me into a rock.