Air to water intercoolers....PRACTICAL??? - Honda Forum / Acura Forum

Lude-A-Tic · 03-29-2002, 06:03 PM

Ok, so I am scheming up my turbo plans for the lude. Now...I am going to be building a custom kit. I like the idea of having a air to water intercooler. They have such a short distance between the turbo and TB, it must help a lot in response.

I also like how you don't have to worry about a rock hitting your FMIC and screwing it up...or anything else hitting it, like another car/ snow bank. I also like how you don't have to worry about heat soak if you are not moving very fast for air to cool the FMIC. I do not see many of them around, on hondas at least. I do see quite a few on turbo MR2's though.

Now, what I want to know is where I can get one, and how much they cost. Also, if anyone has any experience with them, could you share?!? Lastly, would it make sense to make one out of a small intercooler by just welding end tanks for waterflow across the regular fins and making a resivior, pump, plumbing, and heat sink system. That sounds like a fun project!!!

Well, thanks for any comments/ questions/ or answers to my quandries!

sol_ryda · 03-29-2002, 06:18 PM

I don't believe there are any pre-made kits out for Hondas, but Spearco Intercoolers makes tons of customs Air to Water kits. The only downside is the plubing of the system. Good luck.

Archmage · 03-30-2002, 01:19 PM

Yep...Spearco...I inquired about it once, and I was sent to Spearco..but that was on another forum and a long time ago...

After that, Spearco sent me a catalog for free, and that's about it...I didn't actually get anything at all though ! I'm really the kind of guy that researches for like 5 years...hehe..just kidding...I'm just too damn busy these days..maybe in about a year and a half I can have fun with this stuff...until then, I'll just be curious about every damn thing for no reason...

I think during a drag-race...you can fill up the reservoir with ICE...that'll lower your time another tenth of a second easily..hehe..it will =)

Lude-A-Tic · 03-30-2002, 05:45 PM

Ya, the whole air to water thing is really interesting to me becuase of the thermal properties of water, or other liquids you could put in there.

I would like to get my hands on some LIQUID NITROGEN and incorporate that into the resivior. That would make for some cold ass intake temps!

00CivicVTEC · 03-30-2002, 08:44 PM

With an air to water intercooler (aftercooler) your turbo is more efficient (don't have the pressure drop you get with an FMIC setup with all the extra piping...)

The Honda Vortech supercharger kits use an aftercooler that works great, and plumbing is not that hard (seperate water tank, piping to aftercooler)....and yes, you can put ice water in the water tank for even colder intake temps...that is what they did with the Vortech Civic...

I was thinking about making a custom aftercooler when I turbo my motor....

You can also have a FMIC AND an aftercooler, and that makes for some seriously cold intake temps

Speedster · 03-30-2002, 09:12 PM

as for the question "PRATICAL?", NO, cause you're not going to refill water in the resevior everytime you drive, speaking for a daily driver. But if it's a full race car, then go for it.

00CivicVTEC · 03-31-2002, 12:51 AM

Acutually, no you do not have to fill it up everytime you drive...it's just like your cooling system for your car....it stays filled up...just check out the Vortech supercharger kits, or even a stock Jaguar or Ford supercharged vehicles, they use aftercoolers....

It can be used reliably every day.

Speedster · 03-31-2002, 01:20 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by 00CivicVTEC
Acutually, no you do not have to fill it up everytime you drive...it's just like your cooling system for your car....it stays filled up...just check out the Vortech supercharger kits, or even a stock Jaguar or Ford supercharged vehicles, they use aftercoolers....

It can be used reliably every day.

Yes, that is true, but what i meant by REFILLING, is to use the intercooler effectively by 2/3 part ice or ice water with 1/3 part water and not wasting it's potentials. or else why not just use a more convient, easyly maintained and cheaper air-air intercooler. But you do have a point there tho

neophyte · 03-31-2002, 01:56 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Lude-A-Tic
Ya, the whole air to water thing is really interesting to me becuase of the thermal properties of water, or other liquids you could put in there.

I would like to get my hands on some LIQUID NITROGEN and incorporate that into the resivior. That would make for some cold ass intake temps!

I've been considering this too. The problems with using liquid nitrogen is that as the liquid nitrogen's temp rose it would expand. Your talking about a delta T of like 300 degress centigrade. So basically you would need some kind of pressure release system, you'd need to refill it every run, and the intercooler would have to be constructed such that it could take the repeated abuse, but you could do away with the radiator for the for the intercooling system.

Another idea I had would be to inject liquid hydrogen in to the air stream. Same cooling effect, but also added fuel.

Either way it isn't practical for the street.

:zombie: