Front Mount Intercooler

Well I think it would be fair to say that I have done chargecooling to death. I have experimented and optimised the system about as much as possible, I could improve things here and there, but I'm now interested to see how my chargecooler creation compares with a simple front mount intercooler. Of course, I will be datalogging everything and publishing the results.

The main challenge is to fit one to the front of the car without cutting any holes in the yellow body work. I've sat down with the tape measure and worked out what size intercooler I could fit. I've based it around generic cheap ebay intercoolers, as I want to minimise expense for now.

Placement Planning

Ok time for some Rolf Harris, "Can you guess what it is yet":

What about now, with a 600MM el-cheapo chinese intercooler nailed on:

Now with a 450mm on the front:

This is the one I have purchased. I avoided temptation to purchase the longer one for a couple of reasons:

Corky Bells turbo book says taller is better than longer, which i agree with.

Doesn't obstruct radiator (shown in light red)

It fits between the chassis, into better air flow And I could potentially buy another and weld it into a much bigger one:

(Crikey - looks a bit chav doesn't it..)

Carb hat

So whilst I wait for my parts to arrive, I began with making a new carb-hat with a single 3" inlet.It starts life as a piece of 5" ID tube, to which I cut out a piece of 1/4" plate, weld to the top and then machine down smooth:

Next I welded the 3" pipe on. Quite tricky, because the main part is 6mm thick and the tube is 1.5mm thick. I pre heated it with a propane torch, which allows the weld to start quickly and easily. During the weld, the previous weld for the "top hat" opened up a bit, so i decided to run a bead all the way around.

20/7/08Parts all arrived. Intercooler seems ok - it has cast end tanks and weighs a hefty 7 Kilos!. So plan is to fit it to the front with minimum changes for now. So I removed the front bumper completely and intend to do my testing without the front bumper. Because the intercooler weighs so much, I needed to make a reasonably strong bracket from steel angle - Cables ties wouldn't be enough! I have positioned the cooler in the same location it would be if the bumper was fitted (with modifications to the bumper).

Once I had it positioned, the bulk of the piping was surprisingly straightforward. The 3" piping kit seemed to have just the right bends to get me round the bodywork.Next up was merging the 2" pipe into the 3" pipe - initial idea was to create a cone on the end of the pipe and weld it up. I made a template and practiced on a spare bit of pipe.

It didn't work, so I just made a sleeve on the lathe:

And here's where I'm at. The only part I'm not happy with is where the left turbo merges into the 3" pipe. I keep telling myself its only a prototype and not to worry about it.The problem, is that if I bring the pipe in at a more acute angle, I cant get the welding torch close enough to weld it.

21/7/08After having a long ponder on the train today, I came up with the design below, but decided to just weld up what I had already made to save time.

Fancy shiny ally pipe was a bit of a pain to weld, it needed to be cleaned back down to bare ally - not sure if its lacquer or just polished. Getting the tig torch in at the Y part was a little tricky and thats about 65 degrees - so definately dont want it any tighter for the next time.#

31/7/08Update, all fitted and working. Datalogs showing around 70-80% efficiency. I'm getting a 2psi boost drop accross the cooler.

Im having problems with the pipes blowing of, so a couple of them were welded together. Plus the cheap ebay piping kit only uses cheap pvc couplings (in blue, to look like expensive silicone). Also the ally pipes have clear powder coat on them, so they need sanding before you can weld them.

Next step is to get the bumper fitted. Plan is to move it outwards. 23/8/08

V8-Owners forum dyno day

Replaced all the cheap ebay couplings with proper silcone pipes and decent Mikalor clamps - which seems to have solved the pipes blowing off issue.

Here's the dyno sheet, which is better than last time - but isn't right:

Notice that the graph stops at 4200 rpm, whereas my datalog has it at 4708. Also the recorded MPH is 94MPH, whereas last time it was 120MPH - which is what I get on the GPS flat out in 3rd. So basicly there's a calibration problem. That said, we recorded a healthy 480lbf.ft of torque, which at the correct RPM would be over 400BHP (calculated flywheel) - which funnily enough we did record on the first run before it was 'adjusted'. 272run.jpg

1/10/2008 Photos

Here's some photos showing how it looks right now. I will probably put the centre spot lights back on for show also.I moved the bumper out a couple of inches to fit the intercooler in:

Used decent Mikalor Clamps for the pipework. Cant say I'm in any hurry do redo that Y merge - it works, so leave it alone!

The air filters are in a temporary location - I cant decide the best place to put them. Unless they are proud of the front bodywork they draw hot air in from the engine bay. So they are back onto the pondering list for winter - meanwhile they will go back up in the inner wings until next spring: