Air/Air Intercoolers

So I need to come up with a way of fitting intercoolers without cutting massive holes in the bodywork. It's possible to fit a reasonable sized cooler (12x16") into both inner wheel arches. It would require a scoop fitted underneath to collect the air, with it exiting at the back of the wing. Alternately I could fit one larger core and convert it into a charge cooler, this would be better than having a charge cooler in the engine bay that would get massively heat soaked.

Prototype Fabrication

Reusing an existing intercooler and after extensive cutting and grinding I managed to get it close to what a new/bare one would look like. As ever, I wanted to keep the design simple to aid fabrication, the end tanks were formed by bending the ally over a piece of 2" tube. Not exactly a performance design, more of a learning exercise.

Welding not too bad - its tough welding against an old dirty intercooler core that's already had tanks welded on before.

12/8/05 Abandonded Air to Air

Abandoned the intercooler in each wing idea, mainly due to the difficulty getting the feed from the turbo round past the master cylinder. These photos show the two possible angles for the turbo exit, both are unsuitable.You can just see the intercooler in the background behind all the brake pipes.

Back to the drawing-pad

So I put down the welder and picked up the mouse and tried some ideas. I could make a decent sized front mount intercooler, but i'm worried that it will block all my cooling air of to the engine, that would be several weekends of fabricating and several hundred pounds in intercooler cores. I then looked back at the charge cooler idea, this time in the near side wing.

Taking the chargecooler a step forward I mocked it up in cardboard and toolbox!. I'm happy with the chargcooler mockup and have decided to make my own chargecoole.

14/8/2005

Gearbox expired again. Burnt 3rd gear out - Had plenty of fun though; car keeps up with a Mitsubishi EVO-8 FQ340 which is nice!

29/9/05

Now back on the road with super duper 600bhp spec rebuild, so it should last at least 1000 miles this time!!!!. The intercooler project will continue when I’ve recovered from the expense of the gearbox rebuild. I’ve already purchased the water pump for it.