1HZ intercoolers: Air to air V's Water to air

[me3@neuralfibre.com]

I dont know why people think w2a are the holy grail of intercooling. They have thier segment, but it is really less to do with performance, and more to do with space.

Cause in a petrol engined traffic light drag from 0 to x (umm err, sorry officer) w2a can be hugely effective compared to an averagely implemented a2a - the water is a huge heatsink, and given some decent cooldown time till the next drag, a small system can perform very well.

Oh man, do I love traffic light drags in my 1HZ (un)powered 100 series.....

Paul

[flyology]

Ahhhhhhh.............. in relation to the comment that you cannot get water cooler than the ambient air temp, how is it that evaporative airconditioners work? Also why is it that if your wet your arm and wave it around, it feels cooler than waving it around in the air dry? Why did they (and still do) hang water bags on the front of vehicles to cool the water off during a drive on a hot day? Why do we sweat if it has no additional cooling effect?

I think you will find that air passing over water will have a cooling effect and get it cooler than the ambient temperature.

Last of all, I am building a top mount intercooler for my cruiser, because I have limited room in the front, and I do a lot of distance driving, so it was the best option for me. Others may be different. It all boils down to personal opinion and what works for you.......

[me3@neuralfibre.com]

Ahhhhhhh.............. in relation to the comment that you cannot get water cooler than the ambient air temp, how is it that evaporative airconditioners work? Also why is it that if your wet your arm and wave it around, it feels cooler than waving it around in the air dry? Why did they (and still do) hang water bags on the front of vehicles to cool the water off during a drive on a hot day? Why do we sweat if it has no additional cooling effect?

I think you will find that air passing over water will have a cooling effect and get it cooler than the ambient temperature.

Someone - anyone - please save me....

Paul

[80diesel4play]

is easier to cool air. harder to cool water down once it gets warm in the exchanger.

bingo! OMG... what a battle!

[me3@neuralfibre.com]

Ahhhhhhh.............. in relation to the comment that you cannot get water cooler than the ambient air temp, how is it that evaporative airconditioners work? Also why is it that if your wet your arm and wave it around, it feels cooler than waving it around in the air dry? Why did they (and still do) hang water bags on the front of vehicles to cool the water off during a drive on a hot day? Why do we sweat if it has no additional cooling effect?

I think you will find that air passing over water will have a cooling effect and get it cooler than the ambient temperature.

Last of all, I am building a top mount intercooler for my cruiser, because I have limited room in the front, and I do a lot of distance driving, so it was the best option for me. Others may be different. It all boils down to personal opinion and what works for you.......

You know you may have jsut put me onto a brillaint idea. I'm gonna patent this and be rich.

All those leaky old cores, well I'm going to sell them as the radiator for a new w2a system. All the leaks will be "built in evaporative cooling". This beats those expensive water spray systems hands down, and leaky cores - man ppl just normally throw them in the bin. Why didn't I think of this before.

Course - it'll need to be topped up every few hundred metres, but water is cheap.

And evaporative cooling onl works if there is water evaproating, so I might have to "calibrate" the leaks, but a hammer and scredriver to punch holes in it would do the job.

Hmm - evaporative cooling doesn't work in humid places, so maybe for those places if we move that silly a/c core from inside the car to in front of the cooler it woudl work EVEN BETTER! Airconditioned intercooling - that'll make it cold.

Man, I am gonna be so rich with ideas like this.

Paul

[PTW]

I'm running a DTS top mount on a 1HDT in the middy, was put on by the previous owner. It uses a Nissan bonnet scoop however the air was not going properly thru the cooler as there were gaps all around. I made up a rubber shroud to stop that and seems to be working better.

[rockcrawler31]

Ahhhhhhh.............. in relation to the comment that you cannot get water cooler than the ambient air temp, how is it that evaporative airconditioners work? Also why is it that if your wet your arm and wave it around, it feels cooler than waving it around in the air dry? Why did they (and still do) hang water bags on the front of vehicles to cool the water off during a drive on a hot day? Why do we sweat if it has no additional cooling effect?

I think you will find that air passing over water will have a cooling effect and get it cooler than the ambient temperature.

Last of all, I am building a top mount intercooler for my cruiser, because I have limited room in the front, and I do a lot of distance driving, so it was the best option for me. Others may be different. It all boils down to personal opinion and what works for you.......

You know you may have jsut put me onto a brillaint idea. I'm gonna patent this and be rich.

All those leaky old cores, well I'm going to sell them as the radiator for a new w2a system. All the leaks will be "built in evaporative cooling". This beats those expensive water spray systems hands down, and leaky cores - man ppl just normally throw them in the bin. Why didn't I think of this before.

Course - it'll need to be topped up every few hundred metres, but water is cheap.

And evaporative cooling onl works if there is water evaproating, so I might have to "calibrate" the leaks, but a hammer and scredriver to punch holes in it would do the job.

Hmm - evaporative cooling doesn't work in humid places, so maybe for those places if we move that silly a/c core from inside the car to in front of the cooler it woudl work EVEN BETTER! Airconditioned intercooling - that'll make it cold.

Man, I am gonna be so rich with ideas like this.

Paul

too much emotion and underinformed sarcasm in this thread methinks, it's a technical debate not a pissing competition.

As i see it (and yes i'm biased because i'm fitting a w2a on my 1hz) i agree that there is another step involved in a w2a heat exchanger. However i think zoltan had it right when he said it should be done right with an over engineered system. Not to mention the fact that while there is an extra step, no one has bothered to point out that conductive heat transfer (water and solids) is more effective than convective (air) (i think those are the correct words). so the waving the arm analogy is wrong but he's onthe right track. There's no evaporation involved and as long as there is a large enough radiator it should be just as effective as an air to air. Funnily enough i would think that "a large enough radiator" would be similar in size to the a2a surface area equivalent that you would use. It's my belief that neither is more or less effective than the other when you put it this way.

The reason i have gone to the trouble and expense of a w2a is justified like this then

a. i don't want a top mount of any description as it's just a heat soak
b. i don't want a front mount as i want maximum cooling for the radiator and i don'thave the room anyway
c. on the tray it's out of the way of mud and crap
d. if there's a rad on the tray it can be as big as i want it to be. if it's not big enough it's no drama to go bigger.
e. later if i get keen i can put a ice/water exchanger in the flow path for short competition events or sand/drag runs.

enough of the pissing contest already

[MUSS]

Barno..... bloke do search 1st before posting you will find more info on this then the origin of the weetbix in wikipedia which i can assure you will stop alot of mis-interpreted info confusing you and pad whores hijacking your thred

ifyou ask me the guru to talk to is dumbdunce......his info and input certainly helped me with my decision

http://www.outerlimits4x4.com/ftopic128 ... ntercooler

http://www.outerlimits4x4.com/ftopic145 ... ntercooler

http://www.outerlimits4x4.com/ftopic131 ... ntercooler

http://www.outerlimits4x4.com/ftopic112 ... ntercooler

[matt.mcinnes]

It's a never ending argument, but here is my opinion.

Air to Air, cheapest and simplest solution, no moving parts. Then you have front mount over top mount. These have there own advantages and disadvantages. Top mounts have shorter flow lengths but suffer more from heat soak and tend to be limited in size. Front mounts have more lag due to size and piping, routing the pipe work and keeping the factory look is also much harder.

So a lot of this decision comes down to use, budget and boost.

Air to water is more complex requiring a pump and heat exchanger, but size for size done correctly can be very effective. The issue here is as some one pointed out before, most heat exchangers for the intercoolers are undersize and suffer heat soak after a short period of time. Some one also mentioned petrol V diesel and time on boost, this is very true. So this also effects the decisions you have.

Their is no easy answer, my own personal frustration is data or the lack of it. Wether it be air to air or air to water few tell you more than what HP they support, when what you need to know is how well they cool and the power gains this gives you.

Marin's TD42 we water to air intercooled returned a 29% gain in torque and 26% gain in KW and retained the factory look. As you can see though the heat exchanger is not small to achieve this. All that was altered was the fuel to match the colder denser air, EGT's are also much lower even with the power increase.





Couple of links with more details.

http://www.patrol4x4.com/forum/showthre ... t=laminova

http://www.outerlimits4x4.com/ftopic164 ... t=laminova

Not forgetting now my little old FJ40 with it's 2F running the same size intercooler as Marin's but in a different configuration. 180rwkw and 560nm of torque



My heat exchanger is in the rear and been petrol much smaller

[me3@neuralfibre.com]

Their is no easy answer, my own personal frustration is data or the lack of it. Wether it be air to air or air to water few tell you more than what HP they support, when what you need to know is how well they cool and the power gains this gives you.

www.are.com.au has some good info from their data loggers.

Paul