An interesting project I've been involved in lately is fabricating and welding a top mount intercooler system for an early 80's petrol Jackaroo. We considered front mount's but a severe lack of space meant we decided to go down the top mount route.
The car owner fabricated his own turbo system using a blow through setup on his existing carby, it worked quite well but detonation under high temps with standard fuel meant he needed to cool the intake charge. That's where I came in as I've built a number of custom intercoolers for different applications and this was quite a challenge.
He managed to source a factory diesel turbo bonnet/scoop/seal assembly so that gave us core sizes we needed. I would have preferred a slightly longer core but due to the carby position we were stuck with what we eventually ended up with. Luckily the height we had to play with allowed us to us a 75mm thick core so volume was quite good considering it's only a 2 litre engine.
He's had it on for little over a week and is very happy with his performance gains and the ability to now run the car on standard fuel. Throttle response is excellent and the cooler seems to work a treat with a very nice temperature drop on the outlet side.
I guess it just goes to show that not all top mounts should be disregarded for performance gains. (depending on application of course.)
Regards Andrew.
