improving your stock air to air intercooler

[sambb]

Most of you are probably well aware that a big front mount air to air intercooler is the go for high speed/sustained high boost applications as they can shed heat quickly in real time when air flow is good. However if air to air intercoolers are tucked away with limited air flow when on the move, have little access to ambient air when stopped, and hardly any mass to help them heatsink in those situations (eg OUR STOCK INTERCOOLER) then this might be an answer:

Black Intercoolers Mythbusted - YouTube

I'd been looking at running an IC fan to limit heatsoak in stop start traffic. The controller that would run it determines if the car is stopped/barely moving by monitoring MAF flows. But now that I've seen this, I'm guessing that those of us with the stock intercooler might have a simpler answer.

[pologti18t]

I'd been looking at running an IC fan to limit heatsoak in stop start traffic. The controller that would run it determines if the car is stopped/barely moving by monitoring MAF flows. But now that I've seen this, I'm guessing that those of us with the stock intercooler might have a simpler answer.

But....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_mmmXTbLP0

[noone]

wheel arch (pikey?) mod.

other than that, its not worth the coin compared to a propper FMIC IMO.

[sambb]

I watched his vid and TBH I reckon he's clutching at straws a bit. He talks about the two aspects of intercoolers - that they act as convectors when they have air flowing through them and as radiators when they don't but then proceeds to only talk about the convection aspect, which in the test and to my mind was shown as not significantly different. ??
The test in the first link shows that a black painted intercooler acting as a convector ( shedding core heat to the air passing through it) is within 3 % of the non-painted intercooler. The guy in the link above uses a massive equation to confirm what we already knew from the test and then tries to say that the 3 degree difference is significant. In my view 3 degrees is F.... all, and a small price to pay for the huge change that they saw in the test when the intercooler had to work well as a radiator when it had no air flowing through it.
He says nothing though about the huge change when a black painted intercooler acted amazingly as a radiator ie when a heat soaked intercooler is sitting there at the lights with no air flowing through it. The conclusions in the test on how an intercooler can shed heat as a radiator when it is heatsoaked if painted black are pretty solid. That is the only part of the test that I care about because its a major limitation of the stock intercooler - the fact that it heatsoaks badly when stationary. First blat once you hit open road after being stuck in the traffic cooking your IC and you'll probably have less power, big timing pull or worse. Actually most of the early toyota air to air intercoolers were black ( 4AGZE, supras etc) and I'd be willing to bet my left nut that if black intercoolers were seen as the aesthetic be all and end all in the way that shiny polished ones are, then most would be sold as such, but the opposite is true. Yes if a black air to air IC is out in the sun it will absorb energy from the sun but thats not applicable for the stock IC location.
I've got a heat shield between the engine bay and IC void. My heatshield (the shape of it) and guard vent must be getting the air flowing through the IC tract so it can convect better because I can freaking hammer the car through the park and pull over and touch the IC and plenum and neither are hot like they used to be for the price of $0. So if I can increase my stock IC's ability to shed/radiate heat away when it would otherwise be heatsoaking by an amount that even approaches what they saw in that test, then spraying it with $15 bucks worth of paint is good value for money to me.

[Lucas_R]

Why not invest $400 into a water injection setup which will give you about 1000% better results than painting the cooler black or running a fan etc. the water vapour drops your inlet temps dramatically (especially on a turbo car) and will allow the ECU to run more timing = more power. Quite a few guys with Golf R's are picking up an additional 10-15kw atw when adding water injection.

[sambb]

yeah I've definitely looked at water injection and may still go that way. To be clear I'm in no way saying painting a stock intercooler black is going to to be a magic bullet. I think the test showed it may help with heatsoak issues arisng from stop start driving but would do nothing for IAT reduction when fanging around - but if you could get IAT's down by say 15 degrees in stop start traffic for the price of a can of paint, wouldn't that be worth a look?

[noone]

What mods are you working with?

I found the FMIC made the biggest difference in traffic and during summer. Being tuned is the biggest factor, creates a lot more heat to dissipate.

[sambb]

engine wise I have CC phase 1, TIP and CAI pipe to airbox, 3inch dump+200 cell, plugs, diverter, turbosmart IWG75 wastegate actuator with 7psi spring, ported exhaust manifold and turbo wastegate path (K03s).
I have my boost levels mimicking phase 1 levels (running 19psi max at the moment) even though I'm running the 3 inch and cat, and the AFR is nice and safe at 12:1, Phase 1 seems to have the timing pulled well back so I'm pretty sure the engine is pretty detonation proof as it is.
FMIC simpy ain't going to happen due to $ constraints. If I was going to spend the bucks I'd be going for water to air anyway. What I can pull off cheaply and easily though is running a fan to take care of traffic heatsoak and an IC water spray for when I'm up it or something along those lines.

[vwthunder]

I think water to air would cost a lot more than an normal intercooler setup

If you are on a tight budget a basic intercooler is the way to go

[sambb]

yeah you're right, generally air to air would come in cheaper. Its hard to do either cheaply - you'll either commit funds or not, but when I do I don't think the difference between the two will be too great and i'll be able to buy the parts I need bit by bit...gets the expenditure under the radar if you know what I mean. I just really like the concept of water to air and theoretically it is well suited to on/off boost & traffic type conditions if done properly. I reckon by moving the fuel tank evap circuit and other emissions pipework in front of the master cylinder and slotting a core in there will be tidy and have a super short inlet tract. A core similar to the small plazmaman wrx ones looks the goods. I have/had all the pipe work, pump, fittings, a controller etc and I can do all the work/wiring myself. I'll just hang out for some good prices on a condenser and core and then I can do it. In the meantime I'll get by doing the other stuff I talked about above.