Hey everyone.

Just something I've been pondering for a little while.

When fitting an intercooler to a force inducted car, does it matter if it's fitted before or after the turbo/blower?

It seems to be common practice to fit them after the compressor, but I figured if the turbo/blower heats the air up by X and then the cooler cools it down by Y, then it wouldn't matter which order that they are in.

If anyone has any more experience on this I'd love for you to give your advice.



Smiley

EFI or Carby ???

It's gotta be after.

Compressing air by a turbo or supercharger generates heat.
intercooler just sheds some of that heat so putting it before is not going to do anything except add weight.

Come on Mr Mezz you having one of them fancy turbo and intercooler thingys in your bug like I don't should know that one

Although interfoolers impress the chicks even when a turbo isn't necessary
also be sure to mount the number plate to the side for maximum respect...

its called the law of diminishing returns!

I don't think it matters if it's EFI or Carbied. Principle is the same on both.

I thought that you would chime in Joel, and I knew thqat if you did you'd have the answers.

When you ran the SC12 in your car did you give any consideration to an intercooler? Did the engine temps go up by any noticeable amount? Was the oil hotter?



Smiley

Yep EFI and carb doesn't matter unless its draw through carb which brings me to my blower.

Cant run an intercooler with a draw through carb setup.
Because the fuel mix is going through the blower/turbo you cant then feed that through the intercooler, good chance it could explode, not to mention the fuel wouldnt stay in suspension as a vapour so engine wouldn't run too well.

Wouldnt matter if it was EFI though as only air is going through, 4Agze toytoas that SC12s come off are intercooled draw through but efi.

The answer for carbed draw through setups is water injection.

I see. Very good information.

Did your engine run hotter at all?


I think you would have to run some sort of intercooler/water injection if you wanted the engine to last a decent amount of time. To keep the inlet temps down and the heads running cooler.



Smiley

Nah not with the boost I ran.

Intake temp and boost are related, the more you crank the boost up the more heat is generated.

It really depends on so many things but if boost levels are kept sensible engines can live high mileage.
100s of factory turbo model cars never had intercoolers.

Ok. Here's a question for those playing at home.

Lets say we have a fuel injected system with a supercharger and an intercooler. Does the throttle body go before or after the blower? And if after does it go before or after the intercooler?



Smiley

The TB can go either side but if it goes after (blow through) you need a blow off valve to vent boost on throttle shut to stop compressor surge and blowing intake hoses.

Quote:

Originally posted by Smiley Quote: Originally posted by Joel The TB can go either side but if it goes after (blow through) you need a blow off valve to vent boost on throttle shut to stop compressor surge and blowing intake hoses. So with a fuel injected setup are there any other advantages/disadvantages of a blow through compared to a draw through?? Smiley

Yeah I'm aware of it, there's been a few threads on Shoptalk forums about it but you can't compare that to your average back yard force fed conversion running on oridinary pump fuel and besides look at the size of it, w2a charge coolers are more effecient and compact yes but it's still tiny and wouldn't be doing all that much on an engine that size.