Rep Power: 511

i know this question is probally pretty lame, but why dont non-turbo cars run intercoolers? i mean, if it cools down the air and people want that and get cold air inatkes for it, why not get an intercooler too? now, i dont plan to do this since i will be turbo soon enough, but im just wondering.

 
Rep Power: 607

why would they.........not everyone is looking for power.

Besides..............the air won't get pulled through the IC on an n/a set-up.

 
Rep Power: 0

it does look cool ... just its not as functional without the turbo

 
Rep Power: 0

there's no boost pressure behind it to push it through the intercooler fast enough... you'd actually end up losing a significant amount of power if you mocked up an IC for an non-turbo setup...

 
Rep Power: 0

Turbo created extra heat that n/a cars do no produce. Thats why a intercooler is needed.

 
Rep Power: 327

^^^^ Nod

 
Rep Power: 288

IC jus cools the air that the turbo made

 
Rep Power: 0

^^^^ Great work man, didn't stress too hard getting to the bottom of that one i hope.... lol

anywayz... here's the bottom line, the IC is between the Hot pipe and the cold pipe, the IC drops the temp of the intake charge close to 100 degrees in most cases, sometimes more.... hope that helps

 
Rep Power: 350

OMG, I feel dumber after reading some of these responses. You can actually drop the chage of your intake by running an ic, depending on what the temperature is outside of the car. For a naturally aspirated car, the only heat you're going to see is from two places, the engine and the ambient air temp from outside of the car. Anything you can do to reduce tempeatures from either of these places will result in a cooler intake temp.

It has nothing to do with turbo pressure or "it just doesn't work." It could be beneficial but it's more money and time to route the piping and buy the setup than it would be worth imo.

 
Rep Power: 0

I know a guy here that has a Teg with an IC look-a-like...he says its for his intake...so it does exist guys...I thought it was a IC but he says its part of his intake

 
Rep Power: 296

Andyman, you create a lot of resistance through the intake this way. It will theoretically make the air cooler but it will end up creating enough resistance to lose HP. If you wanna spend like 300 to put an intercooler on your car to go slower, go for it, but you will be better off having someone create a TRUE CAI. By this I mean one that doesnt wind up sitting in the engine compartment next to the header. Something that actually gets a constant flow from outside weather.

 
Rep Power: 350

What makes you think that an intercooler creates resistance? Just because it isn't under pressure doesn't mean it won't flow air at the same speed. Say it's 105 degrees outside, do you think a cai will really feed cooler air into the im than if you had it intercooled? I don't see how an intercooler will create more resistance. It's not like you're cramming more air into a smaller space. When the throttle plate opens, it is going to pull air from the intake, unless there is a vacuum seal, in which case there would be no mixture to burn.

I wish I had a way to prove this though. A good way would be to monitor your a/f with a wideband with an intercooler, then without. Theoretically, you should have a leaner mixture with the intercooler, being as you're supplying the engine with cooler, more dense air but supplyinig the same amount of fuel at any given rpm and throttle position. But, this could also be argued that this could be due to a more restrictive intake flow, like you're saying. The only way to rule that out is to do the math with an accurate air intake temp reading and then do the math. I'm going to do some more research on the subject and see what else I can come up with. But it really doesn't make sense that an intercooler would restrict flow just because the intake air isn't under pressure.

 
Rep Power: 0

hey guys, lament terms please

 
Rep Power: 350

Ok, I've done a little bit more research and here is what I've come up with:

Depending on the size of the intercooler core, you may actually loose a small amount of horsepower due to restriction if the intercooler is small. However, using a larger core lessens the restriction and has been shown to give slight gains.

I have seen smaller side mounted cores used in line with a cold air intake that use CO2 for heat transfer which has shown a 5-7 whp gain over a cai.

As far as factual wideband O2/dyno readings to show a difference between using a basic intercooler in line with a cai and without, I couldn't find any. So anything regarding this subject is going to be hypothetical based on physics, not actual fact, depending on the system you go with, so it's all up to specualtion.

But, the consensus is that it would not be beneficial for the cost to run a regular fmic in line with a cai, however you can see gains if the core is large enough. Food for thought.

 
Rep Power: 296

yeah but dont suck that C02 inta your intake, only chill the cooler at idle.