Originally Posted by bud-weis
So what your saying is , the temp drops will always be linear, hotter in hotter out?
I thought maybe you could have a situation where the intercooler is so efficient it will always cool to a certain temp, and not manage to cool much further, obviously if charge temps get so excessive it will struggle, but with what difference there is between cone and airbox , maybe it could cool both to the same point.
i guess similar to the way chargecoolers only seem to be so effective up to a certain core size, and an increase in core has little or no effect.
i was thinking the reverse is true for I/C 's ?
What happens with ACT as the charge passes through an intercooler is that basically it undergoes what is known in maths as "tending towards a value"
It will NEVER (with the exception of water spray etc) actually manage to equalise temperatures with the outside air, but on a very big intercooler it could get extremely close.
Say you have 75 going in, outside temp of 25 degrees and a massive cooler, you might see 27 degrees for example
Up the input temp to 90, and that might only raise the output temp to 28
So a big difference can result in a very small effect on the engine.
But in another car with an inadeute cooler you may find that a 15 degree rise could result in a 12 degree rise on the output.
Then the fact that no one has mentioned yet, if you have a more restrictive inlet it means the turbo struggles to provide the same boost, and hence raises temperatures by a larger amount than normal.
So even though the air going into the turbo might be slightly warmer the fact that there is so much flow of it can result in a lower temp on the output side of the turbo.
So like i said all along, its VERY application dependant, and like LocalRS says, its far more sensible to just test it than to try and calculate it.