Raj B

I have a large capacity radtec front mount intercooler on my s2, there is no room at all in engine bay, im thinking about using a charge cooler as they take up a lot less space. Just after some advice on if this would be a good idea? dont know if charge coolers are any good.

Any help would be great

RobL

i had one on mine although ive recently replaced it with a GRS frontmount
i couldnt fault it to be honest but i wasnt running a lot of boost.
ive not used my car since the GRS has been on so cant really compare the two but ive noticed the water temperature is a lot higher since taking the chargecooler off.

Tony Turbo

Depends how you drive the car. If you drive it hard a lot or use it on track you will eventually heat up the water so it will not cool the air going through it. Intercoolers are better for high powered car.

No room in the engine bay? You do know that it goes in front of the radiator, don't you?

Ad4m RST

What i was thinking

But definitely stick with your front mount, unless its a proper setup a charge cooler won't do as good a job.

Raj B

lol, yep I do know, but there isnt much room, I want the fans mounted onto the rad as they should be and the front of the cooler bare to maximize the cooling surface area. Im having to do a bit of messing around with a bit of alloy fabrication to allow for the extra room. The turbo is really close to the rad so its a bit of a pain. Thats what I meant by not much room.

Dont know much about charge coolers so im new to them, any advice is greatly welcome

Tony Turbo

They will fit, you just have to move the intercooler forward. Loads of people have the fans on the rad including myself and the radiator is in the standard position.

Raj B

did you notice lower water and charge temps than having them on the front?

Turbocabbie

I would not use a charge cooler as any air to liquid heat exchanger is limited in performance as once the liquid is heated past a given temperature it fails to be as effective.

Its a bit of a white lie imho that charge coolers take up less space as most solutions have a pre-rad, a pump and take which must all be located somewhere along with the associated piping

Raj B

well I was toying with the ideal of having the rad in the boot with a fan and air ducting, the pipeing would be the length of the car allowing plenty of time for colling, I would have to run an uprated pump setup etc, but was just an idea, i have seent the same sort of method used on a oil cooler which was very very effective for cooling

Chip

iTrader: (3)

I use a charge cooler on my nova, enormous thing, and then the radiator for it at the other end of the car, works a treat for me, just doenst even get warm, although im currently only running about 10psi, which gives me not much more than 300bhp.

This is my one:

Turbocabbie

given the choice chip in an ideal situation which would you prefer to run and why ?

Raj B

300bhp? wouldnt drag you out of bed!!!lol

thats mega power mate!!! impressive stuff, so would you recomnemnd c-cooler with rad in the boot etc??

Ad4m RST

Put the rad in the boot and a GRS 500 cooler at the front

When i had a big front mount i mounted fans between rad & IC but with one mounted to each if you know what i mean...

Raj B

lol, too big, still want my boot space, I can put the charge cooler rad in a ducted box as its only small. Ive got a radtec at the mo, is grs really a lot better?? because im mounting the intercool forward i think im going to have to remove the bonnet release so bonnet pins will have to be used :-(

Chip

iTrader: (3)

on a front engined setup, an intercooler, less weight and less complicatd, and I would be prepared to sacrifice the looks to have it

Ad4m RST

If you go for bonnet pins get something proper like Aerocatch, just sold a set i'd had for ages but they're strong/lockable and sit pretty flush...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=170219741089

Turbocabbie

wow seems like a lot of complicated problems for no gain to me, so far we have been discussing boot mounted tanks, boot mounted radiators and other bits

bit drastic imho simply fix the problem, other people can run 250 to 300 hp without resulting to this kind of action why can you not ?

my front mount intercooler touches my radiator and both performs really really well

Tony Turbo

I've never had fans on the front of my car. Blocks the intercooler, doesn't make sense to me to do it that way round.

Turbocabbie

Your car only does not get hot because the engine hasn't run since global warming has been a concern.


get the car out again Tony !!

Tony Turbo

That's what you think