Intercooler Placement IDEAs Needed., Need a better option.....Love my water to air, but open Options

[budman5201]

As all you probably know, i have a ej20 turbo subaru in my car. I love it and it runs great, but now i am at the point where i want to streamline how well the system works.......

First matter of attention is the intercooler placement. I have a small water to air intercooler tucked in front of the pulley on my subaru motor. It works great, but i am getting a little too much heat soak on the aluminum tubes leading to it. I was debating an idea of putting it in the rear trunk or in the fender since placement wouldnt be a factor because its a water to air. I do like the one members ORANGE nice turbo car on 914world here with the air/air one in the back and vent in the wing.....

Looking for ideas....

[Rand]

It doesn't matter which way the air would flow naturally. In stock form it comes from above - the tin blocks the bottom off and the fan sucks cool air in through the engine lid.

All that is really a moot point, because you are not going to have a lot of air naturally wanting to flow either direction in such a velocity as to be useful for this application. It's the fans that are going to move the air through your intercooler and natural airflow isn't going to make any significant difference.

Therefor, my point was you will want those fans to be moving the coolest air - obviously cold air works better than hot air. If you move the air upwards, it's going to be coming from the engine bay... a much hotter air source than the outside air you could pull down from above.

I would put it near a cool air source and pull it in from outside. The engine lid is a sensible choice. The wheel well or under the car is dirtier and warmer. Anyplace else you'll have to do some cutting.

[ottox914]

Therefor, my point was you will want those fans to be moving the coolest air - obviously cold air works better than hot air. If you move the air upwards, it's going to be coming from the engine bay... a much hotter air source than the outside air you could pull down from above.

I would put it near a cool air source and pull it in from outside. The engine lid is a sensible choice. The wheel well or under the car is dirtier and warmer. Anyplace else you'll have to do some cutting.

Which is how and why my IC ended up where it did- source of cool air, and behind the targa is a spot of low pressure, making the job of the fans pulling cool air thru the IC that much easier, and if pulling air thru the IC would happen to provide a slight air pressure increase to the engine fan, so much the better, since with a stock cooling motor and tins, the cooling air goes from top down.

Aero info: http://www.cassidy-online.com/porsche914/a...aids/index.html