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....

[Katmanken]

Ghuff,

I don't disagree that properly designed ducting increases efficiency on any front mounted radiators -air, water or oil. Colin Chapman proved that with his much copied radiator design used on his Lotus products. Colin found that for front mounted radiators, the proper shrouding design produced a 3-4X cooliing factor. He used shrouding that acted like a scoop and directed high pressure air into the front of the radiator. The shrouding also created a low pressure area behind the radiator for a push-me pull-you effect and much greater efficiency.

The 914 is a different case- engine is in the middle and out of the airflow. Unlike mounting an intercooler in a stream of cool air, the problem is more like putting an intercooler in a box with a small hole in it for airflow and a coupla fans to pull through. If the air flow comes from the bottom of the car, then the air run across the intercooler will be hotter than air drawn from higher up. That says placing the intercooler into a location that can receive cooler air would be good.

One of my suggestions is placing the intercooler in the spoiler. When the car moves, you get high pressure on one side, low pressure on the other, with the spoiler acting as a part of a duct.

Here's a thought. Go back and look at the Lamborghini Countach. The car has the same problem- midship engine, vertical rear window, and cooling in the rear. There were a lot of design changes over the years from the sleek prototype to the variety of later versions where they tried to get the radiators to cool properly. Maybe one of them will provide an idea for intercooler placement.