Making a top mount intercooler and have a plumbing question.

[rdomeck]

Thanks for some positive reinforcement. I was beginning to wonder if I should have even ask the question. I measured the factory piping last night and I came up with 98" That's over 8 feet of plumbing to push through. I will end up with 13" of piping. I am thinking of making a smaller radiator and A/C condenser so that I will have a clear path of air going into the bottom of the intercooler and venting out the top. For now I am going to have to run it with the top coming in and venting through the bottom as I just don't have time to do the duct work until this fall. I will be running with a very simple hood opening as well!

I still believe with some simple duct work for now and maybe some fans I can have some success.

I also want to measure the pressure and temperature difference before and after to see what I'm loosing and gaining. Anybody know what kind of temperature or pressure drop I should be looking for? I have welded in some places on each end tank that I can tap for sensors. I will post some pictures later tonight!

 

It's crossed my mind before to try a top mount myself. I've found the most pleasure to be had is in deviating slightly from what others believe to be the ideal. There is supposed to be a decent drop in under hood temperature to be had, if you put washers between the bonnet and hinges to let the air excape. also it might give you another 1/2" of space to play with. A series 4 rx-7 hood scoop would look good /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif A book that covers this type of thing and the testing of it too is "21st Centuary Performance" click I believe it is the bible for people like yourself.

Here's an RX7 race car I painted

The moment I seen that scoop I knew it was meant for a top mount vr4 /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Barnes]

A fair number of the people questioning and/or objecting aren't just naysayers from the peanut gallery. They legitimately want to help with your project, and have concerns about your choice. There is nothing wrong with that. The OP is relatively new and we have no idea of his technical capabilities or fabrication skills. We don't know if he is aware of what he is facing. Also, some things work, some don't. Many folks here know what does and does not work. Other things are just way harder for no good reason. We bring these issues up so that at least people can have an informed decision.

I'm still convinced this isn't a great idea. I think you are going to make a lot of work for yourself with no guarantee of results. Airflow to an FMIC is very straight forward in the front, and very odd under the hood. You have to start considering pressure differentials and where air wants to go, and where it needs to go. I'm fairly confident that in your design you will be pushing hot air through the FMIC, and potentially not much.

Also, the idea of very short IC pipe runs has been covered many times. The general consensus is that it doesn't make enough difference to justify causing yourself any hassle. That being said, there has been no empirical evidence either way. It would be pretty cool if you actually took pressure/temperature measurements.

 

[rdomeck]

Justin, That's a good thought. I will look for one of those hoods around town.... If not this is something similar to what I had in mind to make! Also thanks for the recommendation on the book. I will order it tomorrow. You can never have enough knowledge.





So my intercooler measure 11"X15"....165 square inches. The factory one is 49 square inches....So I'm more than 3 times the factory cooler size and about an 1/8 the overall piping!

 

[GSX_TC]

Quoting Beaner:
SteveW, if he is a troll, you are a shitty grammar cop.

Quoting mistaVR4:
also, please work on your grammer, that seems to be very important on this site, you missed a period on the quote listed above....


Grammar is spelled with an A.
You incorrectly use 2 comma splices.
Your run-on sentence was ended with an incorrect ellipsis.

I won't even bother with the top half of your equally contributing post.



Lmao!!! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rofl.gif what an idiot man. Maybe instead of bitching about peoples opinions he should go learn how to spell sh*t.

 

[GSX_TC]

Like I'm a f***ing troll?! Is this douche bag serious?! I guess this TROLL photographed EVERY VR4 and 1g at MOD and then posted then all up for y'all. Geez, the nerve of some people..

 

Quote:
I will order it tomorrow



And I'm sure you won't regret it, it does have some fairly indepth info on top and front mounts, and even testing of pinted vs unpainted etc. The making of a air to water (actualy what that RX-7 was running).
Regarding the slightly more negative comments on this set-up, maybe there is some truth to what they are trying to tell you. Top mounts do have the nick name "inter-heater" but that doesn't mean you won't see good results from this. Like you say, if it just doesn't work for you then just stick it on the fron't. actualy it seems more like a side mount /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rofl.gif Good luck /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[rdomeck]

Quoting Barnes:
A fair number of the people questioning and/or objecting aren't just naysayers from the peanut gallery. They legitimately want to help with your project, and have concerns about your choice. There is nothing wrong with that. The OP is relatively new and we have no idea of his technical capabilities or fabrication skills. We don't know if he is aware of what he is facing. Also, some things work, some don't. Many folks here know what does and does not work. Other things are just way harder for no good reason. We bring these issues up so that at least people can have an informed decision.

I'm still convinced this isn't a great idea. I think you are going to make a lot of work for yourself with no guarantee of results. Airflow to an FMIC is very straight forward in the front, and very odd under the hood. You have to start considering pressure differentials and where air wants to go, and where it needs to go. I'm fairly confident that in your design you will be pushing hot air through the FMIC, and potentially not much.

Also, the idea of very short IC pipe runs has been covered many times. The general consensus is that it doesn't make enough difference to justify causing yourself any hassle. That being said, there has been no empirical evidence either way. It would be pretty cool if you actually took pressure/temperature measurements.



Jon, I will provide some data on this subject. I have not seen anyone doing this and I have to think it's more because of the trouble involved. It has taken some thought and consideration as to how to make everything fit. Has anyone measured the difference in pressure or temperature in the FMIC that I can compare too? Has anyone done the same on the TMIC? The old saying you never know tell you try....Well has anyone tried this and with what results? Lots of STi's are running around with this setup!

I would really like to see some hard data on the pressure and temperature drops. It will take me some time to get sensors in place and provide some data, but it will happen. If this thing doesn't work I will be glad to say it and I'll come up with something different. I should be able to fire this thing up this weekend!

 

[cheekychimp]

I wouldn't completely dismiss the heat soak issue but then again front mounts can heat soak too. I also think the failure to properly duct most front mounts means most are far from their most efficient. I am sure the key to your success with this is ducting it properly. When you think how hot the exhaust manifold and down pipe get and how close a front mount sits to those, I don't really think your design is any worse. My only suggestion might be fans to keep air moving over the cooler and prevent hot air building up around it under the hood whilst stationary or in stop and go traffic.

 

[beaner]

GSX_TC, I could think of some good titles to put under his username.

rdomeck, I instantly think of the old GTOs having the "ram air", which didn't really work because of the way the air moved around the front of the car. click Scroll down to July 22. If there's an optimal spot for your intake scoop, it seems like the most reasonable way to find out.

 

[broxma]

I feel the location is very well oriented for a nice water/air cooler which is what we (Jason and I) are currently in the process of developing. Outside of the water/air in that location I can't see any benefit from running an air/air in that same location. If doing something for the sake of being different is the only motivation, and it would have what I believe to be a negative performance impact versus current options, then I am simply not understanding the initiative. By a wide margin, a water/air core properly, possibly even poorly built, would out perform even the best possible scenario anyone could manage from the TMIC setup. The Subaru which is specifically designed for this type of intercooler setup, has lower TB intake temps with an equal or even smaller sized Water/air core, in the same location as the stocker. I just fail to see how reinventing the wheel on this one is anything other than unique and in no way can be quantifiably(sp? is this even a word) better than previous approaches.

Subjectively, I think it is an interesting approach but don't understand the need. Objectively, I think it makes no sense at all. That being said, my subjective side will be glad to help in any way I can.

/brox

 

[belize1334]

Quote:
I feel the location is very well oriented for a nice water/air cooler which is what we (Jason and I) are currently in the process of developing.



That's something we definitely agree upon. Hence my Air/Water IC setup which places the core exactly there. click

 

[AnotherNewb]

Correct me if im dumb but if your going to use a half radiator for clearance of the pipes then why not place a fmic on the other half of the radiator support. You can keep your don't bumper, better airflow and still have shorter piping than stock.

 

[Nabeel]

i think you better to go front mount & you dont have to cut the bumper bracket. specially you are building an intercooler. Upper mount will make you problem later. Just think about the Air filter location & you know' tuning & modifications required to do a alot of work under the hood. will you take off the intercooler every time you decide to do something at that aria? Also the radiator fan blowing hot air at this aria..

 

[alansupra94]

Make sure you log them IAT temperatures. I am curious to see if this would work.

What fuel are you running? Sorry if I missed that but I didn't feel like reading all the mumbo jumbo.

 

[Boostdtalon]

I'm trying to find the topic on Tuners. There was a Guy that made a TMIC for his 1g. He thought it thru and it came out really nice. He had all kinds of information on his build and I believe he posted logs to show IAT's.


Edit: didn't find what I was looking for but I found a link with pictures of his engine bay. Hope it helps.

 

[RedTwo]

Interesting, even if I struggle to see it working /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
One thing to note that every factory top mount I've ever seen is tiny, so changing to a larger (front mount or not) I/C will typically result in a performance increase of some sort. I think the FC3S RX7s have the largest ones but they are still around 250mm each way - which incidentally, apparently flow incredibly well for their size.

Where you've mocked up that I/C over the gearbox would be where I'd love a massive dry ice box like Bazeng runs /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif If I ever start another car, I'll definately be going water-ice/air.

Good luck, and kudos for working outside the box.

 

[2of9]

It'd be interesting to see. I swear I've seen a DSM have one in the engine bay once with proper heat shields of such. I've also seen an turbocharged 92 Accord have the DSM side-mount IC inside the engine bay on a website (backyard turbochargers...or something like that)

 

[rdomeck]

Well as it turns out I am going to have to put off finishing this thing. I managed to get 6 stitches in my hand last week....Last night I put my hand into my 20" disc sander in the same spot and ripped out all my stitches and took out the top of my hand. So what little welding I can do right now needs to be reserved for the paying jobs. On the plus side I will order a FMIC and run it for a while and then in the fall I will switch to my design and have some good feedback on which one works better.

Anybody know of a good FMIC setup?

 

[Boostdtalon]

ETS is always a first choice but expensive. Other than that doing a custom setup is what most seem to do.