Thread: air to air intercooler idea

Okay I know this has been talked about before many times but never done.
I also know they have these in austrailia with decent success.
Basically what I am going to do is make a adaptor plate under my gen v to shove the air through a front mount and back to the motor much like a turbo.
If this idea sucks I will just go turbo and be done.
I have a plate fabbed up and im going to put this all on soon.

One possible drawback is boost loss. I run a 3.2 pulley right now with 11psi. When done I dont want to have to drop down to a 2.5" pulley to see the same 11 psi that would be gaining nothing for me. So I have to run as short of piping and as small of intercooler as I can while still being efficient.
I know there is a debate on air to air vs. water to air and I dont want that debate to make it in here.

All I want is ideas and opinoins on facts and not interested in well i know it wont work cuz i just know.
Ive been reading up on it for like a year and ready to try it.

When Im done ill be dyno'ing for before and after with what pulley drop I got. and the IAT sensor is going on the piping as it enters the intake manifold so I will have accurate data to the temp drop Im getting.
Just need ideas as to have enter and exit on what side do you guys want and so forth, as I will be selling these for much cheaper than the kits we can get now Im shooting for a $700 ballpark for a kit.

Boost is a measure of restriction based on your flow mods...honestly as nice as it'd be to have a A2A IC...look at how large the cores are and how they route on the Aussie cars...you'd have IC pipe running out the passenger side fender. It's been tired...which is why the W2A IC's are tried and true...and you'd save money in the long run because as much as I'd give you props to make it work...the money it'd cost to re-create them and sell them wouldn't really be cost effective IMO.

This is an example of an Aussie core...



See what I mean?

Let me see your adapter plate.

cost wise im making them by hand and machining them myself. I have the plate that seperates the outgoing from the ingoing air fabbed in a way that both will be routed under the throttle body and a intercooler with same side enter and exit will have to be used

I dont feel that this will be a mod that we can use with alot of flow mods cuz were already running smaller pullies and I feel we will run out of pully drop sizes.
I think that this will more target the beginner modder who has quite a few pully drops to spare due to the loss in boost presure from this kit.

One of the reviews of the assue one says that they dynod a stock car and was 10psi on a 4" pulley. Then they installed a kit with a 2.6" and seen 13 psi and gained 180hp total with the intercooler and pulley drop. and probably injectors etc etc anyways Thats 3 psi more boost with a drop 1.4" Thats terrible lol
So the numbers are deffinatly odd

It's not about boost numbers...your not getting the concept.

These cars love 10-13psi. Most blower cars that make the best numbers don't make THAT much boost. Also, more boost = more heat = heat soaked IC = More Parasitic Loss = Crappy HP #'s/Times.

My blue car at WOT makes about 10-11psi. At the shift. No intercooler, no methanol, pump gas, Headers, Ported Heads, L32 valves, P&P'd LIM/Blower, LS1 TB setup...still on a GenIII with 42.5lb injectors and on a 3.0"

Yes I know what boost is and how the numbers mean nothing compared to flow. My point was that they did nothing to help the motor flow any better such as no cam or rockers and had to drop all them pully sizes to get back to that boost level once the intercooler was installed

sorry for the confusion it wasnt a "yay it made 180 more horse", it was more of a "jeez look at how many pullies they had to drop to get the boost back up"

i hate being negative, but i just dont see how this is going to be cost effective. what ever the price of this and an intercooler core i just dont see it really dropping the air temp that much. the restriction it will create as well... i doubt the additional timing will make up for it. i feel the money would be spend for flow mods or a W to A IC. somone wanting to save money could always just make their own W to A IC from a cheep trany/oil cooler and some wood.

its been done, theres a local that built that with a whipple blower. cant get it tuned to run right atm. ill try and get pictures

to fill the intercooler core and piping doesnt take as much as you think. the boost loss isnt going to be as bad as you're making it out to be.

however, an air to water intercooler will be more effective and cheaper in the long run.

I love the A2A intercooler idea. Not sure why you are worried about the pressure drop. Air density increases with temp drop. This is what intercoolers do.

On the other hand, boost lag will appear with A2A.

Lets see what you made?

Something to think about as well is that this would create a better spot to introduce meth into the airstream as well, a good spot that wbody m90's lack. If the a/a isn't working out well then there is still potential with that.

There's boost drop on w/a setups as well...

Water to air is more efficent, yeilds better results and is easier to configure. Air to Air would be a waste of time IMO. WTA you can get Below Ambient temps with Ice boxs.

Originally Posted by Bio248

to fill the intercooler core and piping doesnt take as much as you think. the boost loss isnt going to be as bad as you're making it out to be.

however, an air to water intercooler will be more effective and cheaper in the long run.

Thats one of the reasons I am doing it just too see what the boost loss is.
Not saying this is better than a water to air but will for sure be cheaper and perhaps better. IDK yet.

Originally Posted by FoSHO99

Something to think about as well is that this would create a better spot to introduce meth into the airstream as well, a good spot that wbody m90's lack. If the a/a isn't working out well then there is still potential with that.

There's boost drop on w/a setups as well...

There would be plenty of room for a meth inj. kit. I am getting one really soon also

Plus ive seen the assue's cars dyno but im not sure what KW to HP conversions are.

I have seen many cars utilize air to airs on roots blowers, just surf the miata forums yes I know miata's suck but they do it also. They have been experimenting with throttle body places to get the lag down . For sure the maff will have to be relocated closer to the intake on the piping coming back to the intake, cuz thats were most of the tuning problems come from. Once the maff is relocated then alot of the florring and your car about falls on its face stops.