Anyone firmiliar with the NPR truck intercoolers. If you're trying to find a cheap (but good/decent) intercooler and compared to the other OEM coolers (Starion, Supra, etc) how do these NPR stack up to the aftermarket coolers. I've seen two types of NPR cooler, one being bigger than the other. Out of the two, the smaller one sells for more and is more popular in the used market. Is there a reason for that, does it flow more than the bigger one, is it more efficient?

 

Link / Price

 

Mike, I've heard the NPRs are usually good up to 350hp or so, not sure of the flow characteristics and all, but I've seen them on some MK3 and it also seems a lot of turbo Omnis use them too. check this page-->

http://www.speedtoys.com/~stryder/nprinstall.html

its compares its size to the AMS(Alamo Motorsports) MK3 IC, size is rather similar and thats the large AMS IC.

 

There's no link or price. The prices I'm seeing are from local papers and boneyards. To some extent location also dictates cost, because here in S. Fla where they love their old school Starlets, 1st and 2nd gen RX7's, 1.8 Corolla's sometimes these coolers go for high dollars. But my original post was not related to cost factor, more so is it a good flowing efficient cooler compared to other OEM coolers. Just because they local guys are using them doesn't mean it's a good good cooler.

 

That's what I'm talking about, the one this Supra guy is using is the larger of the two NPR cooler. But for some reason the smaller one sells for more, go figure.

 

what are the dimensions of the smaller one? I'm assuming its shorter in height, but same thickness and width/surface area. maybe since its smaller size provides for easier/better fitting installs in some cars commands a higher price.

 

Here's a pic of the smaller one
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...410637429&rd=1


Here's a pic of the larger one
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...410589065&rd=1

That's the best I can come up with

 

only thing I can think of is that one is not in as good condition as the other. have you found any listed anywhere else(ie- car-part.com)?? what do those prices look like? that page that Jim listed on 4DSC had a good breakdown, the small version seems like a decent flowing cooler as compared to the others in their tests...I couldn't see why the larger one with the extra 7" of height would flow worse and its .25" thicker as well. the small one seems decent though!

EDIT: I guess car-parts.com doesn't track "industrial" vehicle junk parts....no NPR parts found!

 

Most coolers can handle 12-15lbs on a daily drive, the question is how efficient (pressure drop) are they when supporting 12-15lbs. Remember that Volvo cooler, I've seen those at the track in a custom set-up (not Volvo related) pushing 15+ lbs and the owner said he's never had any problem with the Volvo cooler. Once the turbo makes the air hotter and less dense how effecient can a cooler be to make the air more dense. I realize there's many varibles to consider like internal and external core design to external air flow. I also tried searching locally for someone with a flow bench machine and came up with nada. One guy that did have a flow machine said that most flow machine are 300-500 CFM, he also said very rarely will you find someone with the 1000 CFM big daddy flow machine and most cooler can flow over that.

From your statement below, let me ask you a newbie question. When they say this turbo, this injector, this cooler, etc. can support up to X amount of hp are they refering to hp at the crank or wheels

 

from my knowledge and when I talked to Clark at JWT, they base their ratings mostly on "crank hp" (unless I misunderstood him) so I'm gonna guess crank HP is probably the industry standard also consider these guys make setups for both autos and manuals where "at wheel HP" can differ like night and day so I'd think crank hp ratings are more concrete.