Hey Guys,

I just have a quick question. And I already searched up on this. but I need a straight one sentance answer

Im working on either a S/C or Turbo. preferably S/C and now that matty might make another run of plates sounds good

But unfortunatly I got a small start on the turbo and have the intercooler and pipes already

I was wondering seeing as how I have to fabricate the charge pipes anyways.

Is there any major advantages of an Intercooler on a Supercharger.

Or would it be wiser to just sell the intercooler?

Thanks

 

the cooler your boost is the more agressive you can set up your car. i think lazyness and the few of losing 0-1psi keeps lots of people here from boosting a s/c setup.


any real serious power loving person would always look for ways to reduce intake temps as much as possible.

 

i dont think you should make your decision on which route to go based on $200 worth of pipes and an intercooler. i wouldnt call that a headstart on a turbo project either. charge pipe for a s/c kit is 100x easier than that of a turbo. the s/c charge pipe is a piece of cake to fabricate IMO.

 

do it! if you feel that it takes away power just get one of them CO2 spray bars. My buddy has one on his evo and he say it helps out a huge amout with the heat soak. Dont know if its compairable (sp) since sc vs turbo but it will deff cool the intake temp. Before i got rid of my sc'ed max i was thinking of going intercooled.

 

hmm. yea I may as well try it. I mean if It seems like its not benifiting me at all I'll just switch it up.

Thanks for the info

 

I just had this discussion with a very good tuner, who happens to be a friend of mine, this past weekend. In my opinion, and his, it is just stupid not to run an intercooler in any forced induction setup, especially anything over 6 psi. A supercharger is no different than a turbo when it comes to the heat it produces. there is no reason to treat them differently. With a efficient intercooler, you might loose 1 psi of boost. However, you would gain the ability to run a more aggressive tune, or more boost because of the dramatic drop in charge air temp.

Chad

 

charge piping is the same regardless of its for a turbo or s/c. only thing thats routed differently is the pre-fmic piping based upon where the boosted air is coming from

 

There is a big difference between the two, turbos HAVE to run an intercooler since there boost is being built by the exhaust gases in order to create good power. The SC doesnt generate as much heat as the Turbo nor does it absoutely need the intercooler to make good power it can perform just fine without it.
Running the intercooler isnt a bad thing on a SCed vehicle but you will see a loss in peak PSI, but the cooled air allows for you to safely advance the timing a bit more to create even more power.

 

Simply upgrading the charge pipe in the engine bay isnt too hard,but rerouting it to the front can be a bit tricky, not to mention you have to notch out a section of the front frame thats below the blower.

 

Key word here is efficient. Most people loose anywhere from 1.5 to 2.5 psi due to not selecting the correct IC. Finding the right intercooler for one's application isn't easy.

See above.....

FWIW, StephenMax tried an intercooler for a while. IIRC, he lost 2 psi. Upon going to the dyno, he made almost the exact same horsepower with the IC due do the cooler temps. Conclusion: 0 net hp gain, but safer and cooler intake temps. AFAIK, he's the only one on the org to do actual before and after dyno's.

 

a intercooler does not make power on its own. what it allows you to do is run harder since the air is cooler and more dense. a intercooler plus tunning will always out perform a s/c with just tuning alone.

look at all of the really high hp s/c maxes that we know here....i would say something like 80% of them are using an intercooler of some sort.

boost produces hot air...if people are willing to get a cai for their n/a car or a cai for a s/c then not having a intercooler is just plain dumb imho

 

Agreed. I never said it did.

Agreed. This has already been stated

Maybe so, but definitely not if the intercooler is sized incorrectly. (my whole point to begin with)

Or aftercooler of some sort.

 

I think that depends on how hard you drive the car. For daily city driving no but for regular track runs I would think so.

 

yes, i was talking about TB straight to blower charge pipe. routing the sc to an IC and back up to the TB is a different story.

 

i think the whole intercooler sizing issue is simply over stated.

how it flows is way more important then the actual dimensions of the intercooler/aftercooler. i honestly feel that the raw size of an intercooler will come into play on cars that are specialized: ie a drag car, a drift car or something that sees high amounts of boost and then shuts off right away.

on a street car you should aim to get as much surface area in contact with the cooler flowing air towards the fmic. there is a limit where it begins to hurt but im sure its no where near where you will be able to find on maxima...being that you have an efficent core ( read not expensive, just efficeint).

 

daily city driving is problly just as harmful to a boosted car as going down a track due to the duration of being hit with hotter then normal air. an ic is a safety net that is good to exploit if at al possible.

 

So, regarding the long term harmful effects, what would be an educated guess as to the lifespan of a non-ic'ed car as opposed to an ic'ed car? Just letting you know that I've been non-ic'ed for 7 years now with no ill effects. I've not read of any grenaded s/c'ed Max stories due to the lack of an ic since joining the org in 2000. We do know that adding an s/c already reduces the lifespan of the engine anyways.

 

well it doesnt work like that. the last car i built, my friend used to drive it to work everyday on surface streets. he built full boost during his first 3 gears (1/2/3). now he drives all highway and he never builds full boost for multiple days at a time. his car is tuned and setup in a fashion that it will deliver all the possible power that his setup is able to handle. so its possible that he could make due without a fmic now since he drives in traffic and is puttering around at 6 or so psi. but if he wants to stomp on the pedal and pass someone or just makeup time then having the fmic is the added insurance that allows him to feel comfortable going till he hits full boost ( 25psi low boost or 33~psi high boost).

now i say that because i can probally count on one hand the number of s/c maximas that are putting down power which would be concistent(sp) with them asking 90+% out of their setups. we leave alot on the table with our s/c setups and it doesnt make sence since we can regulate if we choose to hit full boost. we are lucky for some unknown reason to either have a motor that is stout enough to withstand high temps or a s/c setup that never allows us to veer off into any real danger.

once more people start getting good aggressive tunes with their s/c setups ( not that timing weak jwt non-sence)you will begin to see non-ic cars fall. you will also see alot of high hp sc cars emerge as well.

i wish you another 7yrs of safe boosting...but after my thermodynamics class and my engine based thermo 2 the mechanical engineer in me refuses to sit around and not voice my opionon even if people think im nuts.


cliffs: s/c kit without ic is doable, retarded timing nice hp numbers non-ic are doable, but serious focused s/c numbers will require a hard edged tune and that will be when the importance of always keeping a motor withing its operating range will rear its ugly head.

but what do i kno?

 

well, for what its worth I chose the SC setup for the decent reliable power upgrade. If I was looking to gain every bit of power from the setup by doing the continuous fine tuning needed which would require the need for the cooler more dense air then I wouldnt do it with a SC setup, Id go turbo and try to build some real impressive HP numbers to compensate for the time invested in doing the fine tuning.

 

That is a myth that will never go way!

The heat generated by a turbo comes from compressing the air, not the exhaust. You may get a little bit of heat tranfer but not that much. Put a turbine blanket on your turbo(which is a good idea anyway) and there will be none. This heat caused by compression is what needs to be combatted.

If you don't believe me, put a thermometer lead in your charge pipe, do a few runs and tell me what your temps are like. Make sure the thermometer goes to atleast 300'F, you'll likely need it. I've done this on several SC'd cars, trust me, you will want an intercooler.

 

i think the problem here is that a lot people are under the impression that running a centrifucal super charger is fine without a intercooler and an intercooler causes you to lose power -

the main component of having that intercooler is to reduce the amount of heat going into the motor - has one ever thought that at 6lbs of boost with no intercooler making the same power as 4lbs of intercooled boost that if you swap out the pulley on the s/c and run more boost that more power will be yielded?

point being, i wouldn't run any sort of forced induction car (other then nitrous) without an intercooler - with todays technology and advancement as well as weaker internal engine components, it's like asking for a problem, if not today, but soon in the near future...

 

i think if people took temps and readings of their charge piping they would see how much heat compressing air generates they would never wish to put their motors through so much abuse.


yeah the myth of turbocharged air being hot due to the exhaust is a extremely false. they energy it takes to squeeze alot of air into a smaller space is huge, and that is where your heat comes from. a s/c generates heat as well.

and the beauty of a intercooler is the ability to run less boost and make the same amount of power as a higher psi setting, and do it all safer and more efficently. with our blowers the more you spin it the less efficent is becomes. the guy at vortech told me something like 45k rpm's is the blowers max adiebatic efficency range. i would assume that once you pass that mark the heat generated climbs quickly

 

I know what you mean. I have dual intake temperature probes, one at the blower and one right before the TB. Aftercooler helps as much as 60 degrees at WOT.

 

imho i feel that 60 degrees is alot of heat you dont need

 

Usually around every 10 degrees of intake temp increase is a 1% power loss. Its easy to see how an intercooler can help even with a slight loss in psi considering a 60-70 degree drop in temp is 6-7% more power. Stephen max made the same peak power and only a slight loss in torque adding an intercooler and losing 1.5 to 2 psi.

I just got my intercooler finished and I would not ever go back now, the difference is night and day on hot days when the piping used to get heat soaked.

 

There's also the aftercooler option.

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....ht=intercooler

 

you know, i never understood why one is called INTERcooler while the other is AFTERcooler. my only guess is the position of cooler in relation to MAF. but in the thread you posted, it looks like the person has 2 maf's

 

The term 'intercooler' comes from days when they were first used on twin turbo aircraft engines. With two turbos, the air charge would get VERY hot - it was heated by the first turbo, then heated again by the second turbo. To combat this double temperature rise they placed a heat exchanger in between the two turbos and called it an "intercooler" because of its location in between two turbos. When this same kind of heat exchanger is used on a single turbo or supercharger, it is located after the supercharger, and should technically be called an "aftercooler" because of its location after the single turbo or supercharger. These terms didn't seem to stick, though. The term 'intercooler' caught on and became almost universal for all heat exchangers regardless of their position. The term 'aftercooler' became synonymous with air-to-water coolers because this is the term Vortech uses to describe their coolers, which are water cooled. So while technically incorrect, we will still use the popular terms 'intercooler' to mean any air-cooled charge cooler and 'aftercooler' to mean any water-cooled charge cooler.

 

I have one on my SC setup and love it.