Intercooler questions

[LEAVECIVICSINTHEDUST]

I understand they cool the air for more hp. But....

Can they be for superchargers also?

What temperature do they cool to? Like is it a set temp. or does it change?

How is the air temp lowered? By the a.c stuff, like cfc or whatever it is.

And if it is similar to the a.c wouldnt it decrease a little hp like the air conditioner does. Or am I a complete jackass.. lol

[gavin]

its just like a radiator.. it sits in front of your car and is cooled by ambient air as you drive.. so yeah different temperatures. yea you can put one on a super.. it helps.. you can put one on a NA car if you really want (but it won't do jack)

[larryd]

they dont always sit on the front of the car thougth..

[Da Kine Guy]

Originally posted by larryd
they dont always sit on the front of the car thougth..

Yup, bet you just loved the way your car came stock with the little itty bitty one in the drivers wheel well :D

Friend of mine has a Talon TSi and we both make cracks about the awesome placement of the stock intercooler :P

Oh yeah, if I can remember right I think the stock one is even facing towards the rear of the car in the front of the wheel well. Oh well, can't complain really, car threw us back into our seats like nothing else I have ever been in, and that was in an auto.

[LEAVECIVICSINTHEDUST]

Well how much more does it cool say than a CAI?

[oldster]

You can't make a direct comparison. The CAI is taking in ambient air that is cooler than the air under the hood. The intercooler is using ambient air to cool air that has been heated via the mechanical process of compressing the air by s/c or t/c. Just throwing some numbers around, the ambient air temp may be 60, so that is what the CAI is bringing in while that same temp may be dropping the heated air thought the intercooler to 90, that is just an example.

[HyperSpaceGT-S]

An intercooler is a heat exchanger like a radiator. When you compress air with a turbocharger or supercharger it heats up. I won't go into the thermal dynamics of why, but trust me it does.

The intercooler is basically a series of tubes or channels that the air travels through from one side to the other. These tubes are attached to fins which increase the surface area. The larger the surface area the more contact you have with air. When the air flows through the intercooler it draws away the heat stored in the intercooler. Thus it EXCHANGES the heat in the turbocharged/supercharged air to the ambient outside air. Depending on how efficient the intercooler is the temperature drop can be significant. A big Skyline GT-R intercooler core on a supra or RX-7 can drop the pressurized air to near ambient temperatures.

This is how an Air to Air intercooler works. Air to Air being "Pressurized Air" to "Ambient Air" intercooler.

There is a second type of intercooler an Air to Water intercooler. This is where the Pressurized Air is run through channels which have a coolant liquid running in parallel to them. The liquid (usually water) is the agent that exchanges the heat. This has some nice benefits. Liquids have a higher thermal transfer factor than a gas such as air. They can chill the boost air to below ambient if you use a chilled liquid. And under most circumstances can be more compact than Air to Air. Problem is you need a secondary heat exhcanger for the liquid in the form of a radiator, a pump, etc... They're more expensive too