The big advantage of a water-air intercooler system - thermal mass
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 พ.ย. 2024
- The amount of 'thermal mass' in a water-air intercooler system means you can avoid intake air temp spikes. That's a huge advantage - especially in turbo road cars.
Coming from the MR2 and Celica GT4 world, we discovered the benefits of this after extensive research by multiple members of car clubs. And through said research, we were able to consistently LOWER" intake air temps over a similar sized A2A setup, with very little modifications to the engines of said cars (celica GT4 came with a chargecooler).
Aside from that, people have slowly been waking up to the benefits of charge coolers over the years, and research by interested individuals and those with the knowledge (like the poster of this video) are helping folks understand as such.
Anywho, thanks for sharing!
There are many benefits to water to air intercoolers that consistently get over looked and one of them is boost response, another is the ability to have an interchiller by using the vehicles AC compressor to chill the water below ambient.
How does this set up look?
@@oclv110sl I just finished a custom set up on my 2015 S3. I Pump G13 coolant through a custom made intercooler that lives in the engine bay.
Basically running 2 pumps 1 for the intercooler 1 for the heat exchanger both PWM driven. The pump for the intercooler runs on a duty cycle dependent on boost PSI and the one for the heat exchanger runs based on CAN read vehicle speed. I get a deg or 2 above ambient under full load.
CONSISTENCY!!!!
Good work Julian. Great to see your still educating people on car modification. Can't wait to see some great content in the future. Past student of yours 👍
I have recently bought a zd30 gu patrol with an aftermarket water-cooling system and to my surprise there is really no information that i can find of its application within diesel cars however im glad to hear after watching this video that it is a good upgrade, this video was perfectly done thankyou
In my opinion some one way valves and a microcontroller set to cycle the system and run some small auxiliary fans upon switching off the ignition would assist with managing temps due to the thermal mass, could have it set to target ambient so when you get in your at the best temp reachable
Always good stuff from this gentleman
Thanks for a great explanation of the basic science of what occurs with liquid to air intercooler systems.. i have a Jaguar x351 V8 SC with pulleys and map tune and my next step is to run a seperate cooling system for the intercooler as Jaguar link the main engine water cooling radiator to include the front mount intercooler.. so separate water tank upgrade electric water pump plus while im at it front mount intercooler water spray nozzles for the real hot days ..
Great video mate, this is something I’m looking at doing on my turbo diesel 4x4.
I got a lot out of this video and also have a suggested solution to the thermal heating on hot days. I use Davies craig switches in my turbo cars to turn the thermostat fans on and off at desired temps.
My theory is that if on the water feed line of the cooler, there were a transmission cooler with the Davis craig thermo probe, it would cool the water via air and also trigger the pump to start when the water gets to over a particular temp, thus turning back off at ‘road driving temp’.
Don't need a transmission cooler - there's already the front-mount radiator. Yes, you could trigger the pump when the temperature is high at standstill, but then you also would need to run a radiator fan to push air through the radiator, so the current consumption gets pretty high without the motor running.
u can epoxy a normally open thermal switch on the outlet pipe of the W2A intercooler. I heard 50'c was a good temp to trigger, basically 10c higher then u would if probe was in the water - not as accurate as julians method with the mo-tech but for a 4x4 its a simpler solution, cheap and reliable. I think switching the pump on and off like Julians talks about will be key to longevity also. another cheap option is a Inkbird temp controllers if u want more control. they have 2 outputs i think u could set it up so the fan triggered 10c higher then pump for the hot-heat soak situations like on the beach
My 2022 Kia Stinger has the smaller 2.5l inline 4. It has a liquid matrix intercooler and a blessedly short intake track. Also! The coolant (alcohol?) in the intercooler system must pass thru the air conditioner evaporator because it's commonly MUCH colder than ambient temps. Not refrigerator cold, but on a warm day, imagine grabbing a glass with ice water in it. 30-40 degree cooler than ambient.
Excellent video mate! Well
Done
I’m putting a water to air intercooler setup in my car ( HG Holden Ute with a rb30 turbo engine used as both a every now and then drag car/road car) and was looking for videos on water to air intercooler systems
I’m thinking that I can setup
A timed relay to
Slowly continue to circulate the water through the cooler and front heat exchanger for when I turn the car off in between runs down the strip and for road driving have a temp
Sesnor in the line so it triggers the pump and thermo fan for the heat exchanger aswell at a given temperature
Have you ever thought about publishing your books in audiobook format? There are not really many good mechanic audio books so we need some badly.
i just found your channel by chance and it is awesome! instant subscriber! i am researching a combined Air to water and Air to Air intercooler for a top mount intercooler as a remedy for poor airflow over the intercooler and heatsoak, would love to see a video comparing the effects of longer tubing to a front mount intercooler, i have an R53 Mini Cooper S which has the possibly shortest intercooler connection from compressor to intake manifold and heat dissipation is terrible. awesome channel again!
Love this video! Maybe add a chalk board in the background and draw diagram to help visualize what your talking about. Love it thought very good video
Thank you. If you look at my other videos, you'll see I often use a whiteboard.
Ahhhhhh, your old Mira from the old Fast Fours and Rotaries days.
The water/air intercooler? Yes indeed. Learned a lot from that.
This is the book I bought. Great!
You can fit a small radiator fan on the heat exchanger behind the bumper, and allow it to run after engine shut off, or when car is idling in traffic. If water temp in that exchanger is above Eg. 50 C. With a bit of testing you can get it right.
Great idea!
this is a cheap
I've been wondering lately if we aren't going about this backwards. Thermal mass is great when you put a barrel of water in a greenhouse to absorb the heat of the day and slowly release it overnight. But is that really the optimum mechanism for an intercooler? Couldn't it be more effective to use a medium with a lower specific heat so it would saturate more quickly, but also dump the heat more quickly? The idea being that the medium would function as a sort of "bucket brigade" hauling the heat away from the intake rather than simply absorbing it. It seems that would eliminate the heat soak problem you mentioned. This would, obviously, require that the medium be constantly circulated.
To put what you say another way, you'd basically have to transport, and then dissipate, all the heat 'real time', as the system would have no/little ability to absorb any heat. You'd therefore need heat exchangers (at both ends of the system) sized to work with the heat generated at maximum load. They'd be huge!
@@JulianEdgar that makes sense.
You can throw ice in the reservoir and alleviated the heat from the car sitting in the sun for too long too.
The real downside compared to a A2A set up is all the extra parts needed to make it work, space to put everything and weight.
A2A:
1: core
2: piping
A2W
1: core
2: piping
3: heat exchange
4: pump
5: resivoir
6: fittings
7: hose/lines
I can't see the ice lasting a few days. Good for a drag or race car, not good for any other application.
@JulianEdgar it isn't about lasting a few days... it's more about having a solution to cool down the water within the system at any given moment vs just waiting on a hot day.
You can stop at a convenient stop and get a couple cup of free ice and dump them into the resivoir cooling off that water, and then turn on the pump to cycle the water saving you some cool down time.
Hi Julian
Loved the book thanks. I was very interested how you set up the water pump on the water to air system, rather than running flat out working on resistors. I have a mid engine car I’m to running 2 pumps. Do you have any wire diagrams or web sites that can help me setting up the wiring for these pumps to run when I need them.
Much appreciated.
Jamie 👍
Nice education video about water to air intercooler system,
my question : if we use the W2A intercooler in front of car like the usual A2A intercooler, will the mass flow of air exit from intercooler be slower, and hard to reach the intake manifold?
Because i also watch many videos in youtube the W2A intercooler usually small and close to the intake manifold.
about the negative side of the W2A, that you said if we parked the car outside with hot temperature will make the water hotter in the system, can we make a tank like water injection, so we can separate the cold water after cooling before the pump, to maintain the water should not be hot when we parked outside.
Yes, you can put the heat exchanger outside the engine bay. Response depends more on turbo sizing than intercooler location.
You could likely reduce the heat-soak disadvantage by running the pump slowly for an hour or so after shutdown.
Only if you also run a fan, so quite a bit of current draw. But yes, certainly possible.
genious video.
make more like this please.
how about filling the water ic with liquid helium then?
The slight disadvantage can easily be mitigated tho. You can have a timer that keeps a pump running through a small secondary air to water heat exchanger with a small fan to cool off the water while making sure that you try to keep the components as far away from exhaust and hot parts as possible (preferrably somewhere in the front bumper)
Sure, but you'll need more than a small fan, so the current draw becomes problematic if you run it for very long.
@@JulianEdgar Well that depends on the water volume and eventually on the amount of energy stored in the water, but a small fan in itself is not a problem, you would just need to run it for a bit longer, and with a smaller heat exchanger, it's easier to place it more strategically
I'm considering fitting a turbo Diesel to an older light truck that has small frontal area, and am struggling with a location for an ATA. I do, however, have room for a WTA above the engine, as well as multiple locations for a heat exchanger in the rear half of the vehicle. I am thinking that WTA might be the ideal solution for my situation. Even though it is more complicated, I will not be compromising on size, and therefore engine efficiency.
Yes, WTA sounds good in that application but remember that a diesel is typically on boost a lot more than a gas/petrol engine. That means you really want a larger heat exchanger to get rid of the accumulated heat.
@@JulianEdgar Good tip, thanks.
@@justanotherguy9664 How do you size the front heat exchanger, is a small one OK or are you better going for as large as possible, ie more water so more overall thermal mass in the circuit?
Which would be better routing tank, front mount cooler, WJCAC return to tank or reverse?
I'm thinking of adding a water jacket charge air cooler to my late first generation Dodge Cummins. The early 1st generation had the wjcac located in the intake manifold using engine coolant which turned out not to be a good idea as you described the additional heat load added to the engine cooling system during sustained high boost (19psi) climbing Hills made the cooling system inadequate. The late 1st Gen is often referred to as an intercooled or IC had an ATACAC and a larger radiator w/smaller injectors to compensate for better charge air density, keeping the TQ under the 400ftlb Tq limit of the transmission. 300k mi out of the stock 46RH trans I'm not complaining about there choice to detune.
Theoretically, the front radiator should immediately follow the WJCAC so that the temperature differential between the outside air and the water in the water/air intercooling system is as high as possible. But to be honest, I doubt it would make a measurable difference doing it one way or the other. However, best if the tank is not in the engine bay if possible, so it doesn't get full of water warmed by the underhood environment.
Brilliant thanks. How many litres of water in an average water-air intercooler system? I'm cosidering this for a future supercharger project on my VR6
Obviously varies a lot but something like 5 litres.
Thanks for the lesson. I previously thought a large mass of aluminium in the FMIC would serve the same purpose, however the specific heat capacity of water is 4.5 times higher that aluminum.
Yes, that's right. Specific heat value is the key, and water is extremely high in that regard.
Hi Julian! I just found your channel and i really enjoy watching and listen to your videos, especially about this water-cooled Intercooler because I'm about to build one myself to my Saab 9-3 2.0 Turbo because i believe it will be much better. Because the size of the Intercooler can be much smaller the spool up time will be shorter and i can lower the intake air temp more if i use some kind of alcohol based fluid maybe. What do you think about that?
Thanks for a great channel 👍😁
The key factor is the fluid's specific heat value. Water is higher than pretty well any other fluid.
Good info thank you
You need someone to also draw out all this information and people will learn real quick.
The water won’t get hot if standing if it’s running through its own fanned radiator?
No it won't. But a lot of current draw to do that for a long period.
So, given the disadvantage you mention about the whole system heating up while the car is parked. For a road car parked not in a garage in a consistently hot climate throughout the year, would it be worth having the air to water system? I’m sure it’s not a simple yes or no.
Yes, I think so - your description matches my use of a water/air system.
Great Video mate, very informative
I'm currently weighing up cooling systems & planning out a supercharger setup for my fto, and have been very interested in a Water to air setup.
No problem 👍
no need to use a lot of time speaking of the small rise in water temp because of ambient temp. we are talking between 200-300° celcius for normal ineffective ic under boost. no comparison...
Does anyone know if you can use a liquid nitrogen jacket intercooler
I was thinking of removing my aircon and fitting an electric aircon compressor in the trunk with the charge cooler tank to create a refrigeration system. What do you think of this?
It means that you can cool the water effectively when stationary too! Though a small electronic fan on the charge cooler radiator could help.
It's been done before with conventional air con systems, and very successfully. But two issues - (1) expensive and complex, and (2) there's no intercooling until the system has had time to bring the tank of water down in temperature.
What if the coolant tank is installed somewhere underneath of the car or in a place where it is not hot like under the hood
Yes, that would give some advantage in terms of stopped car heat build-up.
What about air to water intercoolers in colder climates where winters are at near 32°F - 0°C or below? Could the water actually freeze and break components like piping/tubing ?
It's normal to use anti-freeze, just as in the engine cooling system.
@@JulianEdgar thanks for your response and insight I'm new to turbos and intercoolers.
Thanks for explanation just wanted to know why BMW are going this route 😅
Most welcome 😊
What about climates where temperatures go below freezing? Isn’t that the reason OEMs use air-to-air intercoolers 🙂
Use anti-freeze.
Great video very helpful thank youuuuu
Glad it was helpful!
Why do I have a feeling that your old turbo car was an old Saab 900. Lol.
Dunno. Cos I am very old? (As in, old enough to remember when a Saab 900 Turbo was the on-road match for any BMW then sold.)
Thank you too much!
You're welcome!
Good stuff.
Thank you!
I'm putting together a W2A intercooler system for my car at the moment, partially operating on the eyes closed and fumbling in the dark method, mainly because of a lack of information. Car, mid engine so it proved unsuccessful using the original intercooler. My question: The cooling system should it be sealed ie same as an engine/radiator with a pressurized cap or should I run a header/expansion tank
I chose to run sealed but with a pressurised cap. That's what the factory water/air systems seem to do. I've never seen anything come out of the overflow hose above the cap on my car.
@@JulianEdgar wow thanks for a quick answer are you in lockdown
@@libra53ish No lock down. 7 pm here and I was just checking the comments.
I'm not sure if a better pump would fix my issues front mounted radiator, pump is at bottom hose pumping via 2 lines (audi 12v pump) eeek sounds like mercedes pump. The lines run along the side of the car quite low and the intercooler inlets above the lines seem to be having air pocket problems and not circulating, I'm thinking of having a tee at the top intercooler outlet going up to an expansion tank and not bothering with pressure. (it's not like water temperature going to reach 100C and would benefit from pressurisation but would help enormously in air bleeding the whole shebang.
ps the backyard bucket test of the pump yeilded 50 lpm at a 1metre header pipe
Using heat of engine to make steam then run steam engine to recover heat energy losses and power battery of hybrid car
One problem with using waste heat in a car (eg from the exhaust) to generate steam is that you then need to condense that steam (or else carry a huge water tank). So a huge condenser is needed.
Easy fix with a bag of ice 😂
Not in a road car.
@@JulianEdgar I can stop at a QT one in a while 😂
You have to mention that the water to air core cools the water down when the vehicle is not in boost. It is effectively using the core as another heat exchanger to cool the water with ambient intake air.