I found it very interesting that some great ¼ mile post where made yesterday with ice water in the intercooler.

So I went out and checked my radiator, intercooler, and transmission cooler for S and G’s.

On a side note I’m really impressed with my L in the winter, but normal Texas summers well it’s just OK. So I’m thinking about cooling down the beast to make a little better performance year around.

Again the radiator is OK and the air is feed by the upper grill, the intercooler is feed by the lower grill, and the transmission cooler seems to be feed behind the front bumper (strange, but not sure).

My question to this forum is, what if I where it a make the radiators double wide, would there be an increase of cooling performance, what should I make them with? I guess I’m asking if another material has better cooling properties than the current L materials (Brass=stock, Copper, gold plated, Beryllium copper, Ceramic)

Also what about ducting, is anyone else thinking about these types of improvements?

Thanks.

 

F1car,

I, too, have looked into ducting. I thought of cutting a hole in the driver side fender, then running some "piping" along the underside of the fender that pops out right underneath the front bumper. This would sortof be a ram air type setup. Not a big fan of playing with radiators unless I have to.

 

would it be possible to use one of the larger (say B&M) aftermarket transmission coolers and mount it on the front of the radiator. Aslo, hook up a switch to the pump. If electric fans were added, you could circulate and cool the intercooler water between runs. i think it would also be interesting to add a temp gage and record your runs at different temps to get an idea what actual effect different temps acutally make.
noelvm

 

F1car,

Seems as if a bigger intercooler 'radiator' should make a difference in performance.

But 'Noelvm' is right... You should first figure out how efficient the stock unit is... i.e hookup a water temp gauge to the intercooler water track (maybe 2 probes to measure temp into IC and out of IC). If the IC is dropping the temp of the liquid to close to ambient temps, then a bigger core may not help much and ice water is really the best way to go... alternatively if the IC output temp is far above ambient temp, then a bigger intercooler will definitely help.

As far as the intercooler core, talk to Spearco... they are one of the biggest suppliers of intercooler cores around (www.spearcointercooler.com - average website, calling them may be more useful). They have a large selection of cores, and can custom build you anything you want... And you do want to go with an expert in this area... if not done properly, adding thickness can actually hurt airflow through the core. Be sure to check-out water/air units!

As far as ducting, a known performance improvement for my turbo car is to seal the air path from the grill to the intercooler core to force all the air from the nose through the intercooler... foam tape, aluminum sheet, lots of materials work... I just checked on my 'L, and the intercooler core is so open, I'd be surprised if even 50% of the nose air makes it through the core!?

Finally, for some good info on intercooling, check-out: www.autospeed.com and search on "intercooler".

-Dreamin
'00 L