Intercooler

[the_boy]

Kieran bought the Greddy Spec V with VR4 intercooler pipes:

http://www.rhdjapan.com/jdm-low/GRed...tsubishi-12033

There's a lad on the MLR selling them for £550 including delivery but you would need to get your own pipework.

Too rich for my blood at the moment though.

[Wodjno]

I am pretty sure that this is a question that the techno-geeks will love! My understanding is that you can get 2 different types of construction - tube and fin or bar and plate. If I have understood it properly, then bar and plate is the better design. Then it is a case of choosing the right size. Too big and it will take an age to pressurise the intercooler when the turbos come on song. Too small and there won't be enough cooling.

That is as technical as I can get at the moment, and I can't do that with any kind of conviction!

I'm about as Techo as you Nick on these.. I mean i can go and cut n paste some Techy info of the Web But thats about it..
I understand it the same as you..

Also to add, the drop in pressure from inlet to outlet some coolers are more efficient at minimizing pressure drop..

All i can say is ! The 1 had fitted to my car worked well especially on hot days Before i fitted it the drop in performance on a really hot day was huge.. After i had it fitted it wasn't noticible..

I remember Myself and BDA at Silverstone doing the 0 -60 runs.. It was blisteringly hot... At the time Dave had had many Sub 5 sec 0-60's and i had some close to 5.0 sec(Normal and cold weather).. But on that day the best i could Muster was 5.9* and Dave i think was around the 5.7* mark..
The heat just killed the power... It would have been a totally different story had we had uprated FMIC's though..

[orionn2o]

It just seems too good to be true that we can get a decent FMIC for sub 100 quid !

[Wodjno]

It just seems too good to be true that we can get a decent FMIC for sub 100 quid !

Not really..

I see it the other way


I think it takes the Piss the prices that tuning company's charge for some of there bits of kit..

The worst i think i have seen is the Pro Lida Turbo Pipe Kit.. At a price of around 600 gbp for a few hard pipes that is seriously taking the piss

I bought mine for about 120 gbp...

It's not always as they say "You Get What You Pay For"

[Turbo_Steve]

I definitely agree on the price of hard pipe kits...I think the mark up is staggering. The only thing I would say in their defence is that their hard pipe kits are probably TESTED, whereas Johnny Copycat who has seen the finished design and is now making up 30 or 40 a week and shifting them cheap on e-bay doesn't have the recoup the cost of that.

Intercooler design is actually extremely complicated, and technically an intercooler should be sized correctly for the type of work it's doing, as well as have certain flow characteristics.
So, for example, whilst using "pipe reducers" is fine, and works, if you're trying to get maxium bhp out of your setup, they will rob you of power as the pressure changes across the intercooler: in the same way that end-tank design and entry and inlet sizes are important. An 'ideal' exducer tract (so turbo - intercooler - throttle body) will get slightly bigger at each stage, so that the compressed charge only fully expands at the inlet manifold. An ideal intercooler should have a specific pressure drop, measured against how long the charge needs to be inside to be cooled. The outlet from said intercooler should be big enough to prevent a pressure increase at the exit: once the pressure has decreased somewhere in the system, asking the charge to 'recompress' means adding heat, and using energy better spent driving the engine to 're-compress' the charge through the restriction: essentially it's just working the turbo harder.

Again, this is "bleeding edge" stuff: you can always achieve really good results with generic fit parts. However, if you have money to burn, a properly engineered part specific to the application will always do better.

[Wodjno]

Most Peeps on here Steve just want an aftermarket part thats cheaper than the OE Part (That's not hard) and 1 that works as well or better than the OE part

This site isn't Performance World are Us ...

Just the average Joe trying to improve there car a little bit at a time for a cost thats not gona need a bank loan each time

[miikka]

Here IC fitted, http://to.pic.fi/kuvat/VR-4/28032009092.jpg

[Turbo_Steve]

Wodj....yah...I know.....just wanted to be clear than all (insert name of performance part) are not created equal.

I'm firmly in the "a few cheap bhp" camp too, mate, so I'm in no way having a go at anyone not buying "gold standard". but by the same token, it's important to know
a) when you're cutting corners a bit
b) what effect that will have.

But I wasn't in any way suggesting that the stuff you posted up was no good:- to the contrary it's been bookmarked for the "to do" list

[djb160]

AFAIK; Tube and fin = better flow through from front to rear so it doesn't obstruct other coolers as much as...
Bar and plate = better at scrubbing heat than T&F given equal sizes. More shiny.

I guess it comes down to personal preference largely. I prefer the looks and functionality of T&F design. Although they seem too be harder to find cheap versions of over here.

Agree with the price comments mostly. Can't believe how much my friend paid for his R33 kit.