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Thank you for that, I knew I had seen a write-up somewhere but couldn't find it with a search the other day. Of course I was on my phone and it was slow so I gave up pretty easily, lol.
Line from pump to KC after heat soaked car, parked for an hour, then 3 mile drive getting into boost twice. Never got above 50mph, last mile in subdivision with two stops, backing into garage and checking temps.
Line out from KC.
Inter cooler
And for what it's worth, I am running the tiny little Johnson CM-30 pump. I mounted the pump to the killer chiller and they sit together in the HVAC air inlet box. The plumbing all stays behind the engine and in the cowl space behind the engine. I just put a 180* bent hose where the coolant comes out of the factory F hose that collects coolant from the intercoolers and fill pipe and routed it right back to the pump, then to the KC, and back to the stock Y going to the intercoolers. Here's the pump mounted to the KC.
That's not bad at all. What is the ambient temp? Anchorage probably has a bit of an ambient advantage on Wichita, KS. Also, I'm curious what the dimensions of their core are? Is it 5x12 30-plate or so tall, or is it smaller? The old RX Performance one was a 30-plate I believe, but I'm not sure that's necessary with the high freon vs water temperature differential...I have wondered if a little 10-plate wouldn't do just as well as the 50-plate I have in the Buick. Nice install location, that's one of the places I was considering for mine as well.
I didn't measure it, but it is the "new design" which is a lot smaller than the old one as you can see by thew last pic I just added with the pump next to it. I bet cooling would be incredible with a pair of Speedriven's intercoolers. Temp today was just under 50* when I was doing this so plenty cool, but my fluid would have never been close to these temps with the stock system. FWIW I just keep the system in drag mode (valve closed that lets freon go to the cabin evaporator) unless I need cabin cooling, which for me is rare.
I didn't measure it, but it is the "new design" which is a lot smaller than the old one as you can see by thew last pic I just added with the pump next to it. I bet cooling would be incredible with a pair of Speedriven's intercoolers. Temp today was just under 50* when I was doing this so plenty cool, but my fluid would have never been close to these temps with the stock system. FWIW I just keep the system in drag mode (valve closed that lets freon go to the cabin evaporator) unless I need cabin cooling, which for me is rare.
Yeah, those brazed plate heat exchangers are great. Tons of internal surface area and turbulence. Tremendous BTU capacity even at only 10 degree differential between the two fluids. I'm glad it's working out for you, it makes me excited to get my setup figured out.
It's nice that it's cool enough up there mostly year round that you'll rarely need A/C in the car. The problem is down here it's 100+ and humid in the middle of the summer. Black car with black interior, you can imagine, it becomes pretty necessary if you don't want to soak your seats with sweat. My Buick is set up the same way with valves to shut off either evaporator. Definitely handy to have the option. Does the killer chiller setup come with solenoids for that purpose, or do you have manual valves? I bought some solenoids to replace my manual valves but haven't gotten around to installing them.
It came with one that mounts in the suction line from the cabin to shut of freon to the interior, no way to shut off inter cooler cooling. It is a nice electric valve that works with a simple flip of a switch in the cabin.
I've got some A/C related trickery in planning stages since I ran into a delay on my radiator replacement. Got some time to kill waiting on the replacement replacement radiator and the car is torn apart anyway so I'm going to work on upgrading the heat exchanger. What I am thinking is that I will install the x3 radiator like Nick did and then plumb in an extra brazed plate heat exchanger in series with the intercoolers on the ambient loop, and in series after the A/C condenser on the high pressure side as a secondary, liquid-cooled condenser. That will ensure I get the absolute maximum amount of performance possible out of the air conditioning system (with the stock compressor anyway). The stock condenser will still do the work when it is able, but then I'll have a backup with very high capacity to ensure that the condenser capacity is never my limitation.
Using the intercooler circuit should dramatically increase the performance of the A/C system when stopped/at low speeds, and the thermal load is pretty small compared to what the intercoolers pull out of the charge air so the heat exchanger should have no trouble handling it, especially since the presumption is it's mostly only taking on extra load when the car is stationary and the A/C is going full tilt. If I can find room to add a couple gallons of capacity somewhere, I would love to do that as well. The same goes for the chilled loop. I wish I could find somewhere to store an extra 5 gallons or so of coolant/water up front without deleting the windshield washer reservoir but that's unlikely, so I will probably have to run lines all the way to the trunk.
Hopefully I can figure out where the heck I put those solenoids. I would love to be able to shut off either core with a switch from the cabin. In fact, I consider that a necessity on the Mercedes...didn't care so much on the Buick (dark tint, light interior). I think I will put mine on the high side though, before the evaporator.
I don't think it makes a difference high vs. low side, once it stops flow it is stopped.
It really doesn't functionally. I have valves on both sides of the chiller in my buick in the event I need to remove it for service without losing the entire system charge, and either one works just fine for cutting off that core. The only difference is if you block it on the low side, everything upstream of that valve sees full high side pressure. I'd rather as much of the system as possible be at lower pressure, than more of it than necessary see high side all the time. Generally, larger diameter lines/hose are capable of handling significantly less pressure than the smaller diameter high side lines. They should still be good to well past anything the system will ever see during normal use, but just the same, I'd rather cut the flow off on the high side if I can.
I see, makes sense when you put it that way. Not sure where I'd put a second valve on my setup but it sounds like a great idea. Not much extra space between the fiber "false" firewall and the real metal one on a W215. I think I've added about all I have room for with my Line lock, plumbing for the KC, and it's valve. Plus I added an overflow reservoir for the I/C system.
Yeah, space for anything extra under the hood of these cars is just not easy to find. Nor is the room to do the work. I was working on the overflow reservoir as well, but if I'm going to be getting started on the refrigerated loop pretty soon I may need the space for something else. We'll just have to see once I dig into that a little deeper. It may not even be this summer...I'd like to have some hope of actually driving the car, lol.
05-01-2016, 05:59 AM
