The heat exchanger cools the compressed air that is charged with *heat* by the supercharger. The compression process creates heat. This is called charged air and is referred to as the charged air temperature. No one is suggesting that air pass through the heat exchanger. If it did it would be a intercooler no a heat exchanger.

The HE does not cool the compressed air directly. The IC does. The HE does cool the IC in order to cool the compressed air going through it.

At the end of the day, the process is extremely inefficient. The IC on our cars (32K/55K) have been the weakest link throughout all these years. Only the SLR setup had the problem tackled.

I agree with the post about "every little bit helps"... better flowing IC pumps, separating cooling circuits, upgraded HE's, extra reservoirs, phenolic spacers, modified thermostats, heat wrapping components, even taking the rubber isolation from the hood, will bring an edge to that extra second of avoiding heat soak and consequently, timing. Specially to the 1/4 mile rockets out there...

our i/c circuits don't see high enough temps for waterwetter to become effective...however i still use it in a small quantity for it's lubrication properties.

true true. all true.

i think we just need to convert to SLR style top mount I/Cs. i think this is how vadim somehow put down 420whp on the c32 with the much smaller 178mm crank pulley.

or somehow (and i have no idea how) convert to an air/air FMIC setup.....though that might be far-fetched....(edit)....and possibly not worth it?

Yeesh, why would you ever want to go air-to-air? A2W is far more efficient... Might as well ditch the blower and mount a pair of GT42R turbos under each manifold while you're at it.

As I recall, it's handy if you're running a traditional flathead Ford or Merc.

I would be interested to know what cools better, A2W or A2A. I know air cools faster than water, but it also heats up faster than water.

I use some water wetter too. The stuff foams up though. From what I hear WW is just a mild soap. Makes me wonder if WW is foaming inside the IC or HE thus decreasing the suffuse area of the cooling system.

The inherent downfall to water to air setup is heat soak. I'm sure you've all noticed you make a pass, then shut off the car for a few minutes and the water is really hot. Thats why an ice reservoir is good, so you can just drop some ice in it and get IATs to below ambient. As long as you keep movig water to air setup is very efficient. I read somewhere that water is 4X more efficient than air. Less of a boost drop across the intercooler as well

Some good reading if you are NOT very familiar with air to air and water to air IC's and HE's

http://autospeed.com/cms/title_The-C...0/article.html

Enjoy

Both WW and soap have surfactants in them. Surfactants break the surface tension property of water which in a way makes water wetter by allowing it to make better surface contact. I suspect that WW does not foam up once under pressure as it would be in a hot radiator.

Good explanation. I have never seen it foam, and I also suspect it would be impossible for it to foam under pressure.

I got another spool of gold tape and finished wrapping the other intake tube.

As far as wrapping the bottom of the airboxes, how do you guys go about doing that? What is the procedure to remove them? Am I going to break those "one-of" clips on the plastic Y coupler?

When I get some time I will log my iats with some wrap on the intakes,Im suprised nobody has done this yet.

I have too much going on at the same time and I want to test them out right.

I have a let H/E going in and want to test everything by it self ect.

I have a difficult time seeing how these wraps can make much difference in the temperature of the air given the extremely short resonance time of the air in the tube. We are talking about a huge volume of air entering the tube at ambient temperatures and passing through the tube in milliseconds.

let me throw another wrench in . how about cool cans , were you can ice down your fuel. Its cheap, easy to install and this to will lower you air temps inside the cylinder were it finally matters. I have seen some custom dry ice setups over the intake pipe but as other have mentioned at some point the air is traveling so fast it doesnt have time to be cooled. AMS has a point you want any source thats heating your air to be fixed first which is why , improving the HE can make some nice gains, I think its well proven the colder the starting temps the cooler the IATs. this why our cars run so much better in the winter even if the SC is heating the air it will only change the Delta a set amount. Laws of thermal dynamics. if the SC heats the air 100 degrees then with a starting temp of 100 degrees the final temp is 200 degrees , so if you can lower the starting temp to 50 degrees you will improve performance. granted the small amount of temp increase by the intake duct is probably not going to be perceivable. I dont think even consistent runs on the dyno would show up. the variable is to great. this is why NOS is so great . you get extra O2 and a significant temp drop as well. I have seen custom dry ice setups on the intercooler and this seems to help alot but its time limited as well. when the ice melts you back to square 1. works at the drag strip where you can prep before each run. I did a small ice ETOH mixture to spray on my Evo intercooler continuously and I did see closer to 20 degree IAT drops but it didnt change my 1/4 time or speed. I guess to many other factors like launch, shifts, traction to be proven. good discussion tho. I guess if I had a choice , NOS is the simple solution.

+1
And the more RPM's the less time the air is in the air tube. I can't imagine wrapping the plastic ducts would decrease inlet temperatures by a moderate amount while air is flowing through them. My bet is if you could somehow measure any performance gain, it would equal something like removing the floor mats.

It's called radiant heat.

Im going to try the gold wrap and measure tems while driving.

all i need is a infrared camera and the test can be done

do it and get back to us.

Andy

I take it 2 sets are needed due to 2 intake tubes right?

The way I measure it, each tube is right at 18", so one wrap can cover both.

Just ordered oner and also some reflective sheet wrap..getting into the hot season in Florida and it can't hurt. Cheap enough to try.

Anyone ever get that data on this mod? Very interesting thread

It doesn't hurt anything so try it best it could help out !!!

I am planning to wrap mine too + get the airbox filters insulated with insulation tape too But I don't have tools to test the temperature but definitely if I did both it will change even a little.

There is another idea to insulate heat from the plastic airbox which is creating a layer from below using materials that when dry it makes like cement (hard) layer. It is possible to apply thin layer that would be a good mod.

I am planning to put the high temperature tape on the airbox filters below and up to insulate heat and hoping that will make better performance.