My inter cooler project.
#1
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My inter cooler project.
I do not have pictures yet of the finished project but thought I would share some information This is a little long and may be useless to you but here goes. Car has a 84mm pulley on it by the way.
Wanted to upgrade my stock inter cooler so in the process did testing along the way. Here is what I did....Three day average testing of IAT's at 80-85 degrees outside I would have 10-12* over ambient with normal driving,highway or city and 3-4 gear pulls to 6,200rpm temps would be anywhere from 125-135* tops.So bought a universal 26" long, 8" tall and 2.5" thick single pass inter cooler and made it into a double pass cooler.I had to remove the lower engine oil cooler to make this fit and just welded two number 12 an fittings and plumbed a number 12 line on the factorey oil cooler lines. This gave me the room for this rather large cooler to fit. Boxed it all in and tested again. Temps basically the same at ambient cruising,10 degrees over and 3-4 gear pulls around 125-130*. Not impressive at all. It appears the stock inter cooler was really not that bad. Drove around a week and decided to get really crazy and get these temps down some how !!! So pulled the fog lights out, both sides so it looked even, remade the blck grill mesh so it covered the opening completely, cleared out the area behind the drivers corner fog light...keep in mind I have no air pump for the suspension,coil overs are in place, moved the horn over and installed another inter cooler. Its 14 by 12 inches,made into a double pass of course and I made some brackets to hold it in place. Boxed it in the best I could, plumbed everything with some fittings from home depot and tested again. Today it was 78*...slightly cooler out but no big difference. Again found ambient temps to be around the same 5-7 degrees just driving around and then made a very strong test pass. 3,4,5 gear to 160mph and temps never got past 110 at 6,200 in 4th and 117* at 160mph in 5th gear and that I believe is fantastic!!!Temps instantly came right down to 90* and then slowly back to normal....8* over ambient. At the amount of time with that load on the engine it was a good test. All in all spent $175.00 for coolers off Ebay and 20.00 for 3/4 heater hose and fittings from Home Depot. If you can weld this was very easy to do and best part is the nose did not have to come off the car. Just some insight full info to read.
Wanted to upgrade my stock inter cooler so in the process did testing along the way. Here is what I did....Three day average testing of IAT's at 80-85 degrees outside I would have 10-12* over ambient with normal driving,highway or city and 3-4 gear pulls to 6,200rpm temps would be anywhere from 125-135* tops.So bought a universal 26" long, 8" tall and 2.5" thick single pass inter cooler and made it into a double pass cooler.I had to remove the lower engine oil cooler to make this fit and just welded two number 12 an fittings and plumbed a number 12 line on the factorey oil cooler lines. This gave me the room for this rather large cooler to fit. Boxed it all in and tested again. Temps basically the same at ambient cruising,10 degrees over and 3-4 gear pulls around 125-130*. Not impressive at all. It appears the stock inter cooler was really not that bad. Drove around a week and decided to get really crazy and get these temps down some how !!! So pulled the fog lights out, both sides so it looked even, remade the blck grill mesh so it covered the opening completely, cleared out the area behind the drivers corner fog light...keep in mind I have no air pump for the suspension,coil overs are in place, moved the horn over and installed another inter cooler. Its 14 by 12 inches,made into a double pass of course and I made some brackets to hold it in place. Boxed it in the best I could, plumbed everything with some fittings from home depot and tested again. Today it was 78*...slightly cooler out but no big difference. Again found ambient temps to be around the same 5-7 degrees just driving around and then made a very strong test pass. 3,4,5 gear to 160mph and temps never got past 110 at 6,200 in 4th and 117* at 160mph in 5th gear and that I believe is fantastic!!!Temps instantly came right down to 90* and then slowly back to normal....8* over ambient. At the amount of time with that load on the engine it was a good test. All in all spent $175.00 for coolers off Ebay and 20.00 for 3/4 heater hose and fittings from Home Depot. If you can weld this was very easy to do and best part is the nose did not have to come off the car. Just some insight full info to read.
Last edited by SICAMG; 09-20-2015 at 05:29 PM.
#2
MBWorld Fanatic!
Yup some guys have also done 3 small heat xchangers with fans on them and works very well but also remember that you have an 84mm sc pulley, as soon as you start to turn the blower faster temps will go higher and higher
#3
MBWorld Fanatic!
I bought 2 heater cores from autozone for $50. After my 84mm goes on I'm adding them. One member runs this setup and has a 77mm. He said its does great.
#4
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The best part is unless you have a sharp eye nothing seems out of the ordinary....accept for the missing fog lights!! I am going to put a 9" fan on the fog light cooler because air has a clean shot in but no where really to get out the back. The fender well is right there and traps the air behind the cooler. By the way the smaller cooler is an aluminum Mini cooper radiator brand new for $50.00 !!
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2004 E55,1969 300SEL6.3,2011 ML350 BlueTec Diesel,2005 ML400 CDI
Yup . . . latent heat of compression is why I have used a 168mm ASP since 2006. And as always, it's the BTU limits of the intercooler.
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#8
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Sounds great, But, as I learned from HULK and others here. Water injection and or methanol will cure all heat and freeze your IAT. With basic cooling mods. Why reinvent the wheel? The cure has been here all the time. Shrugs..
#10
My inter cooler project.
Someone needs to make a plug and play washer injection kit. Guys like me are too lazy to figure out everything, when someone else could do the boring work and I could pay them
#11
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OK here is where I am at now. Decided to put a suction fan on the secondary cooler and felt that this should make a big difference. It did not. I can not understand why the cruising IAT will be steady at sometimes 10-12* over ambient on todays 84 degree day. Now when cruising I can just turn the fan on and will see no change to mabe 2*. So I decide to start measuring the water temperature it self flowing through the system. Saw mabe 8* difference letting engine idle for 5 min than turning fan on. You can feel a blast of warm air as soon as fan is turned on but again not much change at all.
An all out blast on the highway and she will stay below 120 and thats good considering the temps outside and boost but why cant I get down to actual air temp when driving normal. Two coolers and a fan it has to be just heat soaked so to speak at the cooler under the blower but again there's no load on driving so no heat from blower. What gives?
An all out blast on the highway and she will stay below 120 and thats good considering the temps outside and boost but why cant I get down to actual air temp when driving normal. Two coolers and a fan it has to be just heat soaked so to speak at the cooler under the blower but again there's no load on driving so no heat from blower. What gives?
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This place is a joke.
OK here is where I am at now. Decided to put a suction fan on the secondary cooler and felt that this should make a big difference. It did not. I can not understand why the cruising IAT will be steady at sometimes 10-12* over ambient on todays 84 degree day. Now when cruising I can just turn the fan on and will see no change to mabe 2*. So I decide to start measuring the water temperature it self flowing through the system. Saw mabe 8* difference letting engine idle for 5 min than turning fan on. You can feel a blast of warm air as soon as fan is turned on but again not much change at all.
An all out blast on the highway and she will stay below 120 and thats good considering the temps outside and boost but why cant I get down to actual air temp when driving normal. Two coolers and a fan it has to be just heat soaked so to speak at the cooler under the blower but again there's no load on driving so no heat from blower. What gives?
An all out blast on the highway and she will stay below 120 and thats good considering the temps outside and boost but why cant I get down to actual air temp when driving normal. Two coolers and a fan it has to be just heat soaked so to speak at the cooler under the blower but again there's no load on driving so no heat from blower. What gives?
#16
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Want low IATs and starting a good 15* below ambient? Simple.
KC>trunk tank>SC (no HE) and spray meth.
Ask me how I know or read my sig.
KC>trunk tank>SC (no HE) and spray meth.
Ask me how I know or read my sig.
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#18
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