Intercooler

[Reinhoud]

Gents,

 

Before my engine blew up I didn't have an intercooler on my bike.

Anyone here who has experience with having and not having an intercooler on their bike?

Now I have to rebuilt it, I'm thinking of building on my bike, although I hardly have any room for it.

Mostly curious how much difference having an intercooler is. 

 

Thanks.

[Gixer1460]

What boost are you wanting with what turbo?

[Reinhoud]

don't know yet, I want a smaller turbo as what I had, probably around 1 bar of boost.

[MeanBean49]

Intercooler makes huge difference.

When mine was on the dyno added 25bhp when we ran it back to back but on 2nd run pointed both fans directly into it.

Probably does even more on the move out on road.

Also thinks its whats helped my bike make good reliable power on a motor with nothing but busa pistons and a lockup.

[Tombola]

http://www.aemintakes.com/temperature_testing.htm

im sure I just watched a program on the effects of a intake temp on hp buggered if I can remember where! It might of even been in guy martins 2nd autobiography I've been reading?? 

[jameskat]

The books say charge cooling reduces the chances of detonation, which apparently is the main cause of engine failures, so all good as far as i know. I will find out when i finally finish my engine.

[Arttu]

Here is an another thread slightly relating to this topic:

 On general level cooling the charge air always helps. It reduces risk of detonation and increases air density which means more power. In practice results will vary a lot. Main factor there is boost pressure, more pressure means hotter air so effect of cooling gets bigger. On low boost it might be challenging to achieve significant improvements. The cooler must be pretty optimal to gain substantial temperature drop on relatively cool air. Then on high boost level air temp gets way higher than ambient temp so even less optimal cooler can produce significant temp drop. Also detonation sensitivity and air density loss increase quickly with boost pressure and temp rise so it makes sense to cool air somehow when using high boost.

So how much is low or high boost then? That's a bit relative question. Based on my experience 0.5 bar is definitely low boost, no point to bother with intercooling unless you are doing an ultimate "no costs or efforts saved" build. 1 bar is somewhere borderline, some cooling will definitely help there but you can still get pretty good results without it if everything else is well designed. Over 1 bar it definitely makes sense to use some charge cooling, intercooler or water injection.

Unfortunately it's quite difficult to find good "apples to apples" comparisons on this topic. Only case that I have been involved with is my friend's drag bike that got intercooler in the middle of season without any other changes. At ~2 bar boost intake temps went down from 160C to 90C and as expected terminal speeds on quarter mile got higher with less boost

[Reinhoud]

so an intercooler is something I should look into..

See if I can find something small enough.

Thanks guys

[Gixer1460]

4 hours ago, Reinhoud said:

so an intercooler is something I should look into..

See if I can find something small enough.

Thanks guys

You don't know what boost you are likely to be using so an IC may be of no benefit and with IC's - small is not what you want. You want / need as big as physically possible a) to cool efficiently and b) to minimise pressure drop across the core. Sometimes better mixture / ignition control can minimise the need for an IC and unless you are running 1+bar boost for extended periods then it is more an accessory rather than a necessity IMO.

[MeanBean49]

I found with mine theres big enough power increase even at 6psi for it to be worth it.

You can get big car intercoolers for £50, cut in half and end cap welded back on and its still a sizeable thing.

If you have space for one its not really much more expense or effort to do.

And you have the bonus of it making higher boost more safely

[Arttu]

On ‎9‎/‎8‎/‎2016 at 2:57 PM, MeanBean49 said:

I found with mine theres big enough power increase even at 6psi for it to be worth it.

You can get big car intercoolers for £50, cut in half and end cap welded back on and its still a sizeable thing.

If you have space for one its not really much more expense or effort to do.

And you have the bonus of it making higher boost more safely

Do you happen to have any numbers how big the power increase was?

Yes, adding a cooler isn't too big or expensive effort IF you have space. But usually finding the space is the main challenge, at least for me. Of course it depends heavily on what kind compromises you can do to arrange space.

[MeanBean49]

It was over 20bhp with just the basic fans in the dyno room blowing over it. 30bhp at 13psi.

Likely to be a fair bit more on the road with more airflow

[Arttu]

8 hours ago, MeanBean49 said:

It was over 20bhp with just the basic fans in the dyno room blowing over it. 30bhp at 13psi.

Likely to be a fair bit more on the road with more airflow

Pretty nice improvement indeed.

[Duckndive]

10 hours ago, MeanBean49 said:

It was over 20bhp with just the basic fans in the dyno room blowing over it. 30bhp at 13psi.

Likely to be a fair bit more on the road with more airflow

Some of the Silly BHP Jap Car guys spray nitrous across the intercooler  ......

Waste of good nitrous IMHO....

[Goo'Roo]

This is my setup. I'm still working on. Turbo is a TD04-20T with a 7cm exhaust side, previously I was running with a td04-16G with no intercooler at 10psi but I've crashed the bike just before going to dyno..
I'll take other pictures, on the other side there's a bmw r1100r small oil cooler for the sacs and another big one will go to the front to cool the engine.

 

[MeanBean49]

It may be me but that intercooler looks like it wont do very much. Would be much better with the outlet the oposite side to the inlet.

[Gixer1460]

On 9/12/2016 at 4:59 PM, Duckndive said:

Some of the Silly BHP Jap Car guys spray nitrous across the intercooler  ......

Waste of good nitrous IMHO....

Nuffin' to say you can't spray it over the core inside the cooler! Or does that have a downside?

[Duckndive]

1 minute ago, Gixer1460 said:

Nuffin' to say you can't spray it over the core inside the cooler! Or does that have a downside?

Good Point......

 

[Goo'Roo]

On 24/9/2016 at 4:16 PM, MeanBean49 said:

It may be me but that intercooler looks like it wont do very much. Would be much better with the outlet the oposite side to the inlet.

I've worked on diagonal inlet and outlet. I couldn't use an opposite outlet, and it's vertical flow to have less pressure fall. I'll see when I'll dyno it.

[MeanBean49]

19 hours ago, Goo'Roo said:

I've worked on diagonal inlet and outlet. I couldn't use an opposite outlet, and it's vertical flow to have less pressure fall. I'll see when I'll dyno it.

Think you will find the air will take the most direct route inlet to outlet. Rest of the cooler will just fill with still air and do pretty much nothing. Same with radiators. Thats why they have inlet and outlet top and bottom on opposite sides

[Gixer1460]

I realise you are doing the fabbing but if you have a boost pipe from cooler to plenum on the left - it could have been routed on the right to achieve the diagonal flow split. Also I like simplicity so why the ugly lower pipe connection from the turbo - straight in the bottom is nice and direct and an angle plate in the end tank could have pushed the air across the core? This isn't a criticism just points for mk2 version LOL! 

[Goo'Roo]

On 9/10/2016 at 10:06 AM, Gixer1460 said:

I realise you are doing the fabbing but if you have a boost pipe from cooler to plenum on the left - it could have been routed on the right to achieve the diagonal flow split. Also I like simplicity so why the ugly lower pipe connection from the turbo - straight in the bottom is nice and direct and an angle plate in the end tank could have pushed the air across the core? This isn't a criticism just points for mk2 version LOL! 

I couldn't route it straight because of wheel clearance.

 

[Gixer1460]

7 hours ago, Goo'Roo said:

I couldn't route it straight because of wheel clearance.

 

But you've got a 90 bend on there into a fabricated 180 bend ! If you'd loosened the compressor housing and rotated it back 30 odd degrees the outlet would have only needed a 45 degree link pipe into the cooler bottom? Straight was the wrong word - direct - would have been better.

[slingy1157]

Thats right where the header pipes are though. There is only so much space to play with at times.

[Gixer1460]

Fair enough - couldn't see header in the photos!