Intercoolers

[Neal Stanley]

Jeff, I feel that you make a very good system. But please don't support your product with examples from a car engine; I think they are supposed to be at 180 to 200 degress. You have been nice enought to give some numbers on your web page. Looks like your intercooler is about 33% efficient, is that with or with out the fan blowing thru the intercooler.
Nealsracing

 

[Simons CPR]

neils, my data listed was Worst case scenario, 6 hot pulls back to back with no cool down between the runs, and with no air whatsoever going across the intercooler on a 70 degree day. as for the radiator example...its almost the same basis. (things get hot if they are exchanging heat) that was the point i was tring to make so it is relative. the debate going on is about something that is totally obvious...less intake temp, more dense charge, more reliable hp. can you run without intercoolers??? YES you can. is it as bad as some say. that depends on the application. if you want my OPINION, read on.... theres only two reasons i personally wouldn't use a intercooler, i couldn't afford one, or i didn't have the room to house it. other than those two reasons it is illogical NOT to have one. briggs and stratton make engines without oil pumps, there are millions of them running every day that work just fine, but, i would prefer to have a oil pump in my engine because it has more potential. the same way an intercooler gives a turbo more potential. jeff

 

[Neal Stanley]

Jeff' a cars radiator and are the same in the fact that they both would use Fourier's Law for heat exchange. But a cars radiator has a thermostat installed in it to keep the temp up, also water and air do not have the same thermal conductivity. My guess is that a cars radiator works much better than an intercooler currently installed in a RX1. But you could make them more the same if you would take your cars radiator and bolt it in a horizontal position and then seal up the grill and undercarriage. Next you do not sound like the type of person that would post the worst case scenario on your web page. So what are the real numbers?
Nealsracing

 

[powderlites]

We have seen intercooler so hot they melt the hoses on RX1 at 20 lbs boost on long pull. ( wrong type of hose )
WE have also taken same sleds with different turbo kits and run them at same boost side by side and one intercooler is so hot you can't touch it for long!
Too small intercooler core flow and big pressure drop.
I just hope your all having fun getting through summer!
Some guys were sledding last weekend in Whistler,BC ! Gotta hate them!!

http://www.powderlites.com

 

[snowy1]

if you guys are concerned about getting all the hp. you can and making your innercooler more effecient then do what I do. don,t run a hood I have cold air and snow on my innercooler all the time, on pwder days my innercooler is covered all day long with snow. if you run a hood especially with out good venting then you are just heat soaking the innercooler, and not getting the full benefit, I have seen a sled running 14lbs boost three head gaskets strait vp110, have to turn down the boost to 8 lbs. because in the deep powder he could not get any air flow through the hood to cool the innercooler, and as it and the motor continued to soak up the heat the motor started detonating, I run 20+ lbs of boost and nos I am looking for all the hp. I can get so if a hood doesn,t benafit me I don,t need it. you can run an rx1 all day in deep powder piled on top of the motor and it never misses a beat, clutches are sealed up tight enough that snow never gets into them. in these conditions I think the innercooler is a benafit.

 

[Neal Stanley]

A very good question was asked. When would someone not use an intercooler? Let me give you just one. If I was going to use a sled for trail riding or the type of riding where most of the time I would only use short bursts of speed. To pick the system to use or make, my primary considerations would be as follows.
A. I would want enought HP that I would have a kick, but not so much that it would not be drivable.
B. I would want my piping as short as possible (there is pressure drop for every inch of pipe and there is pressure drop in every intercooler).
C I would want a turbo with a small A/R Ratio. (the ratio of exhaust inducer area over the exhaust inducer radius) this would create high velocity flow at low volumes thus improving spin up).
D. I would want a system that had no hassles. Simple and easy to maintain.
C. I would want a system that you could control detonation with good standard pump gas.
Then I would have to consider using a system without an intercooler.
Nealsracing

 

[Simons CPR]

neils, you made a comment that if your intercooler gets hot its NOT working. well that depends on how hot it gets. personally i took your comment as a cheap shot at dissing the intercooler to promote non intercooling. my point with the radiator was that it does in fact get hot when it is exchanging heat from the coolant to the outside air, even with a fan pushing air across it. the same will apply to a intercooler when exchanging heat. its "Common Sense" if it was not needed in the system it would NOT get hot because it would be exchanging little or NO heat. if it gets heat saturated thats a different story. to test for this a certain "factory with special interest" tested our rx-1 turbo running pump gas and ran it 1 mile wide open, turned it around, and ran it another mile wide open back to the starting line while documenting the speed, hoped on a stock sled and did the same thing, then went back to my sled to repeat this test six times in a row. it ran the same speed on all the passes proving the intercooler was working great. our intercooler creates less than a 1/2 pound pressure drop. it has more surface area and more cross over tubes than any other intercooler out there. it works great and adds little volume to the system for a big return in dropping intake air temperature with little pressure drop, leaving lots of room to turn the boost up, and offering increased dependability.

With todays quick spooling ball bearing turbos there is very little lag on any well designed system, to say that a tight volume, intercooled blow thru carb, system will have more lag than a suck thru carb, non intercooled system is misleading. theoretically my lake race turbo should have more lag than my trail turbo, but with the way they work in the field you cant tell the difference. you might want to start test riding some of these and do your own testing before you start making assumptions.


neils. i see you became a member on dec 2 05, you have only made a total of 7 posts... and they all are on this intercooler post..... in reading your 7 posts i see that you are well aqainted with the guys who make a turbo for which running an intercooler is NOT even an option..... now i get it....your beliefs are pretty much set in stone. defend it to the death, lol. you seem like a smart guy, good luck. jeff



for anyone that truely is interested in pro vs con

bender used to make a stage 1 non intercooled turbo and still makes a stage 2 intercooled turbo for the rx-1. i believe bender did it to deliver a cheaper alternative to prospective buyers. to my knowledge, he is the only turbo kit manufacturer that offered it both ways. however even with his stage one non intercooled turbo, he still had a tunnel mounted heat exchanger that acted as a cooling device. i think those who are looking for a truely unbiased opimion should contact bender racing and talk to Terry Paine. i'm not sure but i think that they only offer a intercooled model now.

snowmobile----------------------------------snowmobile
turbos offered with--------------------------turbos offered without
intercoolers----------------------------------intercoolers

mc xpress------------------------------------bender stage 1 (discontinued??)
alpine-----------------------------------------lightning pro
powdwerlite
bender
brothers
northeast
simon cpr
polaris factory
arctic cat factory

most everyone offers intercooled turbos. if there NOT needed... how did they ever get them past the POLARIS and ARCTIC CAT factory bean counters. they could have saved a ton of money. the factories obvious thought the expense was worth the performance gains as well as the safety net it would provide in the warranty department.

i have listed this info to try an educate people that are truely interested in this subject. do your research and good luck with your choice, there are plenty of them out there. jeff

 

[Simons CPR]

neil you posted this.....
A very good question was asked. When would someone not use an intercooler? Let me give you just one. If I was going to use a sled for trail riding or the type of riding where most of the time I would only use short bursts of speed. To pick the system to use or make, my primary considerations would be as follows.
A. I would want enought HP that I would have a kick, but not so much that it would not be drivable.


:ORC (can't this be achieved thru proper turbo sizing on either kit?)


B. I would want my piping as short as possible (there is pressure drop for every inch of pipe and there is pressure drop in every intercooler).


:ORC (the presure drop in 3 feet of pipe would not even be measureable) (well designed intercoolers only have acouple tenths of a pound pressure drop)


C I would want a turbo with a small A/R Ratio. (the ratio of exhaust inducer area over the exhaust inducer radius) this would create high velocity flow at low volumes thus improving spin up).


:ORC (this "turbo sizing" would also apply to either turbo kit and is part of what you would be adjusting to accomplish what you wanted in your first request A.)


D. I would want a system that had no hassles. Simple and easy to maintain.


:ORC ( neither system have any hassles or are hard to maintain)


C. I would want a system that you could control detonation with good standard pump gas.


(now having an intercooler would be a huge advantage)


Then I would have to consider using a system without an intercooler.
Nealsracing


atleast we agree 4 stroke turbos rule... jeff

 

[ken_climb]

I'd like to try a apex mcx rear mount without a intercooler. I bet it would spool alot quicker. Is it really needed with there kit? I ride deep powder 90% of the time and with those cooling fins in the charge tube under the tunnel I'd bet the mcx would have similar intake temps without a intercooler then a front mount with one.

 

[Master of Faster]

Our turbo sled is has a Simons CPR turbo, intercooled obviously. After a few hard runs I've noticed the intake plenum to be noticeably cooler than the boost tube side of the intercooler coming from the turbo. Pretty obvious to me that it is doing good, and turbo lag is pretty much non-existent even with trail clutching. I see no reason to not have one, just seems like an added security measure with little/no downfall.

 

[dirkdiggler]

Some things never change. I'm just glad snowmobiling is a hobby of mine and doesn't rule my life.

This post was start in 2003 and will be 3 years old in August. Let it go already. The CPR turbo has proven itself on the track. The Non inter-cooled LP has proven itself to a huge segment of Mountain Riders all of which would tell you they'd take it over an inter-cooled version of the CPR, Bender, or any other Turbo out there.

Some people will never change. I've done my best over the the last year to change. I think it's time others did the same.

 

[Boyko]

Jeff or Dave can you please tell me the preasure drop on your RX-1 intercooler at 20# of boost and in what conditions, I have a larger core I would like to use.

 

[Neal Stanley]

Jeff, I am sorry if you took my comments as a cheat shot. I apologize if I have worded my thoughts poorly. My point was and is the hotter the intercooler the less efficient it is. Next, I do not have a dog in this hunt. I sell no products. I have just been passing on infromation about this subject that I have an interest in. I do know people at LP and I have purchased an intake manifold from them. But basically I am a do-it-my-self kind of guy. My occupation is that of an aircraft engineer but my main interests is in motor sports. Yes I do have some basic views. One of them is that under 8 pounds of boost that you will not see the full potential of the turbo with an intercooler. And I am not the only one who thinks this, For example most turbo kits for motorcycles do not normally use an intercooler. One other basic belief is that over 8 pounds of boost there are better ways to cool the charge. I use water/menthol. Intercoolers do work, but they do have there drawbacks, like evething else. I also posted that if you would get some air to them they would work a lot better.
But, I would like to take this time to point out just one issue. I posted that I would want my piping as short as possible(there is pressure drop for every inch of pipe and there is pressure drop in every intercooler.) You posted ( the pressure drop in 3 feet of pipe would not even be measureable)(well designed intercooler only have a couple of tenths of a pound pressure drop). I think that is misleading. The pipe would only have a couple of tenths (.18) of a pound of pressure drop if it has no bends. But if we only look at one point about the intercooler, the angle of inclination to the intercooler, it is over 70 degress. This will create an uneven distribution of flow, eddy currents, and the loss of 1.5 to 1.8 PSI drop. Not my numbers, they come from NASA.
Nealsracing
PS This has been interesting, but I broke my race car this weekend. You just have to love these motors. It put out so much power that it pulled a 1 inch steel tubing in haft.

 

[rxrider]

Good luck fixing your racecar, and I wish you good luck on the race track as well.

The post is old, jtssrx did not get any replies on this old post, sorry for bringing this old piece of info to the surface, thanks for an interesing debate

 

[HAMMER]

Old Thread....along the same line as this one.

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http://www.ty4stroke.com/viewtopic.php?t=17332

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