Would a air to water intercooler work for a car driven on the street? I know it best suits the track but I am jsut curious if the water will get too hot for a street driven car after a while.

 

You will need to circulate it and cool it otherwise it will just keep getting hotter.

 

anyone else?

 

See stock Sy/Ty air-water heat exchanger setup for reference... you will need a separate water pump and radiator (not neccessarily full size radiator.. a transmission cooler or such may work fine) to cool the heat exhanger's water. Otherwise, as noted by the Sy/Ty's stock setup, they do work for daily drivers.

 

the stock intercooler on mustang cobras, lightnings, and the new GT are all air to liquid.



personally, i think a air to liquid intercooler makes MORE sence on the street. plus you can chill the water/coolent and have more cooling power at the track.

someone made a good long post about it, if you do a search im sure it will come up, it was a long thread.

 

I think I remember that post. I have been searching like crazy for it and can't seem to find it. Does anyone have a link to it for me???? Thanks guys. The car is not going to be much of a daily driver but will do a cruise every now and then.

 

Why?

 

A/A on the street any day. My typhoon has a second cooler in the grill, larger pump and isolated cooler lines. once it gets hot there is no cooling it off. At the track one day i made 4 passes. the first pass was the IAT was 95* the second was 115*, third 130* and when I gave up 145*.
A A/A on the street will stay consistant without the fear of heatsoak.
For drag racing A/W is the way to go as you can use ice to have your intake temps around 60*
Street and road race, A large bar and plate A/A

 

I had a Vortech Aftercooler on my Mustang (S-trim), and loved it. Power was very good , and if you wanted an extra boost of power, just throw some ice in the reservoir. I guess it depends also on how you're planning to use the car. Mine was a daily driver.

 

i have installed both a a/w cooler and a a/a with a spray bar on two different cars and to be honest the dyno showed better power with the a/a with a bar, at the track the a/w did good as long as it was kept cold but sucked as soon as you ran out of ice. if the car is being driven every day then i would use a a/a for the simple fact of not having to fart with that aftercooler crap. intake temps on the a/a stayed at about 80-90 degrees consistent with it dipping lower at times, but that all has to deal with how big the intercooler was, just like the other guy said the after cooler kept rising and rising to the point of it would have been better to take it off and punt the thing in to the stands. i think for a 1500$ upgrade from vortech that it is not worth it. you can do a a/a for a bit cheaper and it would be a hell of lot more usable.

 

With your a/w did you cool the liquid with a radiator??? I would think if you plumbed a cooling system for the water it could be efficient. Maybe I'm wrong.

Currently I have a POS ATI a/a IC. I would like to ditch it but room is a problem. Is the heat exchanger on an a/w IC smaller by comparison? What would be a good site to see/purchase an a/w core/exchanger???

 

I must bring this one back.

I don't understand it. If you had an air-to-water, and you had cool water circulating from it through a cooler infront of your rad, how would it be worse than an air-to-air?

-- Joe

 

if you do an air/water, make sure you have enough coolant to circulate for at least 15 sec before it starts to use the same coolant again. in otherwords, make sure as long as your in the throttle you have freash coolant at all times. you will have to flow your system to find out how much volume your resivior needs to be. use a good pump, and make sure you pick a pump that flows well i.e. quick+volume. my choice would def be an air/water. pick up maximum boost by corky bell. he has a good chapter on intercoolers. he states that water has about fourteenfold the heat transfer coeficent as air. if at all possible use a copper core for the i/c. copper transfers heat much more efficently than aluminum.