I am in the parts gathering process of a turbo 3800 swap in my Camaro. I have been reading and doing math for the better part of two days, to come up with an intercooler that will work for me. My head hurts, so I figured I would ask to see what others are running and what might work for my setup. Here is a run down of everything I have on what is going to be swapped in so far.

3800 Series II (stock L36 Camaro motor)
9.3ish:1 compression
Stock Cam (18x/18x .4xx/.4xx)
Stock heads
Camaro L36 intake
Chinese knockoff turbo (not my choice comes with the motor) 60ish trim
Pr of roughly 2.02
inlet/outlet 2.5"
Power goal of 300 to start with crappy turbo ultimately to 450 with better turbo
Spinning it to 5700
Looking around 15 lbs of boost

Now with the initial power goals I show a 16X7X2.5 as working, however with 450hp I show a 24" intercooler being needed. What do you guys recommend? I am completely stumped. It will be mounted as straight up as possible with as much airflow as possible. What I want to do is be as efficient as possible, but still leave room to grow my HP with a more efficient turbo. Thanks for the help.

 

If you mount it in the nose between front frame rails, you can fit up to 24-25" long by 9-12" tall cores, anywhere from 2-4" thick. I would go as big as you can fit to leave room for future upgrades

 

Thanks for the response. Should I be concerned with having too large of a intercooler? I read that you would like to keep air speed to around Mach .4-.5, after that the air starts to get turbulent. Of course I will not be moving enough air to worry about that, but what I am concerned with is am I going to be moving enough air if I go with a larger intercooler than initially needed.

 

Larger one should have less pressure drop across and pipe size would likely have greater impact on air velocity than intercooler. I wouldnt be concerned with that.

You can run slightly smaller but i dont see a disadvantage on going with the biggest that fits in whatever spot you choose to mount it

 

I used one that is either 26 or 28x12x4. I figured I would use the biggest one I could fit in there without modifying too much. I also needed a 4" thick on anyways.

 

Thanks guys. I am going to go with the largest one that will fit. I won't have an A/C condenser so it will be pretty easy to shoehorn a large intercooler up front.

 

Make sure it has plenty of air flow too.
Get an air dam under there and make sure you have gaps between the radiator and body filled.
Other wise fit the biggest intercooler you can up in there.

 

If you are ever bored and in the north metro one day, let me know and you can see how I did mine.

 

I will have it as air tight as I can get it. I found a 25X12X3 tube style that I like a lot although I have been thinking about going to a little smaller one only having it be the bar and plate style.

I am rarely ever bored with two kids and a wife. Although I will keep that in mind. Thanks.