I was mocking this up earlier but I'm wondering if it is going to be a problem.



Intercooler is 20.5" wide with tanks. 13" high.

It would be mounted on the sides. This would effectively force all of the air through the smaller intercooler core (17" wide) vs the radiator that is a 26" core.

I'm thinking this is going to reduce the cooling efficiency of the radiator since the air will only be directed over a smaller area than the actual radiator is..

 

This is the same issue I've been struggling with the past few weeks. I'm debating a FMIC in front of the radiator or an air to water setup under the hood on the passenger side. In the next month in talking w shop/builder that builds 2-3000hp cars. Im sure they'll set me in the right direction.

These are the difficult decisions in life!

 

I think you'll be just fine if you're using puller fans. Some of the 4th gen Huron speed kits use huge FMIC with puller fans without issue. Again if your fans are decent you shouldn't have a thing to worry about

 

Here is the heat exchanger from my air to water setup. I didn't design a surge tank with a vent relief into the system and as you can see it over pressurized from the expanding coolant Aunt caused the tubes in the heat exchanger to swell up.

Imagine if this caused the actual air to water intercooler to rupture, it could have hydra locked the engine.

 

Mines probably worse, as far as covering the radiator with tanks and other junk that'll block the flow. There's turn downs and front-facing pipes, and the intercooler is thicker vs wider.

Had the same worry as you. haven't driven it in the heat of summer yet, but it seemed to cool about the same as before so far.

 

If I do it, I will have an over flow setup. I'm still on the fence w air to water vs air to air. I have a new powerstroke diesel and it has an air to water setup stock. The temps are so stable compared to all the other turbo engines I have. I know it's apples to oranges though.

 

I think if engineered properly it works better.

I should have put a surge tank somewhere but I didn't have the room. Going back to air-to-air for simplicity.

 

Does the intercooler have to be up against the rad? When i had air to air up front i cut the crash bar out and mounted it to that, and it left a good bit of room between cooler and rad, never had a problem cooling

 

Do you have any photos? Ideally I'd like to use this intercooler because it's a rather nice high flowing unit, although more sized for a fox body. I'm not sure what other orientation would make it work.

I looked at some photos of the bottom feeding style (i.e procharger) as well, but I don't know that it would be much better.

I also stumbled upon this thread:

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/powe...need-pics.html

Which is quite interesting, tilting the radiator like that to fit the core, and run the pipes inside the engine bay. Although that brings forth it's own problems, such as my dual fans crashing into the steering box.

 

I dont have any pics on this phone. Guess it depends on the size and where the pipes run. If it was a bottom entry and exit horizontal flow core it would likely work ok.

 

That's exactly what I did on my car currently. I've got about 7-8ish inches between the intercooler and radiator. I'm running a single 16 under pusher fan. I'm gonna switch back to dual 12 inch brushless fans in the spring

 

Decided to run a angled 4th gen radiator which allowed me to mount the intercooler more into the engine bay, so the charge pipes are completely within the engine bay.





So one of the things that I've been thinking about is switching intake manifolds. Keep in mind this is a sub 6500 rpm 5.3, but I've been running the LS2 intake.

I've been thinking of running a different intake and mounting the throttle body on the drivers side. (rather than basically doing a 180* bend and coming in front of the radiator).

Two options I'm looking at is naturally a single plane manifold with elbow, and the Holley mid rise which is a modular dual plane manifold, and using the side mount lid.

My only concerns is that, either option gives up anywhere from 30-40 foot lbs of torque below 5,000 RPM over the LS2 intake, and giving up any low speed torque is always a bad idea. Except that, I'm also a manual trans car and I do wonder if it would make the 'hit' a little softer between shifts, and aid in traction.

What do you guys think?

 

If this is a turbo car, if it spools quick control torque with boost and timing. You likely wont miss the 30-40 lb ft when theres several hundred lb ft added with boost

 

I do exactly as you describe at the start of the thread.
The air cooling my radiator must first go through my A2A intercooler, transmission cooler, and then the radiator.
I moved my airdam forward to make it happen and sealed it all the way to the rad. It works pretty good.
Good fans are a must. Normal 12" spals wont cut it. I got fans from a 2010 Equinox V6 SUV, they work much better.
Firebird front clip doesnt help either. My intercooler is larger than yours, I believe 28"x12"x3"

 

with this solution.

 

Has anyone successfully put in a air 2 water and kept it in the engine bay? Maybe something fit In battery tray or air box area without cutting the car apart and still close a stock hood?

 

This is how I ran the car last year. It worked ok, but really needed a large surge tank for the intercooler:



This is how I'm running it now:

 

What a2w was that? Did it perform well? Notice much difference in that and the a2a? I like that a2w setup

 

Typical 12x12 with 3" in and out. You can get them from frozenboost. It worked well, but I really needed more coolant volume. The pressure got high.

The pump/fans kinda drove me nuts.

A2A isn't done yet so I won't know how well it works, but this intercooler was on a buddies fox and it made 600whp.