Making an intercooler for a Roots S.C

[Anonymous]

I've got this idea stuck in my head to put an intercooler on my soon to be S/C'ed 351W. I know this is a Fordsix forum, but my other 65 started out as a six and I've always liked the way ya'll go about things over here.

The S/C is a Holley 174 Roots.
http://www.holley.com/data/products/pic ... FSBP-1.jpg

I was looking at this intercooler:
http://www.superchiller.com/pages/174.html

But the price is beyond my means.

I figured to have it setup pretty much like this:
http://www.blowerdriveservice.com/ART/c ... edloop.gif

So in turn I'd like to make my own; I was thinking of two things. One being to take a block of aluminum, and drill out holes to run vertical and horizontal 1/4 (steel or copper?) piping throughout the entire piece, after cutting the aluminum down to proper size and such.

My other thought was to do the same, but just purchase a 1x1 piece of aluminum and cut it into 1/4's and weld each piece together making a rectangle. And again, for the side pieces drill holes out for lines running width wise; and for the front and rear pieces drill out holes for running length wise.

It was mentioned on another forum that it might be better to have the intercooler operating only when under high boost situations, that way the fluid is in a reservoir keeping temp down. Only way I could come up with to work that would be to have a vaccum operated switch running to a relay that would turn on the 12v inline pump when vaccum reached a specific point.

I open to all suggestions and ideas. Hoping I can get plenty of feedback and piecemeal something that might work together for a bit less than the above intercooler.

Thanks,
Luke

 

[XFlow_Fairlane]

I would run the pump full time. if you are not making any boost/heat then the heat exchanger will work by cooling the WHOLE system down and not just the coolent in it.

have you thought about starting with an intercooler core and simpley fabbing the box around it?

what kind of fab equipment do you have access to? if you are going to farm it all out to a shop (for money) then you will prob end up with ALOT of money in the system.

 

[69Falcon]

It is kind of hard from their picture to see what is inside the core of their intercooler, but if I'm understanding what you're planning to do, you're missing the part that actually cools the air. I don't think you want to have just a cooled block with a hole in the middle. You need some sort of fins for the air to come into contact with for the heat exchange to happen, and the fins need to be attached to the cooling liquid's plumbing.

Now this might sound extremely redneck, but what if you used simple copper fins, like from household hot water baseboard heating? Put enough of it to cool, but not enough to seriously restrict airflow. Connect the inlet/outlet to a recirculating pump out to a small radiator as in your picture. I have no idea if that would work, or how efficient it would be, just my pre-coffee ramblings.

 

[Anonymous]

First, it needs to be strong to support the loads from the SC bolted down and from the belt constantly trying to pull it off.

second, are you going to be using engine coolant or a separate system? If you go with a separate tank then you will want a switch so it only comes on under load. A simple switch on the carb throttle arm will work.

The tubes idea is not very efficient. The superchiller has what sort of looks like a heater core in it. It wouldn't be worth the time and effort to make something that just barely works or just barely helps at all.

The cost of materials you have proposed isn't cheap.
The cost to do all the machining isn't cheap either, and I'm talking about the tooling you will need, even if you have your own mill.

 

[Anonymous]

Thats where I wasn't happy with my idea at all--- just the tubing I wasn't sure just how much it would change air temperature if to any extent at all.

As far as strength wise-- I can't see how a solid 1x1 piece of aluminum wouldn't be strong enough to hold up?

As far as the fluid I'm tossed up in either direction to have a reservoir or to use engine coolant. I don't have a problem with the reservoir but don't have an idea on what would be the best type of fluid to use... I was told Ford uses elthylene-glycol in their inter-cooler systems.

The switch on the throttle is a great idea. Thanks much!

Any other ideas/comments are greatly appreciated.
Luke

 

[Anonymous]

yeah, 1" thick aluminum is strong enough...I was just trying to nail down the parameters for design.

If you can build one that holds a small heater core you might be one step ahead, but it is still a big/complex project nontheless.

 

[Anlushac11]

8)


Another popular way of triggering is to mount a Hobbs switch on the intake. It is set to trip the swtich at X pound of pressure so as soon as it sees a certain pressure it activates.


I was told NAPA has them starting at around 2-4lbs.

 

[Bort62]

Pure Water is by far your best coolant choice.

In order to build a good heat exchanger, you want to maximize surface area as well as the thermal conductivity of the material (given the restrictions of your system). However, this comes at the cost of flow restriction (pressure drop). It's a trade off.

Aluminum is decent. Copper is about 2x as good. Your best bet would be to try to encapsulate some off the shelf heat exchanger type - like a heater core or oil cooler. Trying to build your own is going to cost you more.


My day job is designing regenerative cooling systems for liquid fueld rocket engines, so this sorta thing is my specialty

 

[XFlow_Fairlane]

I would think an air/water specific core would be the best bet. box it in on the ends and weld a plate top and bottom. in the end I don't think that $1250 is too much by the time you look and machining and welding costs for a decent core to start with.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for all the information guys. Throughout alot of this I've had to make my own parts vs buying them. Its much more enjoyable that way and I also end up with a much better understanding of how it works. Sometimes its cost effective, sometimes its not as much so. But then again, I've never done anything that was this... complicated. I'll have to look at boxing in a shelf cooler and see what I can come up with. Again, thanks for all the information and appreciate the suggestions and comments.

Luke

 

[Anonymous]

also, a buddy of mine made a neat intercooler for his turbo 4 cyl mustang by chopping up and welding an intercooler from a wrecked Peterbilt. The scrap metal yard will always have wrecked intercooler stuff that you can cut a piece from.