To intercool or not to intercool with E85?

A friend who races 2.3L turbo's was telling em that since I will be running about 12-16lbs boost with E85 and a blow through carb not to run a intercooler as I have thermal coatings on everything.

I will be running my motor in Autocross and Open Track environments. My friend was saying to just run the turbo outlet up, 90deg turn and into carb bonnet. The entire intake and exhaust path will be very short and due to thermal coatings the temps will stay consistent so I should have virtually no turbo lag.

My friend was also saying the venturi effect of the carb also helps to drop the temps.

I was thinking I could also use water-methanol injection to lower temps. I thought of using a cool can to refrigerate the fuel but my friend says they don't work as the fuel is warm by the time it leaves the float bowl.

I have also seen a pipe intended for use as intercooler supply and return that have fins on them intended to dissipate heat before and after the intercooler. I was thinking of running one of those pipes as the vertical supply pipe for the turbo to carb bonnet.

Please feel free to comment and share your wisdom.

We run E85 (or there abouts!) and we also run an intercooler. We also run 15-18lbs. of boost into our 250 with a Holley 450.

E85 definately will lower the intake charge temps. No doubt about that! But with an intercooler....the temps will be even lower.

Turbo lag and thermal coatings have nothing in common. Also the carb venturi has nothing to do with lowering the temps.

I personally don't really care for water/methanol injection for one reason....what happens when you run out of water/methanol and your tune up is set up for it. You hole a piston or maybe just push out a head gasket.
It would suck to be on the 8th lap of a 10 lap race only to run out of water/methanol!

Later,
Will

My only experience with non EFI turbo's was on three different Ford carb turbo 2.3L cars.

On those we wrapped the cross under pipe for the turbo to keep the heat in and thus keep pressure up which reduced turbo lag as it had to spend less time building pressure.

I intended to use thermal barrier coating on turbo manifold, turbo exhaust turbine, and downpipe to keep heat in to keep pressure up and to reduce underhood temps.

My piston tops are thermal barrier coated. I intend to coat the combustion chamber, exhaust port, and valve faces with thermal barrier as well. This should protect internal parts somewhat from heat and increase chamber pressures as less heat is absorbed into the surrounding metal.

Am I thinking incorrectly?

Thanks,

Mark.

"Cross under pipe"? I have a 2.3 turbo (mine is EFI though....) but I don't recall a cross under pipe? Is that the one that goes from the turbo to the carb?

Anyway the thermal coatings work fine to hold in the heat. But I'm not sure they help with turbo lag. There are much better and more responsive ways to reduce lag. A properly sized turbo is the main one of course.

Later,
Will

My vote is for an intercooler. Most of the heat comes from the act of compressing the air itself. It is to your benefit to get that heat out before you try to stuff the air into your engine. I'd guess that you would make the same power with 3-4 pounds less boost with a good intercooler, especially at the boost levels you will be seeing. This would reduce the time it takes your turbo to reach full boost. Go water-to-air if you want to keep intake plumbing down. That also allows you to circulate iced water under race conditions. My last project used intercoolers from frozenboost.com. At about 1/4 the cost of the name brands, their stuff is a good buy.

Good luck!

Does10s":39xkguff said:

"Cross under pipe"? I have a 2.3 turbo (mine is EFI though....) but I don't recall a cross under pipe? Is that the one that goes from the turbo to the carb?

Anyway the thermal coatings work fine to hold in the heat. But I'm not sure they help with turbo lag. There are much better and more responsive ways to reduce lag. A properly sized turbo is the main one of course.

Later,
Will

Click to expand...

The 1979-1981 carb turbo Fox body Mustangs had the T3 turbo on the intake manifold and the exhaust exited out of the stock exhaust manifold and went under the engine to the intake side and into the turbo. The pipe was only about 2in diamater. The Corvair guys used to wrap fiberglass insulation around the pipe to keep the heat in the pipe. Hot air expands so in a given volume like the pipe the heat held in the pipe means higher pressure for the same volume of air. When turbo kicks in there is that much less pressure that has to build up.

Best way I can describe it is to turn water on in hose, walk over and squeeze trigger on sprayer, water pressure is up, water comes out now. Now hold down sprayer, have friend turn on hose and you have to wait for water pressure to fill hose before water comes out with any force. Keeping pipe wrapped or coated keeps heat in the turbo and helps keep pressure up.

Since we could not use intercooler we used water injection and non detergent windshield washer solvent activated by a Hobbs switch mounted on intake under carb.

Ford USA dropped carb turbo 2.3L at end of 1981 due to bad lag and reliability problems. In 1982 Ford of Canada had a carb turbo but it was more like a EFI setup with carb on intake manifold and turbo blowing into a carb hat. MUCH more efficient.

We tried wrapping exhaust cross under pipe on the carb turbo's I had and it helped reduce spool up and lag.

I know of one guy on Stangnet who said he made a 3in diameter cross under pipe and had it coated and wrapped it and he said it made a world of difference on his car.

Im pretty sure the carb turbo's use a .48 compresser side. Not sure what the turbine side was. It was a T3 but it had different seals than a regular T3.

JGTurbo: Thanks for the link, i will take a look at what they got. To reduce piping and lag I want to get a intercooler that has inlet and outlet on same side. Planning to look for a narrower Ranger radiator. Thats what some of the guys on TurboFord are running.

Thanks again all!

Mark.

i say go with an intercooler because every degree you drop on the incoming air temp is more horsepower which means more speed


also do you have any links to those ribbed piping you were talking about for before and after the IC?

I would personally take a hint fom the import crowd about the E85. Even though there are evo's and sti's running aound using E85 they still use an intercooler to ensure lower intake tempatures because it is the most efficent way of keeping them down.

So after saying that my vote goes for an intercooler setup. always there and it doesn't run out like water/ethanol injection.

Point taken on intercoolers. I will put it back on my wish list.

frozenboost.com and silicone intakes.com, same company, great prices on boost parts and pieces, great selection of intercoolers at incredible prices as earlier mentioned, they have started stocking aluminum piping as of late and ship same day as ordered if placed early enough, well managed.

Anlushac11":35jdsvq8 said:

I have also seen a pipe intended for use as intercooler supply and return that have fins on them intended to dissipate heat before and after the intercooler. I was thinking of running one of those pipes as the vertical supply pipe for the turbo to carb bonnet.

Click to expand...

I'd stay away from those pipes. Here's a quote from the frozenboost website:
"This Pre-Intercooler Cooling Pipe is super efficient! There aren't any cooling fins on the inside of the pipe to create drag or turbulence, so you'll get the pure cooling effect with none of the drawbacks."

Did they forget about the fact that turbulent flow transfers heat more effectively than laminar flow? And drag? High levels of drag most often accompany high levels of heat transfer.

None of the drawbacks huh? Well sure, but it doesn't have any of the benefits either. I'd rate this product right up there with the swirl-inducing intake contraptions. Load of crap.