Mechanical intercooler pump

Wesman07

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I’ve been looking into my air to water intercooling options. I’ve found a few electric pumps but not many belt driven pumps. Is there a reason for this? I would assume a mechanical pump is more reliable?
 
Yes, a mechanical water pump is more reliable but there is not much call for using an external mount and the reason why you only see one external mount mechanical pump from Meziere.
Most of the time if an external mount water pump is being used the user needs to be able to run the pump independant of the engine running so an electric pump is used so it can be turned on and off as needed.
 
Is there any reason to monitor an intercooling system? Can your intake temps get too cold with fuel injection?
 
Wesman07":34n2mufe said:
Is there any reason to monitor an intercooling system? Can your intake temps get too cold with fuel injection?
Unless you are running ice water through the intercooler the intake manifolds air temps will not drop below the ambient temp.

Second, there is almost no such thing as too cold with gasoline. The cooler the air, the denser it is, more torque and power.
A good example would be Buddy Ingersoll's Pro Stock Turbocharged Buick V6 using a liquid nitrogen intercooler in 1986.

It is never a bad idea to monitor the intercoolers inlet versus outlet temps. You will learn a lot.
 
pmuller9":87f0ck1s said:
Wesman07":87f0ck1s said:
Is there any reason to monitor an intercooling system? Can your intake temps get too cold with fuel injection?
Unless you are running ice water through the intercooler the intake manifolds air temps will not drop below the ambient temp.

Second, there is almost no such thing as too cold with gasoline. The cooler the air, the denser it is, more torque and power.
A good example would be Buddy Ingersoll's Pro Stock Turbocharged Buick V6 using a liquid nitrogen intercooler in 1986.

It is never a bad idea to monitor the intercoolers inlet versus outlet temps. You will learn a lot.
I agree...You can never have too much data...Did not want to spend the extra money on the dominator, but I did not want to run out of inputs.
With the electric, you could regulate the speed of the pump as needed with the ECM. using pulse width modulation...It may lag some but no sense having it run full tilt when just cruising.
 
Drag-200stang it was those lines of thinking that made me think “why not mechanical?”

The pump speed would be varied by engine rpm and you could adjust the pulley size.

I did not find the pump pmuller was talking about, but I could only assume it was up wards of four hundred dollars based off their website.

Does anyone know how a Cummins feeds their intercooler? I’ve found water intercoolers but no pumps. I would think they would be mechanical.
 
The Cummins water to air intercoolers used the engine coolant.
I believe this arrangement was found mainly in the school bus engines.
Otherwise most Cummins use air to air intercoolers.

If you are looking at Cummins competition intercoolers, they are fed with an electric water pump.
Sled pullers and drag racing pull water from a large ice water tank.
We had a 20 gal ice water tank in the trunk of the car.

If you use a water to air intercooler for street, you still have to have a radiator to remove the heat from the water.

What are your thoughts on the advantages of a water to air system for street applications?
 
I was thinking it would be a good idea for situations such as pulling someone out of a ditch or dragging a vehicle out of the woods... where vehicle speeds are low.

In these infrequent situations, I have never felt the need for more power. I just don’t know how that would affect air intake temps.

The big picture is I’m trying to decide between one of two set ups...

The first one being inspired by the beautifully simple AK Miller design. I would use a Brog Warner 50mm 200sx turbo that would go straight into a short log style intake manifold. The manifold would be intercooled by a laminova (or similar) and possibly use the engine coolant.

The second option is to keep the efi intake manifold and use an air to air intercooler.
 
Looking at both set-ups.
The air to air system relies on the intercooler core to extract the thermal energy from the turbocharged outlet air to the outside air.

The water to air system relies on the heat exchanger to transfer the thermal energy from the outlet air to the water.
The water then carries the thermal energy to the radiator which finally transfers the heat to the outside air.

In both cases the final heat exchanger core or radiator relies on moving air to extract the heat from the system.

If there is not enough airflow because of slow vehicle speed then an electric fan would be required in either case.

Using 200 degree engine coolant for the intercooler is ok for a diesel engine but is not ok for gas engines where detonation is a concern.

The water to air works best if there is a heat sink that is colder than the ambient air temp.
We use something similar to the laminova heat exchanger in the hydroplane boat because the lake water is always colder than the outside air temp.
 
I’m not sure why I didn’t think of a putting a fan on an air to air intercooler. This is why I like to bounce ideas off people.

Any advice on intake design? Or a good reading reference? It’s not easy to find information on intake design for boosted applications. The only thing I did read was that the pulse wave is not affected by pressure, but it is affected by temperature. I find this believable because a cold two stroke won’t “get on the pipe”. The same principles should apply.

I would like to shorten the manifold up if reasonably possible.
 
A turbocharger just increases the air density. Runner tuning has the same considerations as sea level air density or Denver Colorado air density.
You are looking for torque at very low rpm so the intake runner tuned length is in feet like the total stock EFI intake runner length.
Since you want short runners don't worry about tuned length and go for looks and packaging instead.

You talked about liking the looks of the stock log intake manifold.
You were also concerned about the looks of a pieced together manifold using part of the stock EFI intake.

If you look at the Clifford intake it kinda resembles a log with equal length runners.
What is a plus is the runners have bosses for injectors that are angled so the injectors point at the intake valve.
There are also 4 bosses for fuel rail supports further back on the runners.

Edelbrock makes Throttle Body Elbows to adapt a round TB to the 4 barrel intake flange.
 
Your right. I’ll go with one of the shorter runner options. Packaging is more of a concern for me.
 
I assume youre talking about the old ntc-855 “big cam” cummins engines. They used engine coolant to cool the air charge with a heat exchanger mounted on top of the intake ports on the head. These were driven by the water pump and controlled by dual thermostats. The caterpillar 3406 A (and some B) used air to water as well, By the mid 90’s everybody advandoned this method for 2 reasons
- Ambient air is always colder than engine coolant at operating temp.
- Because of size, there is just not enough room on the engine for a larger air to water heat exchanger, where you get alot more surface area when you stick it in front of the radiator. Also on these big diesel engines the fan clutch is air powered and controlled by a temp switch so when temps start to rise the fan immediatly kicks in full blast, where on a car, the thermofluid style fan clutches are not so precise.
 
If I ever get around to doing a turbo 6, I would do air to air with a pusher electric fan with its own adjustable controller, that monitors air charge temps and controls the fan to kick on and off at the desired temp. Im bet you could make one of the higher end fan controllers from summit racing work as long as the range of adjustment goes low enough.
 
ive given a lot of thought and consideration to this charge cooling issue.
Paul mentioned laminova. In the end a laminova element mounted over the valve cover in carbed, or off to the side, in EFI is the most effiicient method.a secondary radiator in a truck , or a cool can in a race car is sufficient to cool these .

two other points.

the davies craig system of electric coolant control is already thought out and carefully tested. its the way to go.

further if you are building less than 1o psi, an intercooler is an interference.

lastly the davies craig system plumbed into the casting plugs instead of the water pump port intrigues me beyond measure
someday.....
 
Wesman07":3pptd1eq said:
I’m not sure why I didn’t think of a putting a fan on an air to air intercooler. This is why I like to bounce ideas off people.

Any advice on intake design? Or a good reading reference? It’s not easy to find information on intake design for boosted applications. The only thing I did read was that the pulse wave is not affected by pressure, but it is affected by temperature. I find this believable because a cold two stroke won’t “get on the pipe”. The same principles should apply.

I would like to shorten the manifold up if reasonably possible.


I have a a 200 and made my own Intake. It works pretty good.
 

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