Who here has a Water to Air intercooler setup?
 

Show me some pictures please?

or just google image it

Only when it rains. :)

All find are pics with supercharger cars. Yuk!!

Just hedging bets here, but i bet it looks almost exactly the same.

You're welcome!

been thinking of building something similar to Stillen water to air intercooler in the Ford Mustang. A concept like this will save a lot of space and be effective a hell.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1409932654

What do you people think?

I tried water to air for a while.

Then I put down the crack pipe. What a waste of time and energy! It made as much sense as plumbing a toilet into your home air conditioning.

1. It will require MORE space: 2 heat exchangers, pump, water reservoir, somewhere for all those water lines and electric pump power wires to go, hoses, hoses, hoses, clamps, custom fab, etc.

2. more weight at the front of the car where it shouldn't be. Again, two heat exchangers full of heavy, sloshy water.

3. effectiveness is limited unless you add complicated controls for the pump based on AIT that can account for heat soak and limited water capacity.

4. "Hell" is effective at heating things from what I've heard.

As you can see. You end up with (2) air to water exchanges. All in the name of not having (2) easy-to-route charge pipes.

Drivers for a water system:
a) When you cannot use a FMIC or other easy-to-position air to air IC on the vehicle. Not the case with Miata.

b) Roots or twin scoll S/C's that deliver right into the intake.

"keep it simple stupid"

water intercoolers have benefits in vehicle with air to air intercooler packaging restrictions. The Miata is not one of these vehicles.

Not really I can cut 1/4 the of radiator in half and do two heat exchangers in one. Use a high speed fan kit and be done with it.

With regard to the Stillen intercooler design it looks like I can remove my A/A intercooler pipes, intercooler and corresponding bracket, save weight and run a very short pipe to the turbo. All I have to do is put is my mind and soul into building a custom intake manifold with integrated intercooler.

This is the stupidest thing I have read in this thread so far, and there is a lot of stupid in here. Miata's already have marginal cooling systems and you want to remove radiator space. :crx:

Words fail me.

On the upside, the 3/4 size radiator will now have nice cold intercooler water nearby to dump its heat into.

What I see is a bunch negative people telling what I can and I can not do. I asked for pictures just to see what has been done.

Either way the issue that disturbs me the most is that I don't understand how so so many people run superchargers with Air/Water intercooler set ups and don't complaint about overheating.

very true. gold wrapped heatshield?

Overheating what, exactly?


And what we're doing is drawing centuries of collective experience and telling that what you're talking about doing is a bad idea. Just because YOUR idea sucks doesn't mean that we're negative. It just means your idea sucks. If you want to try it anyways, go right on ahead.

I broke the internet and deleted all my pictures of my setup. OH WAIT SHIT I DIDN'T, YOU'RE IN LUCK!

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1409944948

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1409944948

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1409944948

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1409944948

Either way the issue that disturbs me the most is that I don't understand how so so many people run superchargers with Air/Water intercooler set ups and don't complaint about overheating.[/QUOTE]

Maybe they don't run them on miatas. Of course many people with superchargers on a Miata are known for not giving a hoot about air intake temps. Many. Not all. Some people use centrifugal supers and don't *need* air-water intercoolers.

Wait, how exactly is a couple gallons of water at 6lbs/gal supposed to be lighter than a few feet of aluminum intercooler piping at 0.58lb/ft. Not to mention the ~2lb water pump.

The only real justification for an air to water setup in my opinion is in a dedicated high boost drag racing machine... or just to be different on a daily driver. From everything I have researched they are not suitable for a track car and could be marginal on an autocross car.

If you are doing it "just to be different" go right ahead... but remember that the kids who were "different" got picked on in school and it is the same here.

Keith

thanks for the pics Y8s if you can give me specs on the PWR barrel so i can study the capabilities of your setup. Also what size heat exchanger did you place in front of radiator? and if you can post some pics. Thank you very much.

I have a water to air and I like my setup. I sold the supercharger and will be installing a turbo soon. I still have PS and A/C, keeping the a/c and direct routing were some of the reasons why the post owner made this setup.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1409973782

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1409976896


Here's the one I ran back in the day. There is one reason I ran this setup with a turbo: it was cheap. I already had the parts from a supercharger kit I ran before. On a supercharged car it makes sense because of the throttled volume and idle issues with front mounts. On the turbo, it makes no sense in almost any scenario. I can tell you from experience that any decent air/air is lighter and massively more efficient. That being said, it worked great for me on the street, I never had any complaints about it. But I never would have done it if I wasn't building that whole kit myself on a very tight budget. I even still have the damn thing sitting on the shelf in the garage nearly 18 months after selling my NA.

I am liking your setup a lot man. Where is the BOV?

It's the little pipe pointing down right before the intercooler. This picture was taken while I was still building the setup.

that's all I got. I used a small 9 or 10 inch square oil cooler type radiator in front of the right front wheel.

That is the PWR 4x10.
PWR Performance Products | Barrels – Barbed Outlets

Keep in mind I was only running about 4 psi while I had that setup. I pulled it out before I finished setting up boost control. I spent a lot of time chasing leaks and rust on the cheap water tank cap and basically tossed it out of frustration.

Plus if you look at the flow area through the PWR, it's crap. Teenie holes for the air and they protrude beyond the separating wall.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1410051678

Just judging the surface area, that is a tiny intercooler and probably has a huge pressure drop across the two sides. If one was to use four or five of them and then a very large water to air heat exchanger in front of the radiator then things would possibly work as well as an air to air unit. But it would have a much greater expense, weight, level of complexity, all those hoses, etc.

Please also notice the Stillen unit is not oriented in the same way as the AWR unit, either. The Stillen unit has the air entering the wide end of the exchanger and not the narrow end of the unit.

By the way, a friend of a friend named Dominic blew up his VQ35 350z with that complete Stillen kit because it did such a bad job preventing detonation. You should definitely copy it.

I should mention that this wasn't my first air/water setup.

I had one of these:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1410100921

Still a tiny intercooler. The later rally spec cars had a much larger charge-side core.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1410100921

STILL...

a lot of people would ditch them for 6 feet of pipe to a FMIC.

OP

You should totally ignore all the really good advice these smart people are giving you and still put together this craptastic setup that will suck, and feel really cool for being different

That's what I did. Sometimes the process of doing a thing that is unpopular or against the dogma is worth the effort and the results, no matter how unflattering, are their own reward.

Water to Air intercoolers have their place in the car industry and can work well if designed properly. While I have not decided what is my best avenue, all I know is that can fabricate amazing parts, and so at the moment I joined this website to see what has been done and can be done that would be efficient enough at the same time save weight and remove my present intercooler which is located in front of radiator.

Look at this set up.
http://image.superstreetonline.com/f...ntercooler.jpg

Please tell me that's an FMU in the top right corner of that engine bay.

Bay looks like a lot of show swagtasticness. He can't be running real man boost with those couplers.

Looks like a DSM with RWD conversion. Not sure why making fun of his couplers, I have run 30+ psi on ones like that in the past. If this is the car I am thinking of, he is in the 45 to 50 psi range. Blue thing isn't an FMU, his fuel pressure regulator is red, and to the left of that blue thing what ever the hell it is.

Keith

I was joking somewhat about the couplers. I do 30psi on that stuff as well. :bowrofl:

That thing needs some wiggins clamps to class it up. :)