Air to Water Intercooler
 

Hello, i noticed the charge pipe on my m45 miata was getting extremely hot, my car still runs ac, which im keeping, so i was wondering(before i go all out and fab fmic by moving ac lines around or getting a civic sized rad with intercooler by its side) if anyone was running an air to water intercooler on their supercharged miata. i have searched but was unable to come up with any good examples, so please post if you are running one. Im including couple pics of new motor and set up just for fun

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thanks
-Taras

My 2 cents....

What do you use the car for?

AWICs have definite advantages, like being super efficient. Until/unless sustained boost heat soaks the liquid, in which case it becomes useless.

There are downsides to AWICs.... Added complexity and increased risk of failure (hose leaks, pump breaks, etc). And if you've got enough water in the system to not heat soak the fluid with sustained boost you're running either a monster reservoir or beefy IC. Or both. Regardless, you're carrying more weight than you'd need for an air/air IC.

I'd say an AWIC would be best suited for drag racing or tearing ass from stop light to stop light. But for sustained spirited driving (like track days) I can't imagine choosing an awic.

If you want to deal with the hassle of pumping liquid for charge cooling, I'd choose water and/or meth injection over an AWIC.

But in case you have your heart set on an AWIC setup, get over to modularfords.com and snag yourself a used heat exchanger for a supercharged cobra. Cheap, and will do the job. And consider a pump from a lightning or cobra.

the car is used mostly for track day, and some weekend driving, i have meth injection, however that does not seem to be enough, well thanks for the input i think im one step closer to going air to air intercooler, however, anyone with air to water please post...im curious

Use more water injection since you have it. Up the jetting or nozzle size.

I have a PWR Barell cooler, kills intake temps from 110+deg C to around 65 at full chat

the key with an A/W IC is to get as powerful a waterpump as you can, the old Mezier I had, (and killed through running it dry :() was awesome and you can knock 10DegC off the above figure with that! Unfortunately I needed a new pump fast or I'd have ordered a new one to replace it.

The advantage of the PWR is it keeps the throttled volume the same as with a crossover tube, (as opposed to the Pace system which slightly increases the throttled volume iirc).

still with twin throttle bodies that point is rendered moot ;)

http://www.asbi52.dsl.pipex.com/imag...per%200102.JPG
http://www.asbi52.dsl.pipex.com/imag...per%200103.JPG

I had a PWR also with a MP62 and it would heat soak it in no time at all. I would go Air to Air. But with a M45 it is not worth getting a intercooler look at water injection.
MP62 it is definitely worth it.
Mark

A/W sucks, IMHO. Heat soaks in traffic from what I've seen in other people's cars and heat soaks on the track quicker.

Go A/A and be done with it. www.trackdogracing.com has the best A/A's if you are going to buy a kit. Especially if you track it. Give Gary a call, he tried out many combinations of A/W before settling on the A/A's.

Chris

I had the 4x10 PWR cooler. huge pain in the ass. so many parts and pumps and hoses and points of possible failure. You *still* need a radiator that will block something.

What's more, the inside of the cooler looks like a brick wall with a few holes in it. Not so ideal for flow.

http://gallery.y8s.com/d/255-3/DSC00746.jpg

I would suggest a/a if you wanna run it on the track.... Any of the guys I've seen with the a/w have issues when heat soaking. There's a M45, that's running silly boost 12psi IIRC, with an a/w and he even soaks on back to back autox runs....

Get the TDR, it's the least impact for the throttled vol. Of course there were some guys on m.net that were doing the TB in the stock location + BOV (recirc)... and it was stupid quick. I know that Phil (UK Performance5) had something on his site with dual TBs... one on the stock, and one the BBK. Might also be worth investigation, if you are really concerned about it.

Non-IC'd my car is OK, on the track, but I'm constantly looking for signs of heatsoak/ping etc... and that's with only 7.5psi on my 62.

Dave,

A well thought out A2W can be just fine. That's the route I want to look at, but I'm just quirky (and I might have a problem with over-complicating things). A nice HE would be a small rad. I wouldn't waste time with smaller HE's. They just can't relieve heat. Also, make sure you get a single pass IC. Double pass units are a waste. To be honest, the PWR looks cool and all, but in order to have usable surface area or cooling ability, I'd expect a slightly larger unit.

I've seen quite successful A2W units on MR2's. The thing to keep in mind is capacity. You can't expect to have an efficient system without a reservoir. And it'll need to be big enough to do the job, like all the other parts. Otherwise, heatsoak is imminent as mentioned before. A good pump keeps things moving at a good rate. You want flow. The less time the water spends in the IC, the less time it has to get hot. It will still cool the charge (due to the volume), but you won't have issues with heatsoak as much. After looking at different systems, I've found that the correlation between performance and price is tight. A2A is looking mighty tempting, but I'm stubborn. I would try my darnedest to make it work :)

Works really well, I've DIY'd it on my car, it's like OEM now, (whereas prior I still had a tad of idle droop and a slight hesitation when blipping the throttle off idle.

used PWR A/W kits come on to the miata.net classifieds from time to time. i considered it but went with the TDR A/A since i get some track time.

Hey Richard, I'd love to see some details on how that thing is plumbed. I haven't seen anything in detail on Phil's site. But that does sound like an wicked upgrade. <G>

Dave,

Car is currently at the body shop due to a numpty lorry driver. Hopefully I'll get it back by this weekend, I'll take a bunch of pics when I do.

Phil doesn't post details cos then no-one would buy his kit ;) can't say I balme him really :lol:

When you get a chance, post up the pics, or PM me, and I can give you my email address.... and you can pass them that way. <G>

I'm curious to see how this is plumbed.....

Dave,

apologies, car wasn't right 1st time and I had to send it back, then I forgot!

Just been outside and took some pics in the dark, hopefully it'll help? Let me know if you've any questions etc.

it's relatively tricky to set them up 1st time when you don't know how they should be setup ;) but once you realise the charger throttle needs to be cracked open whilst the stock TB is shut it's pretty simple :)

Stock TB with a JDM SuperHI pully overlayed ;) I filed out the slot to slightly 'cam' the secondary pully as it's range of movement isn't as great as the stock one.
http://www.asbi52.dsl.pipex.com/images/DSC01693.JPG

2nd 'stock' throttle cable bracket. I used a small piece of ally to hold it in place.
http://www.asbi52.dsl.pipex.com/images/DSC01694.JPG

Throttle cable route, your setup would differ here as our throttle cables are really short due to being right hand drive, and we need really long throttle cables when fitting superchargers.
http://www.asbi52.dsl.pipex.com/images/DSC01695.JPG

second TB
http://www.asbi52.dsl.pipex.com/images/DSC01696.JPG

Adaptor place for the throttle cable's firewall bracket. Again a small piece of Alui with a rectangular hole in the middle :)
http://www.asbi52.dsl.pipex.com/images/DSC01697.JPG

All you folks with A-W intercoolers; what fluid do you use for cooling?

water and pink coolant/antifreeze

Very cool! Any changes to vacuum lines/etc?

you need the bypass actuator to see vac properly, so I blanked off the nozzle on the charger outlet and moved the line to the back of the intake manifold.

Reason I ask, I can't help but wonder if you would get better efficiency with Evans coolant.

I've no idea what that is!?! just bunged the pink stuff in so I have to winter issues, and burping the system of air is a ball ache!

I'm gonna have to day probably not. Thing is evan coolant has less heat capacity. So say the cooler up front pulls it down to ambient and then it goes into the heat exchanger that cools the charge. The evans coolant can't absorb as much heat as the water could. I'd say a bigger pump and bigger heat exchanger up front would be better. Or an air/air IC. :) Seriously. My air/air setup the charge pipes are gonna be maybe 2' longer than an air/water setup. You could use smaller diameter charge pipes and then you have the same area.

But it won't boil. :)


Or perhaps a mixture of the two?

I might be splitting hairs, but some were talking about how an A/W system is not as efficient at the track; what if you split it 50/50?

I dunno, skip it altogether and put in alcohol. :giggle:

Yeah, but it will never boil anyways, so there's no point. Water has a higher heat capacity then just about any other fluid you'd want to use, so it's pretty much the best. If you have cold weather you'd have to run antifreeze, but i'd run as little as possible as it will hurt the coolers efficiency.

Conceeded.... *kicking the cat*

The biggest issue I keep runing into with the air/air system is the darn plumming of the piping. I wunder as you said if a hybrid system with the A/W to charge cool, and then a second for A/W for fluid cooling?

eh? your A/W system doesn't have a heat exchanger? my god that must heatsoak like crazy

I don't have a A/W system. I am just offering suggestions.

oh well all a/a setups have a heat exchanger to re-cool down the water, it'd be useless without one really

Very cool. OK, so your RHD stock throttle cable goes to the stock TB, then you have your "extension" throttle cable go from there to the BTB? Looks almost like you have "one cable, with just a piece in the middle to expose the cable for the "cam" on the stock TB.

Very nice routing....

So the BTB is basically open slightly while the stock TB is completely closed? Then it would be open fully while the BTB is wide open too?

Hum.... interesting. Maybe it's time to upgrade to a BTB? <G>

Dave,

So with this set up would you put the IAC valve in the stock location or on the blower input BTB?

steelrat, I don't have a BTB... But the principal is identical :) there's 2 distinct throttle cables, using 1 would be very cool but I woultnt want to engineer it!

Oh I also losened the charger TB return spring as the throttle gets a little bit heavier with 2 throttle bodies

Barbycar: the IAC goes in the stock location, it's tidiest and gives the best idle which is half the reason for dual throttles anyway! ;)

Cool.... figured the IAC would be on the stock TB (better idle reactions then).

So which TB are you using? A second stock TB on the blower? Aftermarket? Is it still the same size as the stocker?

So I assume the stock TB, has the TPS on it, for the ECU.... (I know MS In your case), then you have just the throttle cable for the "Blower TB"... and the ecu doesn't care about the electronic position?

The second throttle cable, is that the one that you guys needed to get for a RHD/vs. LHD? Or did you pick up something aftermarket?

On a side note, I was wondering if the bigTB would fit on a 4-rib, I got the impression, that it might be a very tight fit without having the additional space from the 6-rib blower position.

Still, this is very, cool.....

Dave,

I'm using a 2nd stock tb tho it's got a weird non leneir action.the TP sensor is in the stock location, there's nothing on the blower tb :) as you say the ecu is unaware of the 2nd tb so doesn't care it's position

Funny you should mention the BTB actually, I want to DIY a BTB conversion, from what I've seen the 6 ribs don't move much further forward ... I am helped by not having a brake MC in the way mind....

I'm using a 2nd stock tb tho it's got a weird non leneir action.the TP sensor is in the stock location, there's nothing on the blower tb :) as you say the ecu is unaware of the 2nd tb so doesn't care it's position

Funny you should mention the BTB actually, I want to DIY a BTB conversion, from what I've seen the 6 ribs don't move much further forward ... I am helped by not having a brake MC in the way mind....

(I'm slow at following up on this thread.)

richyvrlimited: Thanks for all the info and answering our questions! This seems almost too easy...

the complexity of the system isn't worth it for the small power gains guys. i did one years ago on a turbo swift, it was swapped to an a/a shortly after.