Quote:
Originally Posted by Kyle@STILLEN
Air to water intercoolers aren't limited to roots superchargers or drag racing vehicles exclusively. They are definitely more prominent in those applications but to say that those are the only applications utilizing air to water intercooler systems is incorrect.
Vortech uses air to water intercoolers on the following applications:
2006-2010 Jeep SRT8
2005-2010 Chrysler/Dodge 5.7L Hemi Systems
2005-2010 Chrysler/Dodge 6.1L Hemi Systems
Various Mustang applications
NISSAN built the 370Z to be a great sports car, and they did just that. I love driving our 370Z every chance I get. However, they did not build a race car. As such these cars, along with almost every other production car in the world, experience issues when being pushed hard on a race track:
Engine oil temperature
Power steering fluid temperature
Brake overheating
Differential overheating/failure
In all of our marketing and all of our conversations regarding our kit we made it very clear that our goal was CARB legality and street performance. Our goal has never been to build a race car. Just like NISSAN wasn't building a race car, neither were we.
Heat is obviously an issue on the 370Z, this is something we can all agree on. The oil wants a large cooler, the power steering needs a large cooler, and in the case of an automatic transmission the transmission wants a large cooler. On a roots supercharger you're primarily concerned about the packaging of the blower to the intake manifold and the necessary cooler. However, when engineering a supercharger system one must look at the total vehicle package. If I put this here, what happens to that. So if I install oil coolers, power steering coolers, and transmission coolers (in the case of an automatic transmission) in front of my radiator what happens to my radiator performance? Then if I cover all of the coolers with an intercooler, what happens to my various other coolers? All of this needs to be taken into consideration.
Let's be realistic about air to air intercoolers as well. The efficiency of the intercooler is reliant on ambient air temperatures. The air to air intercooler must be mounted in a location where it will receive direct airflow. Additionally, the air to air intercooler has to be very large in order to allow for sufficient internal airflow to not impact intercooler efficiency. This will impact various other systems of the vehicle.
Should we decide to offer a kit intended for race cars we will do extensive testing on race courses. I'm pretty sure we know a driver that can put a car through its paces...
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Hey you guys make your choice on it but at the end of the day it is the lowest power, least safe kit made (fortunately for you it is also the most readily available kit as well). Lets leave the oil and coolant to the side for now, it takes 10 minutes to exceed the capacity of your intercooler system as it is shipped, are you telling me you have a disclaimer somewhere that says "don't drive your car for more than 10 minutes or severe horsepower and reliability issues will occur, it's not a track car so don't think of driving it for a while and then accelerating it isn't built for that"?(I didn't know I bought a $32,000 versa)
An air to water intercooler is ultimately an air to water to air intercooler, it completely relies on ambient temps as well the hotter it gets the hotter the iat's are that doesn't change between an air to air and air to water. an air to air inter cooler is more efficient due to the difference in delta t in the systems, instead of dumping heat from a hot manifold into warm water then into cool air it goes straight from hot air to cool air the higher delta between the temps allows the air to air cooler to dump more heat from a smaller surface area. the thermal capacity, and conductivity increase of transmitting heat into water don't come into play unless the system is capable of bringing the water temps back down to at least near ambient, which without pumping the heat out via an ice box or refrigerant system is next to impossible. You call it a street car we call it a crappy inter-cooler setup.
Edit: Also have you ever actually flow tested your manifold? You say it is necessary for the performance of the kit but it actually makes less power than the factory manifold. I'm not trying to bust your balls here it's more like constructive criticism.
Also I know that air to water systems aren't limited to roots and drag setups, it's just that they are the only people who actually derive more pro's than con's of using it, or are required to use it.
Also wasn't it you guys who designed a different front bumper just to get better air flow to move the oil and other coolers out from the front of the car, wouldn't this free up room for an intercooler while still allowing virgin airflow to the oil cooler? and appropriately sized you really don't need the whole bumper opening for the intercooler.