Intercooler sizes, small turbo
Discussion
I've been looking at replacing the stock intercooler with a more efficient item. The current standard setup is located behind the crash structure and as such only about 50% of the cooler is visible to the front grill.
Intake air temps with normal driving tend to be around 30-35 degrees and that was during the winter months so ambient was no more than 8 degrees outside.
The car has a smallish twin scroll turbo (1.6 engine) and peak torque comes in roughly around 3000-3500 rpm. I'm lead to believe that simply sticking a massive front mounted setup on the car would have a negative effect on power due to the volume of space the turbo would need to fill before hand.
Is there any way to work out what size I would be looking at in order to try and keep the lower down torque but to improve intake temps?
Intake air temps with normal driving tend to be around 30-35 degrees and that was during the winter months so ambient was no more than 8 degrees outside.
The car has a smallish twin scroll turbo (1.6 engine) and peak torque comes in roughly around 3000-3500 rpm. I'm lead to believe that simply sticking a massive front mounted setup on the car would have a negative effect on power due to the volume of space the turbo would need to fill before hand.
Is there any way to work out what size I would be looking at in order to try and keep the lower down torque but to improve intake temps?
You were lead to believe wrong, and frontal area of the air intake is probably quite fine as long as it is actually ducted with no air leaks.
But no doubt a bigger or more efficient core could be used which would improve things.
The only possible effect a massive IC could have, is slightly slower transient response. Whether you'd really ever notice this given the limited space available in most cars for an IC/plumbing anyway...is debatable.
But no doubt a bigger or more efficient core could be used which would improve things.
The only possible effect a massive IC could have, is slightly slower transient response. Whether you'd really ever notice this given the limited space available in most cars for an IC/plumbing anyway...is debatable.
Thanks for that reply.
I was a bit cagey with my OP because I didn't want to mention that i've already had a company look at the car and actually design a prototype unit (nobody makes an uprated intercooler for this car yet)
On the dyno the car lost power below 4000rpm but had increased power above (10bhp and 13Nm)
Intake temps on the run with the uprated intercooler were initially around 45+ degrees but that dropped throughout the rev range and ended up around 35 degrees. Ambient was 22 degrees.
The opposite can be said for the stock unit which started at 30 degrees and ended up reading 45 degrees at the end of the rev range. Ambient was 18 degrees.
I was under the impression that the loss of initial power was due to the turbo not being able to fill the larger cooler as quickly as before with the stock unit, hence why it actually made more power at the top end. Would the initial high intake air temps cause the loss in power too?
I've got the dyno graphs if that helps?
Note I haven't actually seen the size of the core yet that had been used.
I was a bit cagey with my OP because I didn't want to mention that i've already had a company look at the car and actually design a prototype unit (nobody makes an uprated intercooler for this car yet)
On the dyno the car lost power below 4000rpm but had increased power above (10bhp and 13Nm)
Intake temps on the run with the uprated intercooler were initially around 45+ degrees but that dropped throughout the rev range and ended up around 35 degrees. Ambient was 22 degrees.
The opposite can be said for the stock unit which started at 30 degrees and ended up reading 45 degrees at the end of the rev range. Ambient was 18 degrees.
I was under the impression that the loss of initial power was due to the turbo not being able to fill the larger cooler as quickly as before with the stock unit, hence why it actually made more power at the top end. Would the initial high intake air temps cause the loss in power too?
I've got the dyno graphs if that helps?
Note I haven't actually seen the size of the core yet that had been used.
Edited by Jam0r on Monday 22 June 15:28
Edited by Jam0r on Monday 22 June 15:31
Edited by Jam0r on Monday 22 June 15:35
Assuming you are talking about a chassis dyno, with uncontrolled boundary conditions, i'd want at least 10 runs to show such a small difference in output. (and i'd want to closely control the starting conditions of each run to ensure i was actually measuring the effect of the intercooler change........)
Pre throttle volume is really negligible in most normal cases, because a turbo is flowing a LOT of air by volume, which becomes a high charge air density in the manifold when it is constricted by the engine! So unless you are adding tens or more of litres volume i doubt you'll be able to measure a change in boost threshold
Pre throttle volume is really negligible in most normal cases, because a turbo is flowing a LOT of air by volume, which becomes a high charge air density in the manifold when it is constricted by the engine! So unless you are adding tens or more of litres volume i doubt you'll be able to measure a change in boost threshold
Car is a Ceed GT, no off the shelf options available. There are a few Veloster turbo items from the States but don't fancy importing. Forge do a Veloster turbo setup but that doesn't fit.
http://www.forgemotorsport.co.uk/Front_Mount_Inter...
Dyno from what I gather is an in the floor affair and runs were on different days, same rollers. Not sure how many runs were done but only have the two graphs. Car is non tuned at this moment in time to take advantage of an intake and intercooler, although I have noticed that car pulls much better with the intake fitted. On other cars there are often power increases due to the colder air so I (wrongly) presumed this would be the case here too.
The graphs are as follows, one with standard cooler and one with prototype.
Stock
Prototype
http://www.forgemotorsport.co.uk/Front_Mount_Inter...
Dyno from what I gather is an in the floor affair and runs were on different days, same rollers. Not sure how many runs were done but only have the two graphs. Car is non tuned at this moment in time to take advantage of an intake and intercooler, although I have noticed that car pulls much better with the intake fitted. On other cars there are often power increases due to the colder air so I (wrongly) presumed this would be the case here too.
The graphs are as follows, one with standard cooler and one with prototype.
Stock
Prototype
Edited by Jam0r on Monday 22 June 23:00
Edited by Jam0r on Monday 22 June 23:01
Edited by Jam0r on Monday 22 June 23:10
Sorry, not worth the paper those^^^ tests are printed on.
Air temps are totally different, and it looks like something odd occurred at 5200rpm in the first test.
And i see a 6bhp difference, that's just 3%, which is statistically irrelevant for only two tests.
At an absolute minimum you'd need an A-B-A type sequence, on the same day, with the conditioning runs to attempt to get similar starting conditions.
If you want to measure intercooler effectiveness, you need pre and post charge air and ambient air temperature sensors (need to be PRT's due to the low temp values being measured) and pre and post charge air pressure measurement (max 10Pa resolution) and finally a calibrated intake air mass flow value (but you could probably accept just logging the MAF output voltage in this case as you aren't touching the dirtyside air ducting etc.
All in all, if you really do a good job on the intercooler, you might just end up back to a standard power output (offsetting the 5bhp you lost from removing the airbox.......)
Air temps are totally different, and it looks like something odd occurred at 5200rpm in the first test.
And i see a 6bhp difference, that's just 3%, which is statistically irrelevant for only two tests.
At an absolute minimum you'd need an A-B-A type sequence, on the same day, with the conditioning runs to attempt to get similar starting conditions.
If you want to measure intercooler effectiveness, you need pre and post charge air and ambient air temperature sensors (need to be PRT's due to the low temp values being measured) and pre and post charge air pressure measurement (max 10Pa resolution) and finally a calibrated intake air mass flow value (but you could probably accept just logging the MAF output voltage in this case as you aren't touching the dirtyside air ducting etc.
All in all, if you really do a good job on the intercooler, you might just end up back to a standard power output (offsetting the 5bhp you lost from removing the airbox.......)
The standard run includes the new intake. The stock air box wasn't used at all in those dynos.
So essentially if the intercooler is decent, proper runs would be able to show how effective it is and the ones I already have don't really show anything
So essentially if the intercooler is decent, proper runs would be able to show how effective it is and the ones I already have don't really show anything
Edited by Jam0r on Monday 22 June 23:54
So as Max says meaningless tests for many reasons.
Even if only for the fact no tuning has taken place to sort out erratic boost, timing and in general to actually optimise the setup.
Seems almost daft to waste money on dyno time, uprating intercoolers....then not bothering to tune the most vital aspect, the ecu.
Even if only for the fact no tuning has taken place to sort out erratic boost, timing and in general to actually optimise the setup.
Seems almost daft to waste money on dyno time, uprating intercoolers....then not bothering to tune the most vital aspect, the ecu.
I've not paid a penny in all this. I just wanted to see what other people thought on the whole intercooler making a loss thing.
The ECU tuning is something i'll be looking into in the future but didn't want to go down that route until I at least had some bits on the car and the intake and intercooler were the most obvious choices to start with.
I don't really want to go too mental with the whole thing and ideally wanted 'bolt ons' that could be removed come service time.
The ECU tuning is something i'll be looking into in the future but didn't want to go down that route until I at least had some bits on the car and the intake and intercooler were the most obvious choices to start with.
I don't really want to go too mental with the whole thing and ideally wanted 'bolt ons' that could be removed come service time.
Edited by Jam0r on Tuesday 23 June 13:16
Gassing Station | Engines & Drivetrain | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff