Charge cooler or intercooler? Which would suit?

[Butter Face]

Looking for a bit of advice with a forced induction question if anyone can help?

I have a Civic Type R running a Rotrex c30-94 supercharger. It has been mapped this week and we have had to keep the power relatively low (263bhp compared to a standard 197) due to the inlet temps.

When running on the dyno and out on the road giving it a good run the temps were hitting almost 90 degrees! Normal use sees them about 55-60 which is still way off so the ignition timing is being retarded to stop det (I am neither a mechanic nor a tuner so please accept my apologies if o am wrong there)

Anyway, I need to fit either an intercooler (air to air) or a charge cooler (water cooled) and wanted to see if anyone had any experience of which I should use?

Space is limited behind the bumper as i have the rad, aircon and an oil cooler currently so the smaller and more efficient option would be great.

Cheers for any help!!

[Butter Face]

Thanks mate. I thought air-to-air would be the best for cooling but it will be tight getting one in! Just had a look at intake temp was around 54 degrees when I got to work so definitely need to do something.

I'm kind of struggling to see how a charge cooler actually cools the air as my coolant temp seems to be 80-90 degrees?!

[Butter Face]

I have room behind the bumper for an intercooler, pipework could be interesting though. I will need to have the bumper off and take some measurements.

Ideally it would be nice to get a TTS one which is a combined rad/intercooler but I think they are a lot of cash!

[Butter Face]

There are some bolt on kits in the states, I have just sent TTS a message about their radiator/intercooler combo as it looks like a neat fit.

Cheers for all the input.

[Butter Face]

chuntington101 said:

If it's for a civic then there will probably be a kit already out there. Is it a TTS kit? If so I'm sure they did an intercooler version. I think it was a vertical flow core.

TTS do an intercooler/rad combo which looks very nice. I expect it's a lot of money and looks like it deletes the aircon which I don't really want to do.

I think I'll have to get a slimline one to sit behind the bumper and get a local company to make up the pipe work.

[Butter Face]

chuntington101 said:

What do the thebo guys use? There has to be an off the shelf intercooler that will fit! Then it's just sorting the pipework.

There are some off the shelf kits, but they mean you have to remove the AC/ the front crossmember which I'd rather not do.

Mishimoto do a nice neat slimline one which would fit in the lower section of my bumper which looks like it may be the way forward.

[Butter Face]

Cheers for all the input.

I've been and seen my chap today and spoken about intercoolers, water/meth and chargecooling and the car is booked in for a customer intercooler setup in a couple of weeks.

I'll post the results when it gets done.

[Butter Face]

Looks like a nice job.

I went for air-to-air in the end, found a local company to fabricate the pipe work for me.

Relocated the throttle body to after the cooler for better running and also fitted a Forge 008 recirculating valve. Very happy with the results as temps don't seem to go above 25 when being pushed!

Mapping session on Friday to unlock the full potential.