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intercooler size/location for a 96 2.3t ranger?? who's done it, what fits?


Unless you live in HELL or spend time driving around in forest fires an intercooler isn't going to make the charge air hotter.

at 15psi boost a typical turbocharger is going to be generating compressor discharge temps on the order of 300degF in 90degree ambient temps.

The efficiency of turbochargers is calculated against an ideal "adiabatic" temperature rise due to compression (compressing any gas ALWAYS creates a rise in temp) even a 100% efficient compressor would push air to 210F.

a typical turbocharger is 60-70% efficient and that'll push temps
to 300-340F.

An intercooler however is rated on it's efficiency by the percentage of
temp reduction it creates.

IF you have an intercooler inlet temp (pretty much the same
as compressor discharge temp) of 300F and the ambient temp is 100F
and you see the temp drop to 200F under boost your intercooler is 50% efficient.

Frankly any intercooler that isn't 80% efficient should be redesigned or replaced with a larger core.

Now here's the neat thing, calculation of a turbocharger-interooler installation's efficiency is taking the turbo's efficiency percentage(which can be calculated fairly easily from observed temps) and dividing it by the
efficiency percentage of the intercooler.

Under some interesting circumsances and setups you can actually have a system with an overall efficiency of greater than 100%

Remember we are talking efficiency compared to a theoretical norm, so 100% is equal to what would happen if... say for example... a bored and cooperative deity cupped his hands and squeezed the air....
That results in a predictable ammount of temperature rise
IF you create a situation where there is LESS temperature
rise you have exceeded 100%.

Now imagine a situation where instead of using AIR as a cooling media you are using water...so the charge air cooler is cooled with water and that water is circulated elsewhere to be cooled off... with sufficient water in circulation for a limited time you can have a system efficiency significantly exceeding 100% (remember that water has 670 times the density of air)and if you start off with chilled water you essentially have "stored cold" in the
water.

"But the water heats up!" you say?

Ok how about this, you have a 5gallon water tank somewhere
in the vehicle and a circulation pump to pump the water from
the tank, to the intercooler, then to a "radiator" to disappate the
heat into the ambient air, then back to the tank.

Remember that you are only putting heat into the water when you are actually "under boost", and all the rest of the time yyou are driving
you are circulating that water through the radiator and cooling it
to ambient.

It's a game of time against thermal mass and only a limited duty cycle...

If I've given anyone any evil ideas then I've done my job for the day:)


For my personal (still being planned) turboRanger project

I have a 1993 4x4 supercab (currently a terminally ill 3.0)

I've been considering the Volvo intercooler (I already have one)

BUT since I want to build my turbo ranger by swapping my
cab and bed onto a Gen4 rolling frame and building the truck
with some sort of AWD Transfer case (still working that out)

In the 1993-94 body onto the '98-up frame I've noticed that the later Gen3 and gen4 trucks have a deeper radiator that extends down past the radiator support and that gave me an evil idea...

I'm planning on using an early explorer radiator tokeep my 2.3T cool and that leave that space under the radiator empty...
and it looks almost the right size to use a Thunderbird
Supercoupe Intercooler.... mounted crosswise under
the radiator (Yeah, I've aleady got the S/C intercooler)

No it isn't a sophisticated Air-water-air charge air
cooling system... but condiering how I want to use
this Ranger, as a highway cruiser, I don't really need more.

AD

Do you still live in Provo? I didn't think it got that hot there. I have held off adding a intercooler to my truck as I'm worried it will run hot in the summer time.

I think he meant that the intercooler would hinder air flow through his radiator.
 

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