New Intercooler

[anupaum]

thats a toyota supra sidemount if im not mistaken..... they flow good till about 13 psi to 15 before you start blowing hot.
if i was you though id beat roll all your innercooler piping and get good couplers.

I'm only pumping 5 psi through this thing. The intercooler I had on there to begin with came from a Supra, and it worked just fine for at least three years.

 

[anupaum]

Thats disappointing to hear. Maybe you can return them and just use 4 straight connectors and 2 90 degree metal mandrel bent elbows if you dont think these will holdup. Verocious motorsports makes tight radius cast aluminum bends with beads on the end to be sure they hoses dont pop off, and the 2.5" and 3" arent priced too horribly either.

Now those are SWEET!

I didn't get notified that anyone had replied to this thread and just happened to have some time to peek in here. I took the silicone elbows back and picked up some 2.5 inch radiator hose. Then I cut one of my 90 degree mandrel bent elbows to its absolute minimum in an effort to connect the blower to the intercooler.

There is so little room in there I couldn't even get the CLAMP over the hose without loosening everything up and pushing on it for all I'm worth. How much of that radiator support pillar could I remove without compromising the structural integrity of my front end? It would make fitment MUCH easier if I could take that whole piece out!

Before doing anything though if you want to try using the silicone ones (if you cant return them), you should try sticking a pipe in each end of the elbow and clamping it down and seeing how much it will actually collapse with vacuum on it.

Trouble is, I've been down that road before and I KNOW they won't work. They're too soft and they'll squish right down.

Or if you can return them it is also possible to have a 90 degree mandrel welded onto each end of the intercooler, of course each one would have to be positioned right where they need to be when welded and they would have no adjustment...

Hmm . . . That's an idea, but now that there is so little room between the blower outlet and the intercooler it's already REALLY tough to get anthing connected. I've got the top one done now, but I'm really worried that it's simply going to slip out and leak again.

 

[Sevensecondsuv]

Wow, reading this thread all I can think is that you should have saved your self a lot of trouble ealier and just put a turbo on that thing instead of a supercharger. Almost all supercharger setups below 10 PSI don't run an intercooler, simply because it's too much of a pain, as you're figuring out. Live and learn I guess.

 

[anupaum]

Wow, reading this thread all I can think is that you should have saved your self a lot of trouble ealier and just put a turbo on that thing instead of a supercharger. Almost all supercharger setups below 10 PSI don't run an intercooler, simply because it's too much of a pain, as you're figuring out. Live and learn I guess.

Oh, I thought it was going to be easier, that's for certain. However, you're reading about this nearly five years into the project. Because nobody has ever done this before, I've had to solve all the problems myself.

As far as the intercooler is concerned, if I DON'T run the intercooler I have constant, chronic detonation. (I tried it that way when I first put the blower on.) Believe me, had I known what I know now, I'd have gone with a turbo.

 

[Sevensecondsuv]

I've run 13 psi on 87 octane pump gas with no signs of detonation (although I do have an intercooler the size of the one you just posted.

I did have detonation until I disconnected the passenger side plugs. It turns out that the dual plug head's combustion chamber design results in much too fast of a burn for boost. Disconnecting the passenger side plugs really slows down the burn and the detonation goes away. That was my experience anyways, might be something you could try.

 

[anupaum]

I've run 13 psi on 87 octane pump gas with no signs of detonation (although I do have an intercooler the size of the one you just posted.

I did have detonation until I disconnected the passenger side plugs. It turns out that the dual plug head's combustion chamber design results in much too fast of a burn for boost. Disconnecting the passenger side plugs really slows down the burn and the detonation goes away. That was my experience anyways, might be something you could try.

Perhaps that might work. I'm not sure if I'd pass an emissions test in that condition, though. Also, the blower is quite a bit less efficient than a turbo. The outlet of the blower runs so hot I can't touch it. Long ago, Dave R sent me a spreadsheet (which I've subsequently lost) that helped me determine the pulley size for my application. It was partially based on efficiency, and when I plugged in the numbers and played around with them to get my actual (rather than theoretical) boost, it turns out my blower is about 65% efficent. I'm pretty sure that turbos are closer to 80%.

 

[TireIron]

When you get everything connected up be sure to account for engine movement in the pipeing so that it wont just pull apart the first time you try and leave i first gear and the engine cranks to the passengerside.

For the space issue, if you ended up with a mandrel bend actually welded to the intercooler inlet and outlet, then it could be extremely tight to the IC and point inwards to the engine with longer legs that you can clamp the connectors too. The hardest part with that is MAKE SURE that the mandrels are angled right where you want them before they are welded up. So you could have a 2 or 3 inch leg sticking towards the engine, but the actual 90 degree could be welded almost right up against the IC, they could even cut down the inlets on the IC a little to give a little more room if needed.

looking at the picture of the IC installed it looks like you could almost have the elbows welded on with just enough clearance to bend past the radiator end tank, then have them built with long enough legs to reach out past the radiator and give enough room to connect to. And if you find it tough to slip the intercooler into place with the longer legs sticking out, you can just remove the 2 radiator bolts and tip the rad in a little then slip it down into the space and bolt things back up.

 

[anupaum]

When you get everything connected up be sure to account for engine movement in the pipeing so that it wont just pull apart the first time you try and leave i first gear and the engine cranks to the passengerside.

One advantage to connecting this with rubber hose and clamps is that doing so allows for a bit of "wiggle room" with respect to the engine moving. It's not only gear shifting, though. Even CRANKING the engine makes it move quite a bit, and the intercooler pipes have always rattled a bit when I first fire the engine up.

For the space issue, if you ended up with a mandrel bend actually welded to the intercooler inlet and outlet, then it could be extremely tight to the IC and point inwards to the engine with longer legs that you can clamp the connectors too. The hardest part with that is MAKE SURE that the mandrels are angled right where you want them before they are welded up. So you could have a 2 or 3 inch leg sticking towards the engine, but the actual 90 degree could be welded almost right up against the IC, they could even cut down the inlets on the IC a little to give a little more room if needed.

My saintly father in law, who has a LOT of experience with fabricating, took a long look at my installation and thinks I'm making this out to be a bigger problem than necessary. Perhaps he's right, but I've had SO MUCH trouble with leaking air over the course of my project that I'm almost anticipating that it WILL leak, simply because it has in the past.

Silly, perhaps, but having come this far and not attaining complete success can be very discouraging . . .

looking at the picture of the IC installed it looks like you could almost have the elbows welded on with just enough clearance to bend past the radiator end tank, then have them built with long enough legs to reach out past the radiator and give enough room to connect to. And if you find it tough to slip the intercooler into place with the longer legs sticking out, you can just remove the 2 radiator bolts and tip the rad in a little then slip it down into the space and bolt things back up.

I've actually had to REMOVE the radiator in order to get the silly intercooler in! And worse, the ends are so close to the radiator support that I can't even get a clamp over the hose when the intercooler is in place. It's been a bit of a tight fit before, but never like this!

 

[Davis]

Sounds like your engine bay is becoming an import engine bay.

 

[anupaum]

Sounds like your engine bay is becoming an import engine bay.

I've got the tubing connected now. In order to get the lower tube in I had to cut and bend that radiator support. It's not perfect yet, and it's clear I need to do some trimming in order to avoid odd angles where the tubing pieces come together, but there's a LOT of irony in the fact that when I started this project, I thought: "Wow! There's a lot of room under the hood."

Those days are LONG gone!

I'll post some photos tomorrow if I have time.