Supercharging needs intercooling too!
"As big as possible". And it is covering the whole frontal cooling area! All trapped air must pass intercooler.
It's 22 lb (10 kg) alone without tubing! The tubing is another 11 lb (5 kg). Ronny Landström built it around
an Iveco Truck IC. It is 2.63" thick (67 mm). Width: 26.3" / 670 mm Height: 16.5" / 420 mm
This was in 2003. However, during tuning at a Chassie Dyno in 2006 it was found that this intercooler
was too tight for the air volume of the ProCharger. Read about the tuning at the dyno here!
INTERCOOLER No2 - 2006
So I got Keith Mease of MPE Racing Fabrication to build me an even bigger Intercooler. This one is
4" thick and should have a lot better flow. It's said that it won't lose more than 1 PSI of pressure
in the 20-25 PSI region where my combination is working. Keith, being an SS-freak himself, knew
what was possible and needed for this setup, so those welded-on brackets fits original SS. Beauty!
You can almost see the better flow?
While at it, we decided to step up from 3" to 4" induction tubing to increase the flow further. That
inch difference is really more than it sounds! The outlet from the ProCharger is only 3" which will
have this silicone reduction mounted on, taking it immediately from 3" to 4".
First mounting to see where everything should go. Feels good.
Planning to re-design the tanks since there's place for it and it would give the inlet (and outlet) a better
angle for the 4" pipes that goes underneath. I'm no expert, but I guess those air molecules would like
bigger tanks to gather in, before going infighting for the passage through Intercooler?
New MPE Racing Fabrication intercooler is 1.37" thicker (35 mm) so I had to extend the lower brackets
to make them fit. Cutting and welding. Note the mounting bolt placed there by Keith Mease, which
I don't use.
.
Something like dziz.
Wonderful cutter.
Wonderful layout.
Wonderful placing of tubing
Wonderful clearence!
Wonderful. Time to tack. Then TIG-weld. I'm in the very best hands now! Wonderful!
We had to do some work on the frame and bumper support to make space for
the 4" pipe bend on the cool side.
Mr Top Fuel Thore made a couple of pieces you must have in a tube job of an intercooler.
Ends that hold the silicone tubes stuck. Thanks Thore!
Hot side finished. Hehe. Note those welds...
Cold side finished. Satisfied designer says "Hehe"
Cold side from above, coming up through my rubber lock. Hehe.
Only one connection left to mount at this point. Hehe.
4 inch is FAT!
Even better than before. Air will be trapped behind the grille and forced through the
intercooler. No escape.
The Birth and Death of the Artistic Tube Support Bracket
I made a dummy of cardboard from bottom of a beer box, so I had to finish a couple of beers right away.
The tips with bolt holes to the right will be bent 90° and mounted to the driver's side bolts on the throttle
body. The idea is to support the last intercooler tube, to hold it firm so it won't pop out of the silicone
tubes when pressure rises. (Have been using ugly stainless wire up until now).
Then I scanned that cardboard and drew the outlines in Photoshop. You can see the round mark
to the left where I wanted the aluminium bar to be.
Added SS-logo and emailed this to the water cut engineer Dennis Palm at Mekpart.
An hour later he emailed a PDF back to me to have it passed.
Next day Dennis delivered the stainless art to the garage!
A bracket with attitude! Still needs polishing. I've photoshopped an aluminium bar where it's supposed
to be welded to the tube. I think the simplicity of the function is the most beautiful thing!
This bracket also matches those lightning brackets (scroll lower) which hold the ignitions coils.
Then the welder Jonas Alholt came to the garage and said "Never!" He hates it (and he hates
the ignition coil brackets as well, and as a matter of fact, everybody else does too). Jonas will be
tuning the car together with me and the buddy americans, before and at Santa Pod European
Finals 2006 and he doesn't want to risk cutting off a finger.
The art may have died with that. But I'll be back!
Meanwhile, please enter the Poll regarding this case at Pit Lane/General Discussions. Thanks!
OK mainstreamers! =) Will this work for you? Still in unpolished stainless...
It was short of time to finish it, so I'm happy for today's communications technique, when I quickly could
make a small drawing, take a phone-picture and just send it to Top Fuel Thore so he could begin to
make the aluminium pin that Jonas welded to the tube later on. Thanks guys, and Sony-Ericsson 610i.
More about the ligtning brackets can be seen here!
