In continuation of my previous post about blocking radiator airflow with a air/air intercooler, I have no room what so ever for an air/air. In reality I have very very limited room for an water/air. I do not want to cut the bumper as I want to keep the sleeper look minus the hood. I'm looking at a water/air unit down low on the front passenger side of engine bay. That way the compressor outlet goes straight down and back up to throttle body. Will any intercooler be better than none, even if its too small? Same question apples to a heat exchanger.. Ill have room for a small one on the drivers side but it would have to be small as well. Current specs are 5.3, s475, e85.

Here's a few pics to see what I'm dealing with. Btw, it's a 1990 vw corrado.

Radiator mounted.



Fans mounted. I barely have enough room for the hoses.





S475 turbo will be mounted above the passenger side frame rail.

 

Where is the compressor going?

https://ls1tech.com/forums/forced-in...some-pics.html

 

the turbo will be above the passenger frame rail with the compressor inlet facing towards the back of the headlight.

I had been checking those post out and thought i could have the air/water intercooler on the drivers side rail but i wont be able to get 2 3" pipes across the engine bay.

The original plan was to run without an intercooler but I know it will bother me and why do stuff twice?

 

Don't wanna restrict with an air to air in front of the radiator? I ran a 4" thick FMIC in front of a stock radiator for a while.....187degrees in 90 degree heat.

A2W options...

 

There's no room without cutting the bumper.

That's the style intercooler I was thinking about. But what's the downsides to an intercooler that's not big enough? Just not cool as good and/or restrict airflow? Which would be better.. No intercooler or a small one that will fit as well as a small heat exchanger?

 

Sounds like you skipped a step on design day.

When you say cutting the bumper, what do you mean? A small tab? Cause I think any car that I have intstalled a blower or turbo on, I have had to cut the bumper(wait, not true, my C5 didn't). Usually not visible or even really known but, they had to be cut.

You might be able to fit a small A2W in there(like one I showed a pic of),...all compact inside your engine bay...then run a heat exchanger flat or make one custom. Would that not work? I really think you need to mount the turbo in place before you get any concrete answers or insight but that's just me... very unfamiliar with that cars layout.

Too small of an intercooler would cause higher IAT's and obviously a restriction. I am not the kind of dude that boost's vehicles without a form of intercooler...but many guys on here do and do well. They're opinion would matter more then mine on running without one(meth-nitrous are ways of cooling).

Here is an idea.... scroll down to the bottom of the page....for an air to water setup...which looks pretty compact. That was the first search I did for "inline air to water intercooler" that came up in google.



http://www.absoluteradiator.com/Intercoolers.asp

my search....for some ideas.

https://www.google.com/search?q=inli...h=943#imgdii=_

 

Don't be misled about an a2w size. Even if its half the size package wise it's still likely near 2x better than a a2a twice it's size.

 

Cool build!

 

[QUOTE=V-seriesTech;18394608]Sounds like you skipped a step on design day.

When you say cutting the bumper, what do you mean? A small tab? Cause I think any car that I have intstalled a blower or turbo on, I have had to cut the bumper(wait, not true, my C5 didn't). Usually not visible or even really known but, they had to be cut.

You might be able to fit a small A2W in there(like one I showed a pic of),...all compact inside your engine bay...then run a heat exchanger flat or make one custom. Would that not work? I really think you need to mount the turbo in place before you get any concrete answers or insight but that's just me... very unfamiliar with that cars layout.

Too small of an intercooler would cause higher IAT's and obviously a restriction. I am not the kind of dude that boost's vehicles without a form of intercooler...but many guys on here do and do well. They're opinion would matter more then mine on running without one(meth-nitrous are ways of cooling).

http://www.absoluteradiator.com/Intercoolers.asp

[QUOTE]

No, nothing was forgotten on "design day". I wasnt going to run an intercooler at all as its very limited in space. Its orginally a 4 cyl fwd car.. which now houses a 5.3, th400 and ford 8.8 with 4 link. I have been working on this for over a year now and have been tossing the idea around intercooling and recently looking at the available options.

As far as cutting the bumper, I would have to cut out quite a bit of the bumper skin and i dont want to do that. the radiator had to be at a slight angle to clear the core support which in turn is 1/4" away from the lower bumper grill.. Its hard to tell via pictures.

So I can choose a barrel intercooler that will not be the correct size for cfm output or choose a water/air like above in a certain size to fit in the lower front part of the engine bay. Im trying to fit 10lbs of crap in a 1lb size box..

I thought about meth but there is no clear indication of its performance in relation to running e85. I understand the concept but it seems theres a lack of info with that certain combination.

I realize this is way off the beaten path for others but I am a VW enthusiast with the quest of good low cost power (compared to vw aftermarket) and rwd. Hence the build.