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Which is better the big front mount air to water intercooler that usually goes in same place as air to air or the air to water that sandwiches between the upper and lowers of the holley high ram? Anyone ran any comparison of the two?
What's your application, power and use goals, chassis it's in, street car, strictly track car? Also it depends on the brand you go with, there is a pretty good thread on here where the guy was having all kinds of issues with the Holley mounted one from a certain vendor, did A LOT of documentation and research and found one that works very well for him.
I've looking into a/w setup (intake stack), nose mounted, inside the car mounted...
The stack setup holds no appeal for me, I already have a 4" cowl hood and I don't want to cut o hole in it.
The nose mount setups vary, Ray's Sweet Pea setup is not huge and he said he works pretty good. Obviously the issue for any of us is mounting the a/w cooler and not having it adversely affecting cooling.
I've never ran the intake brick style but I do have a Frozen Boost unit mounted in the front of my 99 Camaro that I run on the street, I realize its not really applicable because I have the long nose to hide it in.
My boost is still low in the 12-14 lb. range but it seems to work quite well even with just ambient temp water, logging IAT's never get above 100 degrees even on a hot day, can't wait to throw some ice in it and see how cold it can get.
Initially I thought you'd have to keep ice in it all the time in order for it to work but water is so much more efficient at pulling heat out of the aluminum than air that even ambient water works really well.
Now I'd imagine that will change when you start to turn the boost up and dependent upon turbo efficiency but with my S484 I don't think I'll run into that problem until I really lean on it.
Last edited by Black_Sunshine_99; Jul 13, 2021 at 09:29 AM.
I've looking into a/w setup (intake stack), nose mounted, inside the car mounted...
The stack setup holds no appeal for me, I already have a 4" cowl hood and I don't want to cut o hole in it.
The nose mount setups vary, Ray's Sweet Pea setup is not huge and he said he works pretty good. Obviously the issue for any of us is mounting the a/w cooler and not having it adversely affecting cooling.
Agree I tried the hi-ram stacked version with no hood and it worked pretty well, but like you said its always in the way and no hood clears it. Also used the version you have a pic of and it worked but was a bit higher IAT than the fancy Shearer hi-ram unit (but was also buried in engine bay with a hood vs being out in the air).
Originally Posted by Pro Stock John
Big tank approach, Kenny Dangler's fox body:
I ended up going to one a bit bigger than that one and it works laughably well. Mine is a CSF core made by Tin Soldier Racecars, I believe they rate it at 2500hp. In 90* ambient my IAT's don't rise over 85 without the IC pump even being on, with ice and pump it'll be down at 60*.
@SLOW SEDAN , interesting to hear your experiences. I have a few friends with the stack setup, and the brick usually addes at least 4 inches, more probably.
The 2nd solution kind of interests me, what where the IATs like?
@SLOW SEDAN , interesting to hear your experiences. I have a few friends with the stack setup, and the brick usually addes at least 4 inches, more probably.
The 2nd solution kind of interests me, what where the IATs like?
Yes the stacked units thinner than 4" don't seem to work well, might be fine for a lower horsepower build but just couldn't support anything near 1000hp. I was there for the 417 IC results linked above, nothing done to help it made much of a difference as the core was just overwhelmed. The large Shearer unit would see 115-125 IAT's at 1100+whp, almost half what the the thinner unit allowed. Which is great as long as you like stuff sticking out of your hood.
The second solution would get to 130-140 but I didn't use ice on that setup when I had it. I built another kit recently for a friend with the same core, on the dyno after repeated pulls it got to about the same as what I saw with it. However, we did a single pull with fresh ice it was closer to 90-100* through the pull. Granted that was only a single gear at the ~900whp level with a typical trunk tank and EWP150 pump feeding it. Location wise was not the best in either of the installs because they were both behind the radiator getting blasted with hot air. Still plenty safe IAT's to me if you don't have room for a behemoth.
Yeah the 417 setup seemed to get mixed reviews, I guess we can chalk that up to folks pushing that setup further than it was capable. I like Shearer's stuff (have a big a/a front mount from him) but that's interesting that his brick still hit IATs like that.
Your review of the second solution is pretty interesting. That's about the only setup I could fit in my '67, the Dangler setup would require I run a offset radiator at a minimum, and I'd have to make compromises that would make mine less of a street car.
Yeah the 417 setup seemed to get mixed reviews, I guess we can chalk that up to folks pushing that setup further than it was capable. I like Shearer's stuff (have a big a/a front mount from him) but that's interesting that his brick still hit IATs like that.
Your review of the second solution is pretty interesting. That's about the only setup I could fit in my '67, the Dangler setup would require I run a offset radiator at a minimum, and I'd have to make compromises that would make mine less of a street car.
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Front mounted A2W or intake mounted A2W 
