So, I am sitting around deciding how to blow more money and time on my car in order to make it faster so I can break stuff and have to blow more money and time.........but going fast is all worth it....

My car is only making 6lbs of boost and is primarily driven on the street.

Anyway, I have the stock ATI air to air intercooler on my car - the single unit that mounts underneath the engine in the front.

I ran a data log during my street and dyno runs after I finished my recent build.

At the dyno my IATs were ~140F for each run.
On the street my IATs were ~175F for each run.

How does this compare to other people out there? Too high?
Do I need a better intercooler? If so, which one?

(PS - I have also heard that the stock ATI intercooler loses 2-3lbs of boost! Maybe I can get a few lbs back with a better intercooler?)

 

call Bob at EPP...get their frontmount...those IATs are way too high for that boost.

 

^He is right those iat are really high.It seems odd for your iat to be that high because mine run around 125 with the outside temp 90 deg+ and about ambient with the meth injection hits.You need to get that fixed asap its killing your performance and its not great for your motor either.

 

way too high mine is like almost the same as the outside air driving around and sitting it goes to like 110 so need to upgrade for sure i run 12psi in my APS car

 

You're asking for detonation. You certainly won't be blowing money on this mod. It will definitely be money well spent and you should see a nice improvement in performance too. You will make more power with less boost due to being able to run more timing without experiencing knock and also because the intecooler will be more efficient as you already stated.
I'd say go for it but you could do it for about one-third to half the price if you can do it yourself compared to the EPP kit. The EPP kit is very nice, don't get me wrong. The finish is professional looking and the fit is perfect as you would expect and the work is already done for you so it can be bolted on in a day but if you could stand to save a few pennies and be proud of doing it yourself and you have a couple week to order it, fab it, weld it, paint it or polish it and install it then you could also go that route.... lol, maybe you should just buy the kit, that sounds like a lot of work, lol, especially in prime car driving weather.

 

Definitely replace the intercooler as the IAT temps are way too high.

Keith

 

sounds awfully high...my intercooler is dam close to ambient temp on the outlet side and thats in 90degrees weather...150 dollar ebay special....by the way what demensions is your intercooler and do you have sufficient airflow to it?

 

I have heard the car will make more power just with a cooler IAT, without even changing the tune.

 

Just curious....Do you have a 2 core IC or a 3 core?

The specs are on this site

http://www.procharger.com/intercoolers.shtml

 

The old ProCharger LT1 kit with the single intercooler set-up does create high iat temp's, that is why ProCharger replaced it with their twin intercooler set-up. Your iat's are really high for only producing 6 psi, are you up in a higher elevation? Bob

 

I have a large FMIC in my FI LT1 application and it works well. Even a slight bump up like Bob said to the twin intercoolers would help. I would reccomend looking into methanol injection personally. I run both the meth injection and EPP's FMIC and my IAT's stay nice and cool allowing for much more boost if I wanted, and plenty of timing safely on pump gas.

Meth injection has shown cooler IAT's in a lot of cases more so than intercoolers. I know more than a few guys who gain more boost by not running any kind of intercooler and just running meth injection. If you plan on running more than 12#'s of boost though, I would reccomend both a larger intercooler and meth injection.

Either way, you definatly need something to cool your IAT's before you run into issues. This is to say nothing of the benefits that running cooler IAT's will give you.

 

This could be a long dicussion, as I have seen many low and high temps and horsepower and torque numbers being very close now this is on LS2, example an 05 GTO with a magnuson, where they have you relocate the IAT to the back of the right rear intake. On all three that I have seen the readings are 140 to 15o at idle and stop and go traffic and in the 130 driving. Those cars still produce within give or take 8hp but normally had more tq than those that had lower IAT why is that.

Then people say hard on an engine with high temps, newer engines are made to run higher I know the cooler the air the more power but the hotter the air more efficent it seems that most people view what is best for a race car not a street driven car which most of the cars are. Most people eliminate their EGR system to me egr doesnt hurt it helps in a street car if setup right can make power also just my opition I know I may be jumping aroung here.

If the correct air fuel ratio and timing is correct and many many other table to offset what the computer see for the IAT being around the 140 couldnt tell you if that is bad or good. But can tell you one thing if tuned right I have not seen detenation with those temp yet, I have alot of trial and error on the dyno testing as I have my own chassis dyno which allows me to test differant case's and compare things like this on differant cars and help my freinds that have daily drivers that also run them at the track.

This is a great question, as it can lead into the boiling point of the fuel as it sits on the valve before opening and does it also affect wall film transfer because of the extra heat. HOPE SOMEONE CHIMS IN and give a great example, egr, high temps, and IAT temps intrigue me. As most on hear are learning alot every day, Just my thoughts on it.

 

I did not eliminate the EGR, I converted it to camshaft operated.

 

Yes, running around at 5200 feet elevation (alb NM) - the other "mile high" city....

 

So, could somebody post some links or specs to the intercooler(s) they would suggest?

This car is primarily street driven.

I don't really want to go down the methanol/water injection path.

I plan on changing to a D1SC and running ~12lbs in the next year - so I think I need to get my cooling issue under control before I increase my boost.

I would like to avoid having to do a lot of work to install the new intercooler (like taking the nose off...) - simplest solution with best results is my desire. I do all the work on my car myself....but have 3 projects going right now so would like to minimize the total work involved to get decent results for this project.

 

cooler IAT's mean the air going into the motor is more dense ie read more oxygen.this helps prevent detonation or preignition....otherwise why both having an intercooler at all if IAT's didnt matter,or why bother having meth injection.And EGR isnt going to help a motor since it is just putting hot air from the exhaust back into the intake.

 

Good to see another Alb, NM person on the tech. There is a lot of room in the 3/4th gen chassis for a A2A. I have the biggest core I have sever seen, barring Diesel. Dropped my temps from 170 ish on 10 psi (ebay 28x12x4) to 110 ish on 13 psi (Precision core). I think the dimensions are 28x14x5 or 6. Not the exact measurements but close and it fits perfect.

 

Who was your tuner? They should have mentioned the fact that your iat's were that high. On a turbo car I have I was 7* over ambient temps. I doubht I would go back to be honest.

 

Half the time when you bring your car to be tuned, the tuner will have to make the best out of the car for what the setup is. If his IAT's were already through the roof, the best he probably could do was tell him to run race gas, or bump down the timing to make things safer.

 

My temps are cooler than that at 23 lbs of boost.