When it comes to turbocharged or supercharged engines, running on gasoline dictates that an intercooler will almost certainly be part of the equation. But what an intercooler actually does, and how to determine what parts you’d need for a build can sometimes be a bit of a mystery.
At its essence, an intercooler is a heat exchanger. In an air-to-water intercooler, the heat exchange occurs between the air coming in and the water flowing through the intercooler–the heat from your charge pipes is transferred to the water, and cooler and denser air is sent through the other side. One of the key benefits to this type of design is that, unlike air-to-air intercoolers, an air-to-water intercooler can be mounted virtually anywhere along the charge piping route, provided there’s a means to send water to and from it.
A look at the Garrett cores that Chiseled Performance uses on their 1000 hp builds.
However, it’s also a more complex design than an air-to-air intercooler system, requiring additional components like tubing and fittings for the water to flow through, and this is where considerations must be taken not only for reliability, but also for maximizing flow to maintain the intercooler’s efficiency.
The job of the intercooler is to take charged air and make it denser so that more can be fit into the cylinder for combustion. Superchargers and turbochargers generate heat when they create pressure required to make the charge of air denser. That heat equates to hot air that is less dense, which in turn means less air for the motor to work with on each combustion, and results in less power.
Additionally, that heat also results in higher cylinder temperature which can result in pre-detonation in the combustion cycle, robbing the engine of additional potential power. An intercooler helps to keep those cylinder temperatures low, and by doing so, allows you to keep the engine timing up, gaining even more power in the process.
o maximize the amount of power you can gain–and reliably maintain–with your forced induction system, the key is to keep your intercooler as efficient as possible, and with an air-to-water intercooler system, that means selecting your core, tubing and fittings properly to maintain optimum flow through the system, and sizing your components appropriately for the type of build you’re going to be using them with.
Burns Stainless, known for their Stainless Steel products has a line of Aluminum Tubing just for this application.
To help us determine how to accomplish this, we spoke with the folks at Garrett Turbo, Chiseled Performance, Burns Stainless, and Fragola Performance to discuss how each of their companies’ products fit into the equation and how best to determine what you need.
