How To Build a water-cooled Chargecooler/intercooler

60ghia · Post by **60ghia** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 3:20 am

That is a great pic!!

Steve C · Post by **Steve C** » Sun Oct 07, 2007 6:31 am

Hi Matt

Its a PWR 5220 rated at 920CFM and 650HP, size is 6" x 10 ". Its probably overkill but I got it cheap, a guy building a 2.8 litre Type powered Oval found that he couldn't fit it in.

Im still building my car at the moment, 1303, G50 box & MY2003 2 litre WRX STI motor. You can read a bit more about it here http://www.clubvw.org.au/steve_carter.htm

The PWR website.http://www.pwr.com.au

Steve

ToRy 70 · Post by **ToRy 70** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 7:10 am

Hey Matt, have you played around with the pump circulation, or do you just let it run? I've heard you might have better results if you let the pump turn on with a timer relay triggered by onset of boost. Let the coolant stay in the lines and cool off more, then with a throttle switch (or boost set point), turn the pump on and let it flow with a timer relay. After boost or throttle is let off, the timer relay keeps it going for 30 seconds or so. Just wondering if you've messed with this idea at all.

I can't see why it wouldn't work in our (street) applications where the chargecooler is seperate from hot manifolds (not the case in factory supercharged vehicles equipped with chargecooling).

What are your thoughts?

Matt Keene · Post by **Matt Keene** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 11:40 am

Can't say I have Tory. Sounds like an interesting plan. Do you run this setup yourself? Would be interesting to get some back to back figures to see whether it would work on a timed relay.Sounds like a plan in theory.

ToRy 70 · Post by **ToRy 70** » Mon Oct 15, 2007 8:39 pm

I have not, but I am curious. Since one spends most of the time off boost, and intake temps are more or less stable, it might offer an edge (depends how much heat soak the intercooler accepts). The actual performance benefit might be negligible, but there's a good chance the pump would last many more miles.

I'll ask the local guys at Adrenaline, they do quite a bit of chargecooling for their Ford V8 stuff. Although they mostly run iceboxes instead of radiators. When they run on the street they simply circulate without ice, so they'll likely tell me it's better to run the pump all the time.

Matt Keene · Post by **Matt Keene** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 3:38 am

Has anyone made their own chargecoolers? It would be nice to see some pictures of everyone's home built chargecoolers on this thread so people can get an idea of what can be done.

Steve C · Post by **Steve C** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 4:55 am

Hi

This is one I had on my old 1302. A friend made it for his car and when he sold the car I bought it from him.

Steve

panel · Post by **panel** » Sun Dec 02, 2007 3:31 pm

I have an oil cooler turned into a pre rad with a fan on top (not hooked up) and an Audi water pump circulating all the time. Notank cause the cooler holds about 4ltrs of water. I might change to an Air/air cooler this year though.

MarioVelotta · Post by **MarioVelotta** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 2:09 pm

Dredging up the past

How are you guys plumbing?

Out pump - cooler - radiator - tank - in pump?

I'm going to be plumbing mine soon and would like to know some opinions on coolant routing.

Matt Keene · Post by **Matt Keene** » Tue Aug 18, 2009 12:12 am

On my street cars I plumb: tank - pump - radiator - charge cooler - tank. But you could easily run the radiator after the charge cooler. It makes no real difference.

On my race car it is just tank filled with ice water - pump - charger cooler - tank. I don't run a radiator as for drag racing it's not necessary.

fastback · Post by **fastback** » Tue Aug 18, 2009 12:31 am

same here
from Tank (at highest point)
to pump
to radiator
to cooler
back to tank

MarioVelotta · Post by **MarioVelotta** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 9:55 pm

Great, a good addition to the thread

miniman82 · Post by **miniman82** » Sun Aug 23, 2009 11:06 pm

Yep, I too needed this info. Gotta find the time to put in that PWR barrel cooler...

Dan Dryden · Post by **Dan Dryden** » Mon Aug 24, 2009 3:29 pm

Here's my chargecooler. (Sorry Matt, but it's a copy of your idea)..

My set up is: Tank - radiator - pump - chargercooler - tank.

It's a 1776cc and made 190 Bhp with 13.5 psi boost (Calculated flywheel horsepower) The rolling road operator didn't give me a rwbhp. His workshop temp was around 28 deg c's at the time. Wasn't measuring charge temps but cooler never got more than luke-warm.

Radiator on right is oil cooler, radiator on left is for chargecooler. Fed air through ducts in the rear quarter windows.

Matt Keene · Post by **Matt Keene** » Thu Aug 27, 2009 10:51 am

Hey Dan, like the setup. Don't worry about the similar design - that was the whole idea of the post to help people make their own

Keep up the good work... and feed in a few more p.s.i.

Matt