Air To Water I/C For The L28 (Z/ZX)

[slownrusty]

Hi Gang,

My name is Yasin and I own an '83 ZX Turbo. I live in Colorado and I am starting to dive into extracting some more ponies from the L28. The cars very strong and I have completed a fair bit of bolt-ons on the car and now I would like to get into some heavier mods. I visited a local performance shop locally that mostly specializes in Subarus but have vast knowledge in turbocharging. I enquired that I am seriously looking at installing an Intercooler on my car and turning up the boost a bit. After many measurements and looking at options the owner of the shop decided that the best Intercooler option for the car would be a water to air set-up. For the following reasons:

1) Almost no pressure drop - Very important

2) No hole-saw drilling through the rad support for the I/C tubes

3) More efficient than an air to air setup from a standstill to around 30mp/h, as an air to air I/C requires constant flow over the fins for efficiency

4) Compact

5) Retains the factory A/C

 

The location for the air to water I/C would be directly above the stock location of AFM. As such the I/C piping out of the Turbo and into AFM would be very short, the diameter of the piping would be approx. 2.5" to 2.75" and will have very few elbows.

 

An air to water I/C requires:

1) The I/C

2) A small external water pump to pump the coolant through the I/C (I am using a boat pump that I have in my garage)

3) A very small low profile radiator (I will be checking the scrap yards to see if I can get something small enough)

4) The hoses to plumb it all

 

I am convinced that this is the way to go simply as I know from a previous car I owned that a lot of I/C piping contributes to a major pressure drop. In addition, I am not keen on cutting-up my car to fit a front mount an I/C.

 

My question is would there be any interest from other turbo Z/ZX enthusiasts in a set-up like this? I am not 100% sure what the total cost will be of the entire kit, I will know by next week Tuesday (Aug. 21st). I will be using my car as a mule for the initial kit and the more of these kits that can be sold the cheaper it will be. The air to water I/C with the surrounding tank will be custom made to the car and will be the most expensive part of the kit. Please let me know.

 

Thanks In Advance- Yasin (slownrusty@yahoo.com)

[Kevin Shasteen]

Yasin,

 

Welcome to the site. I'm new to the world of turbo's but find them quite interesting.

 

For starters, as I understand intercoolers and barring the press/temp drops: your benefits gained will depend on the Effectiveness (Efficiency Rating) of your Turbo & Intercooler.

 

I'ld ask your shop whose doing the work-what effects will the Air/Water IC have if/when you go traveling (coming down from Colorado) & mingle w/the other bottom dwellers at a much lower altitude? Would your benefits be lower, equal or better than an Air/Air IC?

 

Kevin,

(Yea,Still an Inliner)

[Guest Fast Frog]

Yasin:

 

This is just a "shot in the dark" suggestion; Call Action Turbos in Denver(if they're still in business). They turboed my L28 engine yrs ago and did a great job with the air/air IC and all the plumbing. They may have expertise with air/water IC systems.

[BLKMGK]

Some interesting intercooler things I've learned... I was reading an Aussie site not long ago (can't recall name but it's VERY popular and has a subscription area too) and ran across some interesting tests.

 

They were screwing around with spraybar. Spraybar is what racing aircraft use to cool their intercoolers (only place I've ever seen the term). Spraybar is what they call th efluid they spray ON the intercoolers while racing. It's usually some sort of wateralcohol witch's brew that's suppposed to remove heat from the intercooler.

 

Anyway, they found that if they activated their sprayer under hard boost that intake temps did NOT decrease! However shortly after the high boost period passed and they let off the intake temps plummeted. After some fooling aorund they came to the conclusion that intercoolers are more heatsink type devices then they are active coolers of the airstream. That is to say there's some hysteresis going on and a delayed effect from the application of the water.

 

So, how does this apply? What this means is that a water/air intercooler is going to act like a big heatsink too. The larger the resevoir of water the more heat you can absorb before temps begin to rise. Folks think that water/air combos aren't great on the street due to the water heating up. However it would seem that the slightly warmer than ambient water, given a decent sized resevoir, isn't that big a deal. The water can still absorb a TON of heat.

 

Raising or lowering the temp of water takes a bunch of energy in a large enough body. A well built water/air setup ought to work pretty good on the street IMO. Heck, the Ford Lightnings are doing well enough! You might even want to pirate one of their water pumps since it's obviously rated for 100% duty cycle. I'd consider using something other than a glycol mix too - something to kill oxidation and something to break water tension like Water Wetter. Ought to be pretty nice....

 

Of course an air/air cooler is less complicated...

[slownrusty]

Ok thanks for the input guys! Kevin, I will ask about what the changes in altitude will do. I agree BLKMGK that Water Wetter would be definately a good option and that the air to water I/C is like a big heat, on the street should prove very efficient. Once I get a firm price I will make another post. Stay tuned and crossing my fingers that the kit works out affordable.

 

All the best for now - Yasin