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Whats so bad about the MK3 intercooler?


white86turboz

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Hey I'm upgrading the turbo on my 86' Z to a T04B, and I bought a MK3 intercooler to help it out. But I've heard not to use a MK3 intercooler, but to use a MK4 intercooler, why would I want to do that when the MK3 intercooler is bigger than the MK4? Please help me out. I also need way bigger injectors, if someone could give me a good deal on some 650cc+ injectors I'd be happy to pay. Thanks

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I used the Mk3 Supra intercooler and its junk for the following reasons:

 

1) Large pressure drop across them. The reason these intercoolers are so available is that this is on of the first upgrade the Supra owners do.

 

 

2) They are not cross flow

 

3) See the poor design on the end tanks, well they are well known to rip the aluminum at the end tank that is opposite the side where the intake and outtake pipes are...the aluminum is very thin on these intercoolers. Lift that Fisher Price made Supra intercooler and then lift an equally sized Spearco, HKS, Apexi and you will see the difference in quality and construction

 

4) The fins are a very old design that damage easy and cool inadequately.

 

If you are going through the massive effort of putting an intercooler in your Z, at least put a good quality unit and then you don't have to do things twice.

 

Yasin

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Hmm, I used one on both my Z's and made over 400 rwhp. I ran 24 psi through one with no problems. The pressure drop is not as bad as people say. I had a 1 psi drop at 14 or 17psi, can't remeber the boost I was running when I tested it. Not being crossflow is not bad. Most Bell intercoolers are not either. The MKIV coolers do flow more though.

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I agree with Yasin. I used to own an 90 supra turbo and am quite familiar with them. When people started tuning those cars they initially thought that the first restriction apart from the stock exhaust was the turbo. As in turned out, it was the intercooler. On an independent test the intercooler was noted to have a whopping 3 psi drop at only 9 psi. You can imagine what happens with more boost. Off course all intercoolers work and are much better than having none, so no surprise that clifton has been happy with his. However, if you have the option of getting a better flowing and more efficient intercooler, I would most certainly do so. It does make a very real and noticeable difference (increase efficiency, less heat and stress on engine and turbo unit and increase in power output). I would not try to save $100 on on item that has so much effect on performance and lasts as long as the car does.

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I was running a mk3 IC in my turbo Z. It worked fine for my setup (stock turbo @9-10psi) and was easy to plumb, but I knew all along it would have to be replaced eventually.

 

Keep an eye out for the NPR intercoolers. There are several on ebay right now and they usually sell for less than $300.

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great great, well does anyone wanna buy a 90' supra intercooler lol. I'll see what I can do otherwise I'll have to get another one, anyone have any suggestions for a cheap but great intercooler under $300?

 

 

No way is there a 3 psi drop at 9 psi with a 7M. I used 2 autometer gauges when I tested mine. Regardless if you can make it fit there are 24x4x12" intercoolers on Ebay. The cores are just like spearco and any other tube/fin design, just made in Chiwain so they are inexpensive. I managed to get one to fit in my 240.

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I'll probibly just use the intercooler for 1 month, before installing a sparco intercooler. Someone wants to sell me a used Sparco intercooler for $350 so i'll buy that. Now I need some big *** injectors, a S-AFC, and a bost controller. Thanks for all your help.

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Hi, well I went back to my old pile of supra stuff to make sure I remembered the numbers correctly and was able to dig up the original article along with lots of dust. This is from Turbo magazine in the July issue 1988, pre electronic files and internet (yeah, I’m getting old), so I will straight type out parts of the article:

“When we ran our first dyno tests on the supra, (Turbo Jan ’87) we thought the restriction at higher boost pressures was actually in the turbo, but in conferring with Cartech, Spearco and HKS it was found the stock intercooler itself was a major contributor to the problem. Testing at Cartech showed the stock intercooler to have a 3 psi pressure drop at 6.8 psi and a whopping 4.3 psi pressure drop at 9 psi……At stock boost pressure we found a 11 hp gain between the stock and Cartech intercooler (8psi)….The Cartech intercooler showed a 7/10 psi drop at 6.8 psi and 1.1 psi drop at 14psi which basically agreed with our dyno runs. In addition to the pressure drop, Cartech testing of the intercoolers showed 89% efficiency vs. 68% for the factory unit. â€

Now this testing was at Cartech, so they may have chosen the highest number and try to flow too much volume to exaggerate the pressure drop…, but the dyno test was done by Turbo mag, and 11 hp gain from one intercooler to another at only 8 psi shows that the Cartech numbers are far from complete BS. Almost any intercooler from a 6 cylinder car will show great gains on a Z, I just think that there are much better choices than the one that came on my beloved old supra.

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Very interesting article Afshin!!

The Spearco cored intercooler like the one in this Ebay listing is probably the "best bang for buck" intercooler I have found

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=33742&item=7954536928&rd=1

These guys sell a ton of them. They are very efficient, rated 1180cfm and will support nearly 800hp, and they sell them for ~$200 less than everyone else including turbonetics... they just don't have the spearco name on their end tanks

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Yeah well I'm 17 have a budget tighter than a hobo, and saving to buy up for a $400 IC is gonna be tough buisness, I'm selling the seats out of my car, the old T3 turbo, a non-turbo engine, and some other stuff. Hopefully I'll get enough money from all those items to buy a bad *** IC.

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I would use the Supra one over that. Look at the Spearco and other bar and plate designs. I don't know how much room you have but if you go with a cross flow it will need to be taller than that. The Supra one and this one http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=33742&item=7954536928&rd=1 have alot more tubes than the one you posted. I would use this one that Z-gad found over that one or this one, especially if you don't have alot of room or this one

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=33742&item=7953816813&rd=1. They are massive though. Barely fit in my Z. Look at the core.

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I agree with Clifton, I would not pick that one.

This one is from the vendor that Z-Gad pointed out and certainly looks like it has a nice design, bar and plate, fins look good. See if you can get more info regarding psi drop,efficiency...from the vendor

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7954537024&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT

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