rideonracing

Peter McCormick
Aug 3, 2009
217
0
Fife, Scotland
hi folks, im looking to get a front mount intercooler and im just wondering if i could plumb this one in AND also keep my two side ones...more air flow i would think?!
What i was thinking of doing was on the leon cupra r theres an aluminium pipe going along the bottom of the car from one side intercooler to the other, well could i not just insert two 'T' pieces and plumb the bigger front mount cooler in to that standard aluminum pipe?
Probebly doesnt make sence to some people but i know what i mean!! haha

has anyone done this and know if it would work???
 
This will choke the air flow from the turbo, the side mounts are restrictive enough without added a 3rd cooler into the mix.Why would u T into the cooler pipes, you will have charge air going in all directions, this will not work well n
I'm afraid, fair play for thinking out side the box though, first time I heard this.
 
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wouldnt bother mate, either or in this case, side mounts or front mount. Surely that would create a little lag in the airflow from turbo to throttle body. Different though.
 
Theres the point that youll have the FM cooling better than the SMs so youll add some heat once the air gets through those... Cant see it helping especially the extra work for the turbo. Nice idea though
 
There's a member on ASN with an S3 who has done this and he says that it works ok however, it's subject to a fair bit of criticism and I've personally not seen any logs comparable to a good FMIC to back up that it is any good. Personally the only way I'd see this working is by removing the aluminium pipe altogether and then rerouting silicone in front of the radiator, into a FMIC (would have to be a smallish one otherise you'd get massive lag from three coolers) and then back into the other SMIC. Seems pointless mind as you'd have hot charge air going into a very restrictively flowing cooler which would get a tiny bit cooler, into a FMIC where it would get a lot cooler and flow quickly, then back into a restriction. A big enough FMIC will more than make up the surface area of both SMICs and a smaller FMIC like you plan, it's also ALL in the flow of air where the SMICs are pretty much not at all.
 
It will technically work, but the 2nd and 3rd coolers will be really inefficient, plus you will get a lot of lag with that much pipework.

Intercoolers work by temperature difference. The greater the difference between charge air and ambient, the more efficient the IC will be. What you're suggesting is to pre-cool the air before it gets to the 2nd and 3rd IC, which means they won't work as well as they would on their own. If you know what I mean :D

You would be better with one big IC, rather than 3 smaller ones.
 
This would be the only time that it should technically be called an intercooler. If you only have one then it is just a charge cooler, not an intercooler! This post isn't helpfully, just a pet hate!
 
A charge cooler works by passing the charge air from the turbo over a core that is filled with water (greater heat sink), an intercooler passes the charge air over a core cooled by ambient air.


Pete
 
That is just modern day lingo. A charge cooler can either be an air-air charge cooler, or an air to water charge cooler. A charge cooler, is any type of cooling device that cools 'charge air'. An intercooler strictly speaking is a charge cooler that is inbetween two other things, not including the engine. Intercoolers are generally between two turbo's. Well that's the route of how it used to be. These days the americans and what not came along and now because of them we call a air to air an intercooler, and an air to water a charge cooler.