Air-Liquid intercooling for $10

I'm now reaping the benefits of an additional air-liquid intercooler without spending hundreds of dollars and adding all that complexity.

A windshield washer reservior from a Mitsubishi Cordia is mounted next to the intercooler tubes of my 98 Jetta. For now, water gets siphoned to a washer nozzle mounted in the bottom of the intake box below the air filter.

The final plan is to utilize boost pressure to force water out of the reservior and through a tiny jet mounted on the existing vacuum fitting above the turbo. That vacuum fitting is higher than the reservior, which will prevent water from being siphoned out while the car is parked.

This initial setup might be crude, but gosh it works. Turbo lag is gone, and the engine revs right up to 4000rpm. Its worth a dyno test.

Skypup should have done this, instead of routing the A/C air to the intercooler.

Be very careful, too much water in the engine will kill it dead. This is a perfect way to steam clean all that PCV oil from the intake tract.

Keith.

I think SkyPup was kidding about that A/C routing thing.

I wonder what would happen if somebody rigged up an air to water intercooler using simple convection to circulate the coolant? The intercooler way down low near the bumper would heat the water, which would rise up to a small air-cooled radiator up high in the engine compartment, passing through some kind of check valve on the way. The cooled water would flow back down another tube to the intercooler. Yes, I wonder...

-mickey

p.s. I'm just full of brilliant ideas which I never actually attempt, aren't I?

[This message has been edited by mickey (edited June 28, 1999).]

Interesting idea.

You could use a tiny a-l intercooler right after the stock IC, and mount a trans. cooler radiator up above behind the grille. This setup would come in handy when the stock IC heat soaks.

Here's the challenge, how cheaply can this be done?

My goal is to match the Wett chip power with simple cheap mods. So far with EGR plugged, MAF and airbox gutted, K&N filter, PCV vented to atmosphere, intercooler discharge tube heat wrapped, Mobil Delvac1 and now water injection, I'm getting close. Next comes intercooler fan and bigger downpipe and I'll be there.

After all that has been done, the chip or tuning box will be icing on the cake.

Keith.

Does cold water drip out out the air-conn condensor....

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1996 Passat Tdi estate (wagon)
Visit me at www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Garage/5067/

Does anyone know if the 1.8T NB's intercooler shares the same configuration as our TDI? If it does then my friends we may be in luck. The aftermarket will be all over the 1.8T and surely there will be an intercooler upgrade available from someone. I realize that the piping will be different but I am hoping that the actual intercooler is not.

Olli

Keith,
Are you injecting the water into the intake here, or spraying the outside of the intercooler. It sounds like the former. If so, the intercooler will condense most of the water out of the airstream until the pipe fills up. Then you will get larger quantities of water ingested into you engine than you intended. Could you elaborate?

I've heard from one of the tuners the intake air temperature on the 1.8t is approaching 190F with NO mods... They are trying to find ways to reduce it to improve performance.

They also have a TDI they are "playing" with so hopefully, anything they find for the 1.8t will help us TDI'rs.....

O.K. Gary, who is the tuner?

On the GReddy site there is a little bit of intercooler info. They claim that 160 is the target charge temp. If the 1.8t is at 190 there certainly is room for improvement.

I still would like to know if we share the same intercooler as the 1.8t?

HKS has a line of products for euro cars called Klasse. HKS are turbo gurus(as is GReddy) they already have some NB parts so it shouldn't be long before they have 1.8T upgrades too. Both these companies are high end as far as quality goes. The GReddy turbo kit that I installed on my Civic fit like a glove and performed flawless. I hope that they come up with an intercooler for us!

Olli

Olli,

It was ABD. They just finished their 1.8t "Concept" New beetle. Take a look at it at http://www.pe.net/~autobahn / . They said that 190F was much too hot and there needed to be significant reduction in temp before they could begin to really "hop it up"....

It would be interesting to see what "our" intake temp is on the TDI !!

Gary

I like my idea the best
just put a dry ice block in front
now water to worry about no puddles
just smoooookk n
away as you drive down the highway

The temperature inside of the intercooler is still warm enough to have some sort of evaporation going on in there, not to mention the sheer force of the airflow through the system should keep condensation to a minimum.

I still like the idea of getting an A-W intercooler from a junker somewhere.

Darren brought up a very valid concern about water "falling out of the air" inside the intercooler. I just called Spearco and they said it won't happen. The water is thoroughly atomized at that point and flashes back to steam when it enters the engine.

If its not bad for the turbo, I'll leave the system the way it is and let vacuum inside the airbox pull the water out of the tank.

The vacuum signal in the airbox is extremely strong. There was an air bubble at the top of the hose after leaving the car parked. Upon starting the car, the air bubble went right to the airbox and the water started flowing. Now I hope the water stops siphoning after shutting off the car.

Good luck to Peter finding an A-L IC setup in a junkyard. Syclone, Typhoon and the new Lightning are the only vehicles I know of that have a factory A-L IC system.

Keith.

Instead of using dry ice on the intercooler, simply spray nitrous oxide on it when the pedal's floored. That would be more practical, if the intercooler can tolerate repeated radical temperature changes.

Keith.

More convienent than nitrous is R134. You can get a can for $3.50 and use a pressure switch/solenoid arrangement to spray the liquid(can upside down) on the intercooler. That way, you don't have to worry about the high nitrous pressures, heavier bottle, or the fact that nitrous may end up getting sucked into you intake (R134 is inert). I used such a system(R12 though) about 10 years ago. Great midrange torque, the can lasted about a week with "normal" driving. Of course that's different for everyone.
Lately, I've been working up a design for a system that will charge the intercooler(air/water type) with R134, then use a controlled leak to allow the coolant to escape over 25 sec or so. This system is for drag racing though, and would be of limited use on the street. Expect many knock offs and copies when I get this working.

Wow, the R134 idea seems like a great way to make the car very happy.

At what temperature does R134 go from liquid to gas?

How about injecting some propane into the intake thru a nitrous jet for an extra hit? I was tempted to do this on an 84 Quantum TD, but not on a new car.

Keith.

Intentionally venting a refrigerant, including R 134a (HFC) is illegal. The fine is $25 000. 10 years ago it was legal to vent refrigerants. Times have changed.

R 134a boils at -16F.

Olli

If you're daring you could try injecting a small amount of methanol instead of water. In my last year at college I worked on a research project where I added methanol to the intake air of an ancient air-cooled 2-cylinder industrial diesel engine. Aside from the added energy value, the methanol cooled the air considerably. It seemed to work well, but the engine knocked somewhat (and expectedly) as methanol was flow increased. At the extreme, with 70% of the power coming from the methanol, the engine was producing twice its normal output power. It seized after a few minutes, probably due to the simple air cooling system being incapable of detecting and removing the added waste heat.

-paul

Running 50/50 water/methanol mix is common in water injected systems. Would the methanol ignite before the diesel? Maybe thats what caused the knocking.

One can add propane injection, where liquid propane vaporizes in the intake, which will cool things considerably.

Exhaust gas temperature should be closely monitored if either methanol or propane is injected.

Keith.

Of course I'll have to "recover" the R134a that "leaks" from the cooler ;-)
Maybe a big balloon....Hmmmm
Hope I didn't offend any ozone layer fans.

If you want to inject anything else into your engines (propane, methonal)at least try to keep it lean enough that it won't ignite until the diesel does, but I think you are playing with fire (pun intended).

[This message has been edited by Darren (edited July 09, 1999).]