Strayarcs diy intercooler

Finally finished intercooling my zd30.
Bought one of these from ebay,and cut off the 3mm flat bar brackets. Made some more substantial ones from 5mm angle and welded them into more d22 friendly locations.

Knocked up some pipe. I used 4 x 90 degree bends 2 x 45 degree bends and 1500mm of 1.6mm wall thickness 63mm o.d. stainless steel.

I turned the original 90 coming off the turbo to face forward, then the 90 with 2 straight bits goes thru the support panel top left of radiator into the longer bit with a 45 on it and into top of intercooler.
A 90 comes off lower bit of intercooler and joins a bit that goes thru panel lower left side of radiator.There is already a hole here but it must be ground out substantially.This piece is made up of a 90 a 45 and a straight bit. Another piece with a cut down bit of bend and a short straight bit joins inlet manifold.

Oops that last bit that joins inlet of engine is actually made from a 90 cut up with a straight bit in the middle.

I used a quarter inch olive fitting for the boost sensor tube and the original boost sensor tube on the 90 coming off the turbo is cut down and blocked with a self tapper screw.Ill clean that up later.

Theres a small problem with the wiper washer box getting in the way of the lower pipe as it goes thru the support panel, because I wanted to keep all pipes inside engine bay I made a new box using original mounts.

Good work.

Hows it go ?

Thanks Dave, I wanted to be sure any gain was quantifiable and not imagined so I did a little experiment.

A timed hill climb pre intercooler took 61 seconds and pulled 2500rpm 4th gear,same climb with intercooler took 57 seconds and pulled 2750rpm 4th gear

I suppose this is about 6%, not a whole lot but I guess most revheads would be happy with 6% for every mod??
Im not too concerned with power increase more so protection for the motor should the turbo ever let go.

Looks pretty good, are you happy with it?

Hey Pix
yeah Im happy with it but only coz I did it myself cheap.
If I had paid over a grand for one of the kits and wanted performance id be pretty disappointed to be honest as driving around normally, I notice no diff.

Maybe in summer Ill appreciate it more perhaps.
I havnt done my exhaust yet but from what I read money would be better spent here as far as performance goes, of course trying to extract performance out of a 4 cylinder diesel is probably being optomistic at best.

hi mate just wondering the dimensions of the cooler and the first bit when you said how much pipe you used is that all you used?

"4 x 90 degree bends 2 x 45 degree bends and 1500mm of 1.6mm wall thickness 63mm o.d. stainless steel"

hey Starry sorry for late reply I havnt been on for a while.

The cooler is 450mm long by 250mm high by 65mm deep this is the surface area of air flow bit. If you allow for the tanks on the sides it will be a bit longer
and yeah thats all the bits I used, 4x90s ,2x45s and 1500mm of straight with a bit of cut and shut

Hay Charlie , nice work mate . Its good doing things yourself and saving a few dollars along the way. You will notice your EGT's will drop as well.

Charlie, have you noticed any difference in "how the engine" takes the throttle..ie lag now due to increase intake duct length?..does the d40 have a sensor for discharge intercooler temp?

Hey Gazza I havnt noticed much differance anywhere to be honest. Glad I did the timed hill climb thing, so at least I know there was some benefit.

Cant answer your question on the discharge temp as mines a d22. I dont know much about the d40. I Dont know much about the d22 either.

Without tuning the engine for the intercooler, you wont notice much of a difference.

However, 90% of my driving is night driving. 2am in the middle winter heading to or back from Singleton she comes alive.

The middle of summer, you will wish you had installed it earlier.

Cheers Dave I might look into that tuning thing.

In coming weeks (months) I will be doing snorkle and a diy dump pipe/exhaust.

I will do seperate tests on each mod as I go and post up results.
One of the tests will be the timed hill climb,another will be rev count at 100kms per hour and I guess timed runs over 400metres or so. (That should be amusing).
I will be disconnecting intercooler and doing the last two tests pre and post cooler as they are not done yet.
If anyone can suggest any more simple tests, fire away just dont suggest dyno as I wont be paying anyone else to thrash my car.

Depending on what mobile phone you have, you may be able to download an accelerometer and G meter to measure more scientifically the standing 400m timed runs; G force under acceleration etc etc to make the measurements easier and more repeatable?

Dave said:

Without tuning the engine for the intercooler, you wont notice much of a difference.

However, 90% of my driving is night driving. 2am in the middle winter heading to or back from Singleton she comes alive.

The middle of summer, you will wish you had installed it earlier.

Click to expand...

If the ECU has no idea of discharge temp then you cant tune it over so many variables without the data. The map will be purely throttle position / boost and rpm . If there is a thermocouple in the exhaust then it could be closed loop.

As far as I know, the only way to make the most of the intercooler is to chipit and then have the chip tuned to suit.

But I am no chip tuner.

Northside would be the best to ask.

Okay awesome Charlie!!

I got inspired and bite the bullet and purchased the intercooler, piping kit, 2 extra straight pipes and 2 reducers. I'm also pretty adamant that i picked up the same cooler as yours

Time for an update.
Front mount ended up pissing me off no end.
It worked fine and i was happy until i fitted a winch.
Despite changing to the micro cooler I just could not make a front mount and a winch work together. I know some of you have, but I went for the plate mounted winch not the bullbar mounted winch.

I have now gone top mount micro, exactly as in the thread started by bridge888.
I now have a bonnet scoop.( joyous occasion).
I beleive the top mount gives slightly more grunt as I cannot hold my foot flat to the floor when doing the same hill climb test as the front mount.Halfway up the hill is a bend that I now have to back off for with the tyres squeeling, something that didnt happen with the front mount.