Water to Air Intercooler setup

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dilmah

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Well as the name states im gonna be putting a W2A (Water to Air) Intercooler on my nav. Im not sure if it will work but what the heck it gives me something to do and keeps me out of trouble.

Picked up a 2nd hand cooler, bosch water pump and 12 x 24" radiator with 10" thermo fan from some guy in Perth for $250. Its a frozen boost 600Hp unit
 
Started off by putting a second fan which use to be on to of my current Air to Air intercooler on the radiator. Drilled straight through the ally fins and used 4 x 6mm nuts and bolts that were 40mm long. This took me all of 15 mins.

I then pulled the front of the nav apart, grill out the way, unplugged spotties. unbolted winch control box, removed aircon fan and a small central bracket that holds the grill in place (it was broken anyway)

The cooler just fits but the previous owner had removed some of the brackets on the drivers side I wanted to use. I took it to a fab shop for them to remove the top ones which I will not need and weld them in place.
 

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Will post more on the weekend when I get the radiator back and mounted. Will mount the water pump tomorrow and do the wiring for the fans and pump
 
Very interested in the outcome of this setup. I am going to get around to this on mine. Going through a rough patch with work at the moment (redundancy's) so it is taking longer than I wanted it to. Hope it works for you. Are you measuring inlet temps now with the air to air? Would be good to see the difference in temps once your done.

Cheers.
 
I plan to measure the temps before I put the new cooler in. Just need to buy some gauges. There isn't any hard evidence on this forum if W2A is actually better than A2A. I plan to prove that it is.
 
your not going to beat an A2A, especially with a frozen boost unit.
W2A has some advantages in 4x4ing but gets beaten in onroad situations.
 
it all depends on the situation and set up. At 10km/hr nothing beats a front mount A2A. but for city driving, sand and slow crawling you cannot beat a W2A. Another important factor is heat dissipation. With the radiator I have I think I can achieve superior heat dissipation as opposed to an air to air. Ill let my results speak for themselves
 
Can you post how you aim to represent the "results" and under what circumstances will these be logged ?... then they might speak for themselves.

there is good data and there is not...just be mindful
 
Post and pre I/C temps. Too keep things as fair as possible I will be keeping a few things constant such as weather conditions, how hard I drive the Nav when testing, weight of the nav, roads I test it on air intake temps.
 
Todays progress, mounted radiator after getting it back yesterday from fab shop. Had to cut and drill some brackets out of flat bar steel. I have only done 2 so far, they link the sides of the radiator to the bulbar mounting brackets. Took me 2 1/2 hrs this morning. will post pics soon

Went for a test drive to see if it affected airflow, Nav sat between 86 - 88 degrees which was read of my scan gauge. I can safely say that it did not affect the radiator's cooling ability one bit.
 
Cooling that water back down will be key to its success. Are you going to run a expansion tank in your setup. If you do, try and let air flow around it to.
 
Not at the moment, I don't have much room left under the hood but it would be easy to do in the future
 
What will you be using in the heat exchanger/radiator as the liquid? Coolant/water? This will play a big part in temps aswell.

I just upgraded my air to air setup and thinking of adding a water mist kit to the top and also reinstalling a new under ic fan

Rusty
 
Im not too sure yet on the cooling fluid, the previous owner used a red coolant. I might experiment with water and coolant to see what yields the best results? Another issue is corrosion. I know that by using coolant it will go a long way to preventing this but I have heard that coolant has a lower specific heat capacity than water.

Any feedback will be much appreciated
 
The radiator and twin 10" thermo fans are in
 

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Looking good. That's a huge radiator. I thought it was half that size. I wonder what would happen if you used a water and metho mix. Would the metho help cool the water faster. I shouldn't evaporate in a sealed system should it.
 
You could just use a rust inhibitor additive like the castrol stuff and use it in the water mix. Water will dissipate heat a lot better than coolant.

Looks good mate

Rusty
 
Nah there is nothing between the fans and the radiator. Should there be? Sounds good Rusty ill just add some inhibitor to the distilled water when I get it all plumbed up and filled. Im wiring up the fans and the pump at the moment, will post more pics later.
 
Nulon make their ultra cool additive. I think it's just an inhibitor like the castrol one. Cold also be ok.
 

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