Charge cooler idea

[Rob Furniss]

I don't know much about intercooler and charge cooler flow and charecteristics, I know what they do but like I say i'm no expert so bear with me, this may be a stupid idea!

On my last supercharged FTO I had to shorten the intake plenum so that I could mount the charger over the rear rocker cover. I chopped the runners and had a piece of box section aluminium welded to it with 6 holes on one side for the runners and a hole on the other for pressurised air from the charger (after it had been through the IC).
Here's a pic


All the pipework going down to the intercooler cost me a fortune and has to be presurised by what's quite a low volume supercharger hence I had to over-run the recommended speed due to boost losses in the IC/pipework, not very efficient.

What i'm thinking for this new project is having a charge cooler instead but i'm not sure there's room in the engine bay and I want it as little distance between supercharger - chargecooler - engine as possible.

Is it possible to take one of these.

And chop off the end tanks (well top and bottom), then get 2 pieces of ally plate and cut 1 hole in one plate and weld to the top where that end tank used to be (weld a bit of tube around the hole so a hose can go on to the charger outlet). Cut 6 holes in the other piece of plate to match the runners - weld this to the bottom and then weld the bottom to the runners - effectively making an all-in-one intake plenum/charge cooler.
Then of course mount a small rad behind the front bumper and run some water hoses and a pump.

What do you guys think - too ambitious or completely stupid?

[Astron_Boy]

By charge cooler, do you mean water to air?
IF that is what you mean, then why not shift the battery to boot, and run the cooler above the gearbox.
admittedly you do get heat soak from these sort of setups, but that is the risk...

[d_dan]

Well a SC wont produce as much heat as a turbo build.

With a charge coooler its more benificial if heat soakage is going to be an issue. IE. lots of traffic driving or city driving where your not at speed to get a constant airflow through an intercooler.

Where as a Charge cooler will cool the air even when the car is stopped

[Rob Furniss]

Yes water to air / air to water whatever.
I guess if it's an easy job to move the battery to boot then that could be an option, would be good if I could have it all in one with the plenum though since I have to put some box section ally on there anyway - if it's got a charge cooler core in there then bonus.

[spetz]

out of curiosity, where is the throttle body on that setup? Before the supercharger?

[Rob Furniss]

Yes before the supercharger, that's the way it is on the mini cooper s.
It has a bypass valve that recirculates for when your off throttle so that the charger isn't under load.