# What makes a good Intercooler



## StarvinMarvin (Feb 25, 2005)

THIS IS NOT A FMIC vs. SMIC DISCUSSION
Just a simple question of what aspects one should look for when buying an IC. For example, I see most IC's are bar and plate design and others are tube and fin. Any differences in cooling characteristics between the two?
Is bigger necessarily always better? Or can it become too much?


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## slappynuts (Feb 27, 2005)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (StarvinMarvin)*

Most coolers are not bar and plate.Most are some type of extrusion.


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## StarvinMarvin (Feb 25, 2005)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (slappynuts)*

any other insight?


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## speed51133! (Aug 5, 2002)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (StarvinMarvin)*

bar and plate is more efficent, and better.
It does cost more, and you have to decide if the ammount it costs more is really worth it.
hardly any cores are extrusions. while yes, they do make extrusions, VERY few aftermarket cores are extrusions. VERY VERY few.
dont listen to







1.8t forum, the biggest you can fit in your car is the size to go with.
you can see more psi drop accross the cooler with a bigger core, but we are talking like 1 or 2 psi, and you can just turn up the boost that much and the cooling bennefits are well worth the ammount of time it takes to generate that extra psi or 2.


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## euroroccoT (Nov 18, 2002)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (speed51133!)*

get a garrett core, you won't regret it.


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## StarvinMarvin (Feb 25, 2005)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (euroroccoT)*

well, this isn't for my 1.8t. I just bought a car that has a 2.0 xflow bored out to 2.1 with a T3. the IC that was on the car was damaged but it had a very large sized core. 19"l x 2"w x 14"h adn what I guess are custom end tanks. 
The P/O said that he ran the engine on two settings; low boost at 8psi and high boost at 14psi. He said the highest he ever boosted was 16psi but the engine was built to handle ~20psi. Decisions Decisions


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## StarvinMarvin (Feb 25, 2005)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (euroroccoT)*


_Quote, originally posted by *euroroccoT* »_get a garrett core, you won't regret it.

got a website?


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## StarvinMarvin (Feb 25, 2005)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (StarvinMarvin)*

bumpity bump


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## speed51133! (Aug 5, 2002)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (StarvinMarvin)*

http://www.turboneticsinc.com
http://www.bellintercoolers.com


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## BlownGTT (May 14, 2004)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (StarvinMarvin)*

Bar and plate tend to be slightly better for cooling but a tube and fin would compare if its slightly bigger. Properly designed end tanks are important in order to achieve good flow, i would look for one which has cast endtanks as most of the time they are better designed with less sharp turns, avoid one with square endtanks.


_Modified by BlownGTT at 12:09 AM 3-30-2005_


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## ijcameron (May 17, 2001)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (BlownGTT)*

I've heard mixed things about the ebay intercoolers - lots of pressure drop. Does anyone have real world experience with the $200 ebay intercoolers? I'd like to hear some opinions.


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## VDubbBoarder (Dec 1, 2003)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (ijcameron)*

I'm not trying to step on any toes as far as saying someone said something totally wrong but turnign up the boost for pressure loss is alot like cut off your nose to spite your face.. Making your ....wait here I'll quote it out of a book. Maximum boost ,by corky bell
"...The idea that lost boost can easily be recovered by adjusting the wastegate, while attractive, is not quite correct. Certailnly, if boost is increased the power will rise, but one consequence of this is that turbine inlet pressure will rise if you attempt to drive the turbo yet harder. More turbine inlet pressure creates more reversion which creates more combustion chamber heat, which reduces charge densities, and so on and so on. Thus one can see that to some extent, recovering lost power by turning up the boost is in part an exercise in chasing ones tail."
Dude, you need to do some real research other than the vortex kind. I could sit here and spit all kinds of stuff at you, but i dont know your turbo set -up, I dont know the temperatures the inlet /outlet temps your dealing with, and I dont know how much boost your seeing, and a whole lot more. I would suggest buying this book I just quoted or something similar. its like twenty bucks. I love all the guys on here bu t you shouldnt leave such an important decision as intercooling to us. Real reasearch is easy and the cheapest thing you can think of. The difference in reasearch and not? The wrong intercooler could shorten the life of your engine to half ( or destroy)or even more than its already shortened turbo'd state by creating high temps. You could lose oodles of power at what cost? even the intercooler on the car that came with the setup could have been not as effeicient for the set-up your running as it could be. Test temps, Ask effiency ratings of IC's, Ask flow rates, study different designs. do the equations and you will be rewarded. No one said turbos were easy.


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## speed51133! (Aug 5, 2002)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (VDubbBoarder)*

your 100% correct in your statment about turning up boost to compensate for pressure drop....
BUT
i dont agree entirely with Corkey. It isnt like chasing your tail. the gains from turning up the boost 1psi to negate a 1psi pressure drop that you have because you decided to use an intercooler the size of your radiator are not going to be lost to heated up air and making your turbo over work.
of corse you could draw up a hypothetical scenario where yes tuening up the boost to compensate for lost pressure is a bad idea,
IN THIS SITUATION the guy asked about using a big intercooler. A big intercooler will give you some more pressure drop than a small one. The ammount of drop you see due to the increased intercooler size is well worth it, and cranking up the boost to make up for it is also well worth it.
do you see what im saying?? you cant just read a phrase in a book, and apply it any situation you can think of...


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## StarvinMarvin (Feb 25, 2005)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (VDubbBoarder)*


_Quote, originally posted by *VDubbBoarder* »_No one said turbos were easy.









Very quickly learning that. Thanks for the insight. Unfortunately, the car I'm buying was in a front end fender bender adn the IC was damaged beyond repair. It's core dimensions were 19" legnth 14" height, and 2" depth. Giving it a rough volume of 532cc. But since it was damaged (one of the end tanks has a giant hole in it) there's no way to know how efficient it was or see it's air flow. As for the engine it is a fully built 97xflow bored out to 2.1 liters with a T3/T28. Before the accident the PO said the car dynoed 196 wheel at 8psi and 221 at 14psi. Now when I see IC's are rated for say 300 hp, they are referig to crank and not wheel correct? Would I also be better off getting an IC rated around 350hp if I plan for more power in the future? or to stick with an IC effecient for the engine and upgrade as when power is increased?


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## StarvinMarvin (Feb 25, 2005)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (StarvinMarvin)*

Any one else???


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## Danno13 (Mar 25, 2004)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (StarvinMarvin)*

Complements of Kooz, from ottawa-vdubbing
http://www.are.com.au/techtalk...0!%20!


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## Kor (Mar 21, 2003)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (speed51133!)*


_Quote, originally posted by *speed51133!* »_
of corse you could draw up a hypothetical scenario where yes tuening up the boost to compensate for lost pressure is a bad idea,
you cant just read a phrase in a book, and apply it any situation you can think of...

I have to agree with this poster and not the fellow arguing against. 
Mr Bell's book is very good and I have it as well. 
Yes you can come up with a hypothetical scenario where turning up boost pressure to negate pressure loss is going to not be worth it. However, you are unlikely to be in that scenario. Especially if you consider when choosing your turbo that you will have such a pressure drop in the system. 
Similarly, you can hypothetically have an intercooler that is too big and has excessive pressure loss etc. However, in practice on a small car when you are mounting it under your bumper, just cram as much intercooler as you can down there because you are going to run out of room first. 
The truth that you can prove through practical application is that greater cooling efficiency is going to be worth it when using a large, efficient, bar-and-plate type core.


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## slappynuts (Feb 27, 2005)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (Kor)*

Ideal pressure drop in any intercooler is ZERO.The only thing that stops us from having a pressure drop of zero is tha packaging of the cooler.The increase in size is a issue of diminishing results whaere to reach the theoretical zero pressure drop you would need a cooler larger than you have room for.
Put it in da front KOOTER







.Alot of people will put a cooler on the front of the car without thinking of some of the other details of what they are doing.On very short front bumper overhang cars(MK3 and MK4 as well as most VWs) you have the problem of where you have to put the intercooler up against the radiator/ac condenser.This limits airflow at the cooler and negates putting it on the front.As well as coolant temp increases,but thats not really part of the question.If you have room in the front of the car the FMIC is almost always the best option(almost,see short front end comments).


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## .:VRT:. (Feb 21, 2005)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (slappynuts)*


_Quote »_"...The idea that lost boost can easily be recovered by adjusting the wastegate, while attractive, is not quite correct. Certailnly, if boost is increased the power will rise, but one consequence of this is that turbine inlet pressure will rise if you attempt to drive the turbo yet harder. More turbine inlet pressure creates more reversion which creates more combustion chamber heat, which reduces charge densities, and so on and so on. Thus one can see that to some extent, recovering lost power by turning up the boost is in part an exercise in chasing ones tail."

So according to Corky we're not allowed to turn up the boost on our setups? What if your doing it because you want to run a couple more psi? Are we allowed to then? And at that point what's the difference between doing because of pressure drop and doing it because we want to? I think "driving the turbine harder" by 1-2psi tops isn't going to be very detrimental. For christ sake look at the 1.8T guys. I understand what he's saying but I think it's being blown out of proportion a bit. That statement needs to be taken with a grain of salt IMO. You need to know what the limits are of your setup are in order to push those limits. But 1-2psi..... eh....?


_Modified by .:VRT:. at 12:57 PM 4-4-2005_


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## Scooter98144 (Jul 15, 2002)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (.:VRT:.)*

I did this. 3 large Volvo 10bar bar and plate intercoolers welded into this HUGE .5psi pressure loss IC. 
















Then to help keep it cool I made this.


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## jsnVR6 (Feb 5, 2001)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (ijcameron)*


_Quote, originally posted by *ijcameron* »_I've heard mixed things about the ebay intercoolers - lots of pressure drop. Does anyone have real world experience with the $200 ebay intercoolers? I'd like to hear some opinions.

I am using an Ebay intercooler. My thought process was...."If it works cool, if not, at least I used it to make my piping, I can now just get an equally sized "Good" intercooler and swap it in."
When on the dyno, the inlet to the IC is too hot to touch almost. The outlet is room temp. That is good enough for me. Also...my IAT is perfectly within range.
Here is a pic of my "crappy" (because I got it off ebay) intercooler....


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## vfarren (Sep 11, 2000)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (JsnVR6Corrado)*

Damn! Looks pretty serious! http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif


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## f0xf0702k1 (Mar 30, 2002)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (JsnVR6Corrado)*


_Quote, originally posted by *JsnVR6Corrado* »_
I am using an Ebay intercooler. My thought process was...."If it works cool, if not, at least I used it to make my piping, I can now just get an equally sized "Good" intercooler and swap it in."
When on the dyno, the inlet to the IC is too hot to touch almost. The outlet is room temp. That is good enough for me. Also...my IAT is perfectly within range.
Here is a pic of my "crappy" (because I got it off ebay) intercooler....









the end take design on those ebay intercoolers is very poor, its too blunt and has the pipes low at the bottom, if you look on a greddy you can see how the end takes are nice and tapered, shaped to rush the air back into the outlet pipe. there have been many discussions on supraforums.com about them and the poor flow rate. i've had experience with greddy's and the outlet pipes are cold to the touch http://****************.com/smile/emthup.gif 


_Modified by f0xf0702k1 at 4:48 PM 10-31-2005_


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## Speedy G (Apr 1, 2002)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (f0xf0702k1)*

Check the web site http://www.bellintercoolers.com. It's got great technical information regarding intercooler flow, efficiency and pressure loss.
Speedy G


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## Eganx (Apr 30, 2004)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (StarvinMarvin)*

this might help you out a little








http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=2172578


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## slappynuts (Feb 27, 2005)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (Eganx)*

I don't recomend people use junkyard crap on their first coolers unless the cooler made twice the power that they plan on making.Even then there is some real junk stock coolers out there.
All cores worth buying have a flow rating.This can easily be calculated by what your power goal is.Each power level has a flow rating(i'll let the high speed internet nerds go get this formula).You should shoot for a pressure drop of less than one PSI at your max desired power level.
Don't use end tanks that suck.


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## bossmk2 (Dec 7, 2005)

*Re: What makes a good Intercooler (slappynuts)*

Does someone want to chime in on the density of the folds per inch from intercooler to intercooler. I'm going to put my FMIC right in front of my radiator, so would it be such a bad thing to not have as many/tight folds on the intercooler so that the radiator can get more air to cool the engine?
Considering the row density and end tank designs, would the Godspeed FMIC be decent for 10 psi and 200HP?


_Modified by bossmk2 at 3:11 AM 11-25-2007_


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