air to water intercooler design experience

[maj]

Its starting to get popular here with the sportscompact crowd , not sure if there proportioning it to the thick methanol level but definitely seeing advantages in being able to run a sub zero (C that is ) cooling medium .

[JimL]

Couple of thoughts learned from running a BGMR with air-water setup....my apologies if this is all commonly known...it was new to me!

1.  Make an easy access drain line for your water tank, and have shut off valves between the tank and the intercooler (both sides).  This makes it easier to drain down for "ice room" without having so much re-bleeding work.  You need to be able to drain into a large enough, and low enough, pan (I didn't want to dump the water onto the salt, because of the various types of corrosion that quickly accumulate in the system).  Now you'll be hauling extra jugs to town.

2.  Your hoses and connections need to be really stout. When bad stuff happens, your turbo can pump air faster than your relief cap can let it out of the tank!  If I had it to do over, I'd figure out a way to blow the water off into the engine bay....not into the cockpit.  In fact, if I had it to do over, the intercooler tank might not be in the cockpit.....in fact, if I had it to do over....I wouldn't!!!

3.  Make that fill port BIG and easy to access.  Make sure the threads don't self lock during storage (rust).

4.  Use a long slotted pipe to keep ice chips from blocking your pickup.

5.  Consider having a way to circulate both the intercooler tank water, and your engine cooling tank water (separately), through an external radiator with electric fan.  Later in the week, turn-around time becomes dependent on how fast you can get all the heat out of the car....before the next run.  It's just unbelievable how much heat these turbo engines seem to make.

I'm sure glad I learned to hate turbos....it means I'm DONE with them!

Regards, JimL (the L stands for Luddite these days)