Is a charge cooler more efficient than an intercooler?
Turbo Mini Forums

if you had an intercooler that when on, say over 10psi boost, it got a spray of water from a seperate small rad to help cool the air and you had a charge cooler, which would possibly be more efficient?

im not convinced that a water spray from a seperate rad spraying onto the intercooler would actually be any cooler than the air passing through the intercooler itself becuase at the end of the day they both 'should' have the same temp air running through them??

also if you added a fan to the rad for a charge cooler would that make it any more efficient? im thinking that it wouldnt as the air (presuming you had the space to front mount this rad) running though the rad would be passing through faster than the fan would be able to assist with. on most normal fan assisted rads the fan wont be running when the car is at high speeds because of this.

im just toying with some ideas at the moment for mine and got thinking about a water spray system verses a charge cooler.

any thoughts?
James.

in short, charge cooler in a mini ...........may be yes! "on the track"
standing 1/4 mile

stick with a GOOD! intercooler well placed ...... but if you have the money?

Water sprays generate a large amount of additional cooling. The spray has to be a fine mist though.

As the water vapour passes over the surface area of the intercooler, it evaporates, as it evaporates it absorbs sensable heat as latent heat and it is this that gives the additional cooling. The type of spray is very important, water dripping from the front of your car, wont do much other than wet the road. high pressure and fine mist jets are the key, garden sprinkler heads are of no use

latent heat capacity of 1kg of water is 2260 kj . therefore it will absorb 2260 kj of heat energy as it evaporates.

Water is the most efficient refrigerant known to man! and its environ mental freindly

Co2 and No2 are by far inferior to water in this respect.

Charge coolers are no more efficient than intercoolers, what they do, is allow you to better package the cooling system in tight compact engine bays, you are simply using the water in the charge cooler as a secondary refrigerant, that transfers the heat energy from one place to another, nothing else. The point of heat rejection can now become remote from the point of heat exchange. spraying the charge cooler rad with water mist will increase its capacity just as well as in an air/ air intercooler instalation.

Edited by Sprocket on 1st Feb, 2008.

I guess one advantage of a charge cooler in drag applications is you could use ice/dry ice to further cool the coolant. Not very practical on the road obviously.

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1/4mile in 13.2sec @ 111 terminal on 15psi

I think it all depends what you use the car for, I think a charge cooler on a race car would not be much good to be honest, on a pro drag race car then it could work well

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We have heaps of dry ice here at work (and liquid nitrogen), hmmmm... I might try a spray bar for my IC set up just for craic. I presume charge coolers could weigh quite a bit though compared to an IC?

a n2o spray on the ic would be what minus 184 or something ,deff cooler than water lol

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It all definately comes down to packaging. Whether one is ultimately more efficient than the other is academic when you condider the number of different installations possible.

For example, a rear/mid engined car is unlikely to be able to have an air/air cooler efficiently mounted (I know the RS200 did, but it's not a solution for most cars). A charge cooler with a rad at the front could be made to work much better in such a situation.

Personally I'd always go for air/air first as there are no moving parts, it can't break and leave you with no cooling and it's lighter.

But if this won't fit then charge cooler here we come. My old Legacy turbo had a charge cooler and that workd fine btw.

Fastest 998 mini in the world? 13.05 1/4 mile 106mph

i have a chargecooler and it seems to work a lot better than the intercooler i had. main reasons being the intercooler was too small as it had to fit in the car and also heat soak from the engine.

the main advantage in my mind is stealth. i would link a picture of my van but it never works for me!

good info here guys cheers. i was more swaying towards an intercooler with a mist and i think that is the way im going to go. now ive got to do some research into the best way to get an appropriate spray onto the intercooler and how to trigger it.

can you get some sort of boost switch that is activated at say 10psi? i imagine you can. then i could rig that up to the spray jet and possibly have something that would allow me to pulse the jet so as that it isnt just drowning the intercooler everytime its over 10 psi.

Hi,
You used to be able to buy adjustable pressure switches for the job from micro dynamics. MJ may be able to do this too?
If you do a lot of booting it then standing still a charge cooler would work better as it will keep cooling while your stationary, especially with a fan on it.
Cheers,
Gavin :)

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The way ive always looked at it, which may well be wrong is:

Intercoolers are ideal for long period of use, e.g. road use where they may be on boost for a long time and intake temps will rise, however the air flowing through on a decent set up will keep this down.
On a charge cooler setup this could well lead to the coolant system temp rising, meaning that air charge would be cooled to a higher temp than ambient, though on air to air intercooler will always have ambient air flowing through it and some how if its ducted correctly it may cool to slightly below ambient.

However a charge cooler set up could be manipulated to give lower intakes temps for a short period (sprints, 1/4mile).
Maybe using a bigger capacity system and an effcient rad you may be able to keep temps down for longer periods on a charge cooler.

i think youv got that spot on nic

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1/4mile in 13.2sec @ 111 terminal on 15psi

im using a charge cooler, think its off a rs turbo anyway its a pace one. im using it because i havent got room for intercooler.

hopefully itll work ok, time will tell

no longer a series, but still 1.3 turbo.

its going to work, itll be better than nowt, particularly on something like yours carl where you have modern gubbins to allow for correction on the timing and fueling

im hoping to use both .

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1/4mile in 13.2sec @ 111 terminal on 15psi

Charge coolers must weigh a bit more than intercoolers also. And intercoolers are easier to install if there is room.

Like idea of charge cooler though.

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