about the core thickness of intercoolers
Turbo Mini Forums

here is one i have been pondering while looking through the pics of intercoolers that have been posted on here, when fitting an intercooler is it core thickness that you are going for or total internal volume?

what i mean by that is (it may be due to a space constraint) most i have seen in minis are not very high but quite thick, i have not seen many tall thinner ones fitted that i can remember and i have found one from a van that is pretty much the size of a mini grill but only 4cm thick that i was going to shoehorn in (the pipework will have to run into the arches as the endcaps will be there).

i cant seem to find any pics of one similar on the search yet and wondered if anyone one has done it and wasted there time doing it.

so if anyone knows of a way to work out how well one works i would love to know

This was what I used a few years ago with good results. It's from a Landrover TD5

Team Racing

Here's mine.

WWW.TURBO-MINI.COM

pretty much all things being equal bigger is better.

as the core thickness increases however the intecooler will get less effective for its size, as the cooling air flows through the intercooler it will warm up slightly meaning the rearmost part of the cooler will not cool as well as the front.

I reckon you 4 cm van one sounds like a good bet got any pics?

basically though if you keep the core thickness under about 2" (which most are) i dont think it will make much of a diference.

It's a very complicated equation...

Internal volume isn't so important as surface area.

Surface area to consider is both the internal surface area (inside of tubes only) and external surface area (outside tube surface and plus fins)

The CSA (cross sectional area) of the tubes inside, along with their length, will affect flow rate, hence pressure drop over the cooler, but surely the surface area for heat transfer is the most important ???

Schrödinger's cat - so which one am I ???

cheers for the replys and pics those are some nice engine bays

anyhow this is a pic of it ballanced on the front bumper of another mini, i know its the wrong way around but its just for scale and the thing on top is the power steering cooler that i have yet to take off.



think i will keep it and give it a go, should just squeeze in there with a bit of a curve added ala some xe conversions that have front rads.

looks quite a lot like the TD5 cooler, if you cna get it in it should work a treat :)

also should have said its from a mercedes 412 sprinter p (ish) reg, the one that looks like a lt35.

if its designed to cool a 4 ton van it should scrape through cooling a mini lol.

The key is to take it off and look at the internal turbulators.

The Disco TD5 intercooler is actually a very low efficiency per sq volume of size - it only works because it is BIG.

Reason it's poor, is the turbulators are, I recall, either not there, or minimal in size. Great for flow, bad for cooling.

I agree that thickness is not the be-all and end-all as well. The 2wd cossie intercooler is somet like 5" thick and always upgraded to the 'rs500' stylee which is a lot more frontal and internal area, but only 3" or so thick.

Jim, loving that TD5 cooler setup, whats the oil cooler for next to it though (passenger side), additional water cooler aswell as rad?

Lightweight racer coming soon.

yes buddy, thats right. The larger oil cooler was infact another water radiator

Team Racing

This topic came up recently too....some good pics and info here.

http://www.ls1tech.com/forums/forced-induc...oler-right.html

9.85 @ 145mph
202mph standing mile
speed didn't kill me, but taxation probably will