My friends & I have run water to air set ups packed with ice in a number of drag cars here with success, they did their job. All of the street driven cars in our group use Air to Air coolers, unless the vehicle is supercharged & requires the need of a Water to Air. I wouldn't say that air to air coolers are best option in all situations, but in a street driven or anything other then drag racing they would be the better choice. Now I don't know what Rice was talking about when saying a shit load of plumbing & huge pressure drops. Most of the water to air systems I have seen have far fewer bends & piping. Two things to think about when looking at charge coolers, Heat transfer & Friction loss. The more piping & bends in the system can cause large pressure drop. Air to air systems are simple & effective, but packaging & routing can be an issue. Water to air systems have their place in motorsports, there is added componets, but they do not need to be in the engine compartment. Here is something I read a long time ago " Think about a hot frying pan. If you want it to cool quickly, do you dunk it in water or do you wave it around in the air? Which method cools faster?…" The idea would be to find the charge cooler system that best fits what you plan on doing with the car. On the idea of keeping the air to air & adding water/meth injection. Okay I will say that chemical cooling is a great idea, but it does take your simple FMIC system & make it more complex. So with guys like BDC out there relying on such systems without someone knowing what they are doing can prove to be a bad idea.

Here is an idea:

When you heat water, think Ocean or cup of coffee....... how long does to take to cool down? *a very LONG TIME!* that is cause it has a very high specific heat capacity. Like George Michael and Elton John, it goes both ways.

Once you get to it you are fucked.

Water is awesome as a total loss coolant, its far better using it in the engine rather than around it ;) You only need to use small amounts and you can totally change the pressure profile in the engine (run engine at 100% more power, while still not exceeding the peak pressure and temperature you had at far lower power). It is far more beneficial to use total loss cooling system and you need non of the complexity of needing to cool the water back down :) (this is what I meant by extra plumbing and radiators etc etc).

Yeah I sort of get what your saying there but wouldn't a well ducted rad make it at least as efficient as a front mount?

I'm going to be moving this soon to Rotary Tech cause there's a lot of good info that can help outside of the FC folks...


-Ted

Yeah I wasn't quite sure where to put it. I sent my mate whos building me engine a text to see what he though he asked me what hp it was and never replied. =/ The things rated at 1250hp+ so I think its more then sufficient. All I'm really concerned about is mounting the radiator for it, I'm thinking properly ducted it should work better then air - air, with the capability to put ice in it for hill climbs, bitumen sprints, drag work, burnouts etc. Could be a good feature there. Just mount an esky in the boot with hoses going to it, put a few beers in there and gain more power!


Oh shit, just told him I'd buy it.

1250bhp huh? I'm sure it'll keep a 600bhp rotary's AIT's at ambient air temps forever then.... right? :rolleyes: I still wouldn't do it unless you're only doing drag races short duration events.

Good idea, I like it.:icon_tup:

I'm more buying it now out of curiosity, for the price I can just flog it off and put the front mount back in if it sucks

Thread moved to Rotary Tech from 2nd gen section...
Enjoy!


-Ted

Make sure you do lots and lots and then some more actuall testing :icon_tup:

Actual testing, my resources are rather limiting as all I have is a ln air temp sensor, egt gauge and butt dyno lol

Charge temp, AIT, aux coolant temp, etc etc would be nice to know. See how long it takes to heatsoak and not cool back down

Yeah I got water temps. I live in north qld so I should be able to work out if it's good or not pretty quick. Mind u still gotta get the engine rebuilt and put back in the car lol

It got here yesterday, things huge. Shoulda realised 8 X 10" wasn't going to be small lol. Radiators bigger then it looked in the pic too which isn't a bad thing, pumps in good nick and it came with the water lines. Paid 660 shipped so I think I got a pretty good deal. Going to start mounting the rad and pump this weekend, will put some pics up then. Going to be a little bit before the cars running but I've realised theres alot of shit left to do.

Good luck sounds like a fitting nightmare :18:

I have an article of a RX7 fitted with one of these (Drug car) and the **** sticks out of the bonnet :p

Still be interested to see how it turns out fitment wise. If I get some time I will scan this article on the RX7 and post it up for you to look at.

Yeah, he had it fitting in his FD fine. Assuming there is the same amount of space between the engine and rad in my FC I should be fine. Planning on mounting the rad, making the CAI and ducting the brakes at the same time. Should be fun lol