Liquid to air Intercooler Tank Building (pictures)`

I started fabricating the tank for my water to air intercooler the other day. It tucks nicely up in the passenger side front corner in front of the wheel. Method for getting the dimensions is pretty easy. I calcuated the rough cube I needed from the cubic inches in 3 gallons. Then I tooks some measurements so that it would fit in the spot I wanted it. Next I cut out cardboard rectangles and taped them up to fit and then test fit the tank on the car. It didn't quite fit due to a little sheet metal so I made a little cutout in the upper part of the tank. Now it fits nicely and ended up holding right at 3 gallons. Now I've got the dimensions to cut the pattern out of 1/8" aluminum sheet and weld together /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

Got a little further (time lapse posting)...
Tank is now tacked and partially welded. I still need the bungs and filler on the top from Summit (part# anyone?) before I weld the top on.

Test tank vs actual tank

Tacked up

Inside tacks

Weld closeup

Another closeup weld

 

[Hertz]

Have you test fitted it with the wheel in there? Looks kinda tight... where's all the snow and slush going to go? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

Ya I test fit the wheel /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif I actually shortened the tank about 1.5" further than the cardboard box pictures for that reason. Now it's completely behind the plastic cover that goes in that spot (if I had one). As for slush and snow, i'm afraid this car will never see that stuff again.

 

[14bCrazy]

Ya 600+ hp is not going to be a great thing on a snow covered road. I said 600+ because I don't know your goals. If that's low don't be pissed at me. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Hksvr4]

Its funny how the size of the liquid intercooler is a lot smaller than a air -to -air intercooler that is used for the same application. Chris, your using the gt42 and if you were to run a air to air the intercooler would be double or triple the size of the liquid one.

 

[mistaVR4]

Welds are looking pretty good man! Your getting there /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif I like the tank, looks like that will be a good spot for it, makes for a real short route system.

 

Thanks for the complement Steve. I've been practicing my welds like crazy. These are decent but the metal is really dirty and i'm in a hurry to get this done so they aren't perfect (ie I'm too lazy to clean them better). The inside fillet welds on the "cutout" are going to be the hardest part.

Any locals that need aluminum stuff welded though i'm your man /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[HHIVR4]

Damn that looks nice..Reprazent the skillz.

 

[Polish]

Where is the inlet and outlet going? How is the piping on the inside going to work?

I apologize if these are dumb questions, I don't know much about Water to air intercoolers.

 

Inlet goes in through the top (not welded on yet). Outlet and drain come out the very bottom side (not welded on yet). This is just the water reservior/tank that feeds the system. The core itself is a PWR 6x10 barrel. I'll post more pictures of the complete system soon. Hopefully wiggens clamps and all if my budget doesn't explode /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Polish]

Oh I thought that was the core. I was way off. I knew those Barrels were cores but I didn't know they had seperate tanks. So there is a pump that pushes water from and to the tank to the core?

 

Quote:
So there is a pump that pushes water from and to the tank to the core?



Yep exactly. Pump feeds from this tank to core and returns to top of this tank.

 

[Polish]

Cool. I look forward to seeing pictures when it is all done and assembled.

 

[steve]

Just circulating the water is good enough to keep it effective at cooling I guess? In other words, the water isn't actually cooled.

 

[gtride]

Nice project you got there. I like your welds, i wish i could weld that good. I just need a lot more practice. Just make sure you post more pic once you get more progress. Well i am sure that everybody here heard of freon cooled intercoolers, that would almost make intake temp. below 0. that would be kind of cool on GVR4. I saw one of those on Mercedes and it was bad a*s. Keep up a good work.

 

Quote:
Just circulating the water is good enough to keep it effective at cooling I guess? In other words, the water isn't actually cooled.



Tank (shown here) is filled with ice and water which keeps the water on the feed side (bottom of the tank) at nominally 32 degrees. This flows through the IC core (not pictured) and cools the air as it flows by all the fins (just like an air to air). The hot(ter) water then returns to the top of the tank causing it to swirl around with the ice/water in the tank and be recooled for it's next pass through the system. At the track you get a number of passes on a full ice/water tank but you can drain and refill with fresh ice/water when it desolves. Ice is JUST to absorb thermal energy with it's phase change. You want water in the intercooler itself, not ice.

Quote:
I like your welds, i wish i could weld that good. I just need a lot more practice.



Thanks a lot. I've been practicing a ton so I can make very nice welds for other people. My wife has been telling me they are finally nice now but obviously I don't believe her because she'd say that even if they sucked since she loves me /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

[steve]

Quote:
At the track you get a number of passes on a full ice/water tank



Theres the answer to the question I should have asked. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

For a drag car, a large total mass of water will keep charge air cool and many guys use ice as well in their tanks. You only need so much water to absorb the heat from a run on the strip. For street car with water/air intercooling, a heat exchanger similar to an auxiliary radiator or looking like an oil cooler is employed. Because the mass of water in Chris' system is finite, so is the amount of charge cooling it can perform before it is heat soaked. It is like a big thermal reservoir. Every time you are on boost, and the charge temps are above water temps, a little heat energy is poured into that reservoir. It is released only when charge temps are cooler than reservoir temps (i.e. off boost) or when there is a heat exchanger in the system and the ambient temps are below reservoir water temps (even Chris' tank will function limitedly as an exchanger though because it is not perfectly insulated). Water systems don't work so well in constant high load systems (road racing) because the rate at which heat is removed from the thermal reservoir to atmosphere (by the heat exchanger) is usually not equal to the rate at which the intercooler can put that energy into the reservoir. I wish I could get into the thermodynamics of this with more authority but all that comes to mind is that you are dealing with a less than %100 efficient heat exchanger moving heat into the system (intercooler core), a less than ideal means of fluid locomotion (water pump) and a less than %100 efficient heat exchanger removing heat from the system (aux. heat exchanger). All of those efficiencies compound to produce total efficiency that cannot compare to a well designed air/air intercooling system?

This guy's stuff has always kept me entertained:

http://www.merkurxr4ti.com/Intercoolers.html

LB

 

LB,

We are for all practical purposes only concerned with the efficiency of the intercooler at cooling the charge air in this case. So you have charge air at X temp, cooled to Y temp by 32 degree water flowing through the heat exchanger. If the heat exchanger is as efficent as an air/air unit then the water to air intercooler is more efficient due to the fact that the air cooling the air/air intercooler is ambient (usually 50-60deg at best) vs 32deg water. The losses due to pumping, etc are not important other than a minor increase in electrical draw.

Since in a drag race situation the ice can be replace, heat soak is not an issue. On a true street car or road race car an air/air intercooler is almost alway superior over a much large range of conditions.

On a pure drag car, an efficient air/water intercooler will be better than an air/air setup until you switch to alky/meth and then you are better off having no intercooler at all.