Oil/intercooler shroud questions

[m3trik]

been running my home brew turbo setup for a while now and had initially planned on building proper shrouds for the intercooler (and oil cooler located left side vent). My question is whether or not it is even necessary. My fans are run in series so that they run quieter and at half speed. And with them, you'd think that they would direct incoming air where it needs to go. Before I added the roof vent I looked at wind tunnel photos and it seemed that air follows the roof line closely so It should be taking in a decent amount of air.

As far as materials, I was thinking thin gauge aluminum, carbon or a new rear window in plexiglass with plexiglass shroud integrated (stuck together with the clear adhesive they use to construct fish tanks).


after leaving them off for a while, finally decided to run coolant lines through the turbo. that put water temps up 5+ deg (188deg). In addition I switched to a single cooler setup and things get even hotter at idle (up to 200deg). So the oil cooler shroud is gonna get done but that doesn't remedy cooling at idle. Could run a thermostat & small variable speed fan on it? not sure if this is even a prob I need to worry about or not. I did lose some capacity with all those oil lines removed. Is simple fan cooling not a better option to a larger pan/ additional oil coolers? Or is there some other benefit?

while on the subject of oil. Running a oil filter relocation kit would offer a bit of convenience to changes, but I don't see them talked about or used much. A lot of German cars use top mounted filters, though those I've seen have been attached directly to the block.

also why your at it, what is the secret to happiness, the meaning of life and where do babies come?

[jds62f]

I think your question would be best answered by data? What are your air temps coming into the IC?

[m3trik]

Originally Posted by jds62f

I think your question would be best answered by data? What are your air temps coming into the IC?

Maybe its time to pick up an intake air temp gauge. Seems like you could buy an additional sensor for it & run them pre and post intercooler. Just add a simple toggle switch to get both readings. That way I could also see if adding a switch or thermostat to run the fans at full speed in some circumstances would provide any benefit. Good advice. -thanks

[m3trik]

as it turns out, you can buy gauges with dual air temp readouts. so I ended up just picking up one of those.

[m3trik]

There goes the last of my A/C vents on the drivers side... at least my passenger will be comfortable.

[Apex_in_sno]

Originally Posted by m3trik

been running my home brew turbo setup for a while now and had initially planned on building proper shrouds for the intercooler (and oil cooler located left side vent). My question is whether or not it is even necessary. My fans are run in series so that they run quieter and at half speed. And with them, you'd think that they would direct incoming air where it needs to go. Before I added the roof vent I looked at wind tunnel photos and it seemed that air follows the roof line closely so It should be taking in a decent amount of air.

As far as materials, I was thinking thin gauge aluminum, carbon or a new rear window in plexiglass with plexiglass shroud integrated (stuck together with the clear adhesive they use to construct fish tanks).


after leaving them off for a while, finally decided to run coolant lines through the turbo. that put water temps up 5+ deg (188deg). In addition I switched to a single cooler setup and things get even hotter at idle (up to 200deg). So the oil cooler shroud is gonna get done but that doesn't remedy cooling at idle. Could run a thermostat & small variable speed fan on it? not sure if this is even a prob I need to worry about or not. I did lose some capacity with all those oil lines removed. Is simple fan cooling not a better option to a larger pan/ additional oil coolers? Or is there some other benefit?

while on the subject of oil. Running a oil filter relocation kit would offer a bit of convenience to changes, but I don't see them talked about or used much. A lot of German cars use top mounted filters, though those I've seen have been attached directly to the block.

also why your at it, what is the secret to happiness, the meaning of life and where do babies come?

On the topic of remote oil filters...
Yet another laminova, this with remote filter...

[m3trik]

Originally Posted by Apex_in_sno

On the topic of remote oil filters...
Yet another laminova, this with remote filter...

Thanks. I recently dumped a ton of oil due to my push on hose and clamp sliding off my cooler, caught it just in time. So the whole setup sounds like a plan to me.

[m3trik]

sent me a single temp gauge by mistake so I'm making that work for now.
here it is off to the left. Will installing my temp sensors in the intercooler fins (near the exit) be accurate enough or do I need to tap into my boost tubes?

[m3trik]

frequent flyer miles....

[Schumi]

A thermocouple directly before the intercooler and one after the intercooler would be the most direct way to measure intercooler efficiency.

Look into the Adrian Newey designed intercooler setup on the GT3 cars for inspiration if you are thinking about redoing the rear end to provide ducted air through the intercooler.

[m3trik]

Originally Posted by Schumi

A thermocouple directly before the intercooler and one after the intercooler would be the most direct way to measure intercooler efficiency.

Look into the Adrian Newey designed intercooler setup on the GT3 cars for inspiration if you are thinking about redoing the rear end to provide ducted air through the intercooler.

Yeah I've seen that one before. Pretty crazy setup.

Picked up a pair of thermocouples. I'm gonna look into a variable fan speed controller. I use one on my bmw for the radiator fans, I'll have to see if it works in low temp ranges.

[Thomasio]

I have some photos of the Newey car setup somewhere... I'm told that the windshield was shaved a bit to allow the roof duct to have greater cross-sectional area. My saliva (and quite possibly other bodily fluids) are definitely all over that car.

Here are a couple that I took:

[m3trik]

The vacuum line on the throttle body that a lot of people just plug on the turbo cars seems to be a great spot for a thermocouple. Got to clean up the wiring, but you get the idea.
After I was able to read the temps I came to what seems like the now obvious conclusion. The intercooler/ intake setup is efficient (1 or 2 deg above ambient) at speed but in stop and go those fans are sucking in primarily engine heat. So I'm pulling the back glass and building a mold for a carbon shroud.

- Thanks to all those who set me in the right direction.