Slant Nose Intercoller Install

Been busy with work and other projects for the last year or so, haven't spent much time tinkering on the truck. But lately I've been getting the itch and collecting some parts, so here goes with the next project; an intercooler.

I've seen a few different people wanting to see a intercooler installed in a AC equipped slant nose, which my truck is.
But let me start by saying, that between the intercooler, the york pump I just picked up for an on board air setup, and the fact that the truck never has had working AC, I finally made the executive decision to delete the AC system and be done with it. From what I now know, it's kind of a pain to fit just an intercooler in there, let a lone an AC condensor as well. Only other intercooler equipped slantnose truck I remember seeing was Mel's Moose truck, but he used a different IC and has that low, wide radiator.

So I went down to the local JY and picked up a factory aluminum intercooler off of a 2000 Superduty; $100, and it was already pulled and on the shelf. The Superduty IC is the same width as the IDI tall/narrow radiator, and about 6" shorter (rough guesstimate). The placement that made the most sense was to drop the IC down so the bottom of it was even with the bottom of the radiator. This lined up the 2 holes underneath the radiator mounting brackets for the tubes to pass through the core support. Any higher, and the radiator mounting would have to be reworked.

While pulling the front end apart, it looked like there was going to be plenty of room, but after getting into it a little more, I realized that the intercooler can't just bolt to the front of the core support, I had to actually recess it into the core support.

So here's before I started breaking out the tools of destruction.



Here's the mounting on the unmolested IC



And here's after I got it to fit

Bottom mounts are now gone, they were running into the core support big time.
Top mounts got chopped in 3 directions.
For those wondering about the bottom mounts, believe me when I say that once the whole mess is wedged in place, it's not going anywhere.


Here's what the core support looked like once the sparks were done flying.

I'm hoping the lighter weight of the aluminum Champion radiator will offset all of the beef I took out of the core support.
I even had to take about a 1/2" chunk off of the backside of the support (engine side) to get sufficient clearance around the tubes.
Also had to chop some of the flange off the radiator - bottom mounts for the fan shroud are now gone, but they could be relocated higher pretty easily. I've got a Windstar fan setup sitting in the garage to try out, but that will be another thread in the not so distant future...
You'll also notice I had to ditch the stock bolts and clippydoos for the bottom 2 radiator mounting bolts. Threw some 3/8" carriage bolts in their place. There wasn't even enough room between the carriage bolt heads and IC to run a regular bolt head.

The IC just barely sits back in there; how close is it? I'd say about 1 RCH. It clears, but not by much.



Here's after I bolted the piece on that all the grill and hood latch attaches to.

You can see a piece of neoprene sheeting that I have wedged between it and the IC; there's a couple more pieces between the IC and radiator. Between the neoprene chunks, and the hard rubber weather stripping that is on the backside of the IC to seal it to the radiator, the IC is completely wedged in place. Then I drilled through what was left of the stock tabs up on top of the IC and drilled/bolted through the radiator mounting brackets.


Here's a pic showing the clearance between the IC and the back of the grill - only about 1/2"

The sheet metal piece that sits below the grill and behind and above the bumper has about the same amount of clearance.Adding a AC condensor to the stack would push the IC another 1-1/2 to 2" closer to the grill. I'm not saying it's impossible to put a intercooler on a AC equipped slant nose, but it would require some pretty extensive surgery.

And here she is all put back together.


So for the next guy that takes on this project, my recommendation would be to use a different IC. I've heard some argue that the PSD IC is on the big side of what we need, and having one just a few inches shorter would have made life much easier.
As it sits, almost 1/2 of the IC is covered by the front bumper. This might counteract the IC being too big (if it even is), but I'll probably try to fab some kind of air scoop for it in the future.

So that's it for part 1. Part 2 will be running the tubing. I'm figuring on running 2-1/2" steel tubing (cause I can weld it right here in my garage).

And now a question; I have an ATS 085 turbo (pretty much the same as a 088 except for the airbox, which I ditched anyway). What have others done for the hat that goes on the intake? It's looking like I'll just have to build my own. I spent about an hour trying to wrestle the one off of my truck today, but it's looking like the turbo has to come out to get the blasted thing out of there. Guess I'll try sealing that stupid slip joint for the up pipe from the top this time....

Talk about perfect timing...I just picked up the same intercooler for my 87'. Granted, its not a Bullnose but the principle is the same. Looking forward to your plans for the piping...I might have to venture south to Albany and come check it out for myself. Nice work.

I also just mounted an intercooler in my slant nose, I also deleted the ac, however I used a 6.0 powerstroke intercooler which is even bigger, I had to cut the brace for the hood latch, need to trim the grill, and would not have any room what so ever for the ac condenser.

bike-maker said:

And now a question; I have an ATS 085 turbo (pretty much the same as a 088 except for the airbox, which I ditched anyway). What have others done for the hat that goes on the intake? It's looking like I'll just have to build my own. I spent about an hour trying to wrestle the one off of my truck today, but it's looking like the turbo has to come out to get the blasted thing out of there. Guess I'll try sealing that stupid slip joint for the up pipe from the top this time....

Click to expand...

I loosen the six bolts holding the compressor housing to the center section and just spin it up out of the way.

Bike-maker, Nice work on that install....Take a look at my home made hat, I have pics of it on my Flickr page. I got a carb cover hat off ebay with 5 1/8 diameter and a aluminum intercooler pipe and built it, had a buddy with a tig weld it for me...http://www.flickr.com/photos/racer30/ you will need to go back a bit to find them on Flickr...

Nice jobs guys! Wow, I'm thinking I may have had it the easiest out of all of you. No cutting of anything if I recall. I do remember at the time, being grateful that I did not have AC. What kind of changes in Boost and EGT's are you guys noticing?

I will be able to give you boost and egt numbers in a week or two, but I still have not done the exhaust to the turbo, I'm driving around n/a still for now, just need the time to do it.

Nowhere close to having it hooked up yet. Pipes will get fabbed/installed in conjunction with a York compressor and custom fan shroud housing windstar fans. After that, I'll hook the 5er up, and give her hell...
I'll post up what the changes in boost/egts are.

Looking good, man. Like it was made to fit there. This is what I recently did on my '94. More pictures in the build thread: http://www.oilburners.net/forums/showthread.php?61492-Project-94-CC-F350-Service-Pickup

When I get up there, I'll just drop my truck off at your house with my intercooler

OK, took me a couple months, but I finally got the intercooler functional.

So to recap, I spent $100 at the junk yard on the PSD intercooler, then ordered just under $150 worth of mandrel bends (4), silicone couplers, and T-bolt clamps from Summit. So I have about $250 in the whole mess.

The whole process was pretty time consuming, definitely labor intensive.

Biggest PIA was building the intake hat; my non waste gated ATS kit didn't grant me any favors, with the turbo outlet going right through the intake hat. Didn't want to deal with finding a chunk of 5.25" tubing, so I made the whole thing out of sheet metal I had laying around, then grafted in a parts store exhaust coupler, then sectioned out a chunk of the backside to clear the turbo housing.

Anyway, couple pics of the hat:




Reduced from 3" down to 2.5" right out of both sides of the intercooler, and used 4 - 180 degree mandrel bends to build the pipes. Between the 4 mandrel bends, I had enough bends and straight section to do all of the pipes.
The pipe coming out of the turbo uses a 2" - 2.5" silicone adapter to mate it to the pipe.
Each tube uses a isolated mount I made out of a piece of 1" tubing with a some 3/8" fuel line inside it, and then a 3/8" bolt through the middle of that. Cut the fuel line to the just the right length that when tightened, the bolt expands the fuel line outward into the 1" tubing for a nice snug fit.

A couple pics of the pipes:

Used a custom racin' bracket off of the fuel filter housing originally intended for a coolant filter for the passenger side mount



And made a bracket that bolts to the back of the AC compressor bracket for the driver side mount.



That AC compressor isn't for AC, it's a York 210 for my on board air setup.

And here's the intake hat installed: It's a tight fit...



Don't mind the custom cold air intake - it's going away soon. Found it at my local parts store.....the plumbing isle of Home Depot.

One more pic - the tool I made for bead rolling the ends of the pipes. Sacrificed a pair of vise grips, a 3" muffler clamp, and a big ass 2" fender washer.

Worked awesome.



And a side note: my up pipe joint has leaked like a sieve from day one, so I tore the turbo and up pipes out while I was in there with plans to fix that blamed ATS slip joint that that has proven problematic to so many here. I've taken it apart and re-sealed probably 5 times, and every time it has only lasted about a week before it started leaking again..

So this is what I came up with: cut the bottom off of a generic pop can - the name brand ones were too thick. The OD of a pop can is actually just a hair big, so I cut one side of it and trimmed about 1/16" off the end until it fit just right. Fits nice and snug now - before it would literally rattle around in there.



No before and after EGT/boost numbers; I already cranked the pump up. Got another 3 flats before it bottomed out. Maxed out now...

I've only taken a short drive around town so far, so nothing yet for driving impressions.

If I had to do it again....I'd do it the same way, but:
Welding the tubes like I did is a PIA. All of the cuts/welds had to be pretty much prefect. Being off by just 1 degree on one end of the pipe could end up being off by 1" at the other end. I've seen a number of people get a bunch of pieces of pipe and just stick them together with various silicone adapters. This would be way quicker/easier, as the silicone couplers will allow for a fair amount of misalignment - but you woudn't be able to tuck the pipes in exactly where you want them.
The other thing that would have made it easier is just rotating the turbo's cold side up and out of the way - at the cost of the pipe being mounted up higher above the engine.

The real test will be once I hook my big 5er up and drag it up some hills.

I'll try to update the thread when that happens.

I'm impressed with your fabricating skills and your skills with TIG welding too. Are you self taught or???

Nice work on that hat, I see you cut off the exhaust clamp it looks like and changed plans?

Hope to hear many good things from this.

K keep us informed on that up pipe seal are you not worried that it will get too hot and disintegrate, thus taking out the turbine as it flows through?


Thanks for the update.

Al, the pic with the exhaust clamp was a fail on my part. I was trying to show the tool I made for bead rolling the ends of the tubes.

Here's what it looks like:




My EGT probe is only about 1" away from the pop can, and I never let the EGT's get over 1100, so we'll see what happens....There's no way for it to work itself out of there; as long as it doesn't melt into a liquid.

Icanfixall: I used my little 110 volt MIG for this whole project. One of these days I'll fing a good used TIG machine for a deal I can't pass up.
Bought a wire feed welder about 15 years ago, and taught myself how to run it.
So I'm self taught as far as wire feed goes, spent about 6 years doing metal fab work where I honed my skills on the wire feed and also picked up TIG welding on mild steel, stainless steel, and lots of aluminum from one of the old guys I worked with.

I'm actually best at TIG welding: you get pretty proficient when you spend 40 -50 hours a week doing it for a living. I've spent the last 2.5 years welding on "fan frames". One of the main structural components in commercial jet engines, and cast out of titanium.

Really nice work...I also like the clean look of the black piping. I'm going to try and "cheat" with my setup, I located a handful of stock intercooler piping from 7.3 PSD SD trucks. Was.planning on doing the cut/clock/boot method.

As clean as yours looks I might just drop my truck off and pay you to do it!