Let's Talk Intercoolers

[F350camper]

No frame mounting most of it "free floats" and quite simple to put together.

Thanks again for documenting your install, it’s helped me a lot while I try to piece mine together.

You mention that nothing mounts to the frame, and you like that. Could you elaborate on why this is important? I should be mounting mine in a week or so, and I'm hoping to draw from your knowledge.

 

[towcat]

Thanks again for documenting your install, it’s helped me a lot while I try to piece mine together.

You mention that nothing mounts to the frame, and you like that. Could you elaborate on why this is important? I should be mounting mine in a week or so, and I'm hoping to draw from your knowledge.

Vibration and flexing. firstly, you will have all the harmonics from what the motor produces. Noticed how anything that is connected to the motor, ie. wiring, hoses throttle cables get tore up from chaffing if they are not isolated properly? That is the biggest issue. Aluminum is a soft metal and as much as I paid for the kit, I'm not going to take any chances of prematurely wearing it out. Secondly, flexing. These trucks, believe it or not, move around ALOT. They are designed that way. Otherwise, the sheetmetal will get shreaded. My F450's are notorious of tearing up cabs at the 500k mark. Park yours with one of the front wheels up on a curb and you will see what I mean. That is why the cabs and front clips are mounted on some pretty sophistcated rubber mounts. If it was for only noise isolation, you wouldn't be seeing that fancy of a design. therefore, any item hardmounted to the frame is going to get torn apart over time. This kit had isolation mounts between the IC and the core support and had two junctions on each side (IC to pipe and midsection of the pipes) for vibration isolation and for assembly flexing.
Overall, I felt this kit was very well designed. somebody put alot of work into making sure everything fit snugly and did not interfere with basic maintence. The instructions they sent with the kit made absolutely sense and only served to confuse and scare any novice installer into taking it into a shop to have it done.
On a side note, what IC are you going to be using? upstairs in the choker dept, there's a discussion of a 6.0 IC install into a early choker chassis. the mounting looks pretty good, how they hacked the crap out of the raidator support will scare you to death.
good luck!
PS.....final pics below.

 

[F350camper]

Excellent, excellent info!

Thanks for taking the time to write all that up. Since I’ve had to learn so many things by the hard knocks school, it’s nice to build on the knowledge of others when I can. If not for your info, I’m sure I would have tied my IC to the frame in some way only to cause me problems 10, 30 or even 100 thousand miles down the road.

Man that is a nice clean looking install. I really like how much of your radiator is still exposed. Nice work and it appears to be a grand well spent!

On a side note, what IC are you going to be using? upstairs in the choker dept, there's a discussion of a 6.0 IC install into a early choker chassis. the mounting looks pretty good, how they hacked the crap out of the raidator support will scare you to death.
good luck!

He he he he, well, lets just say it isn’t original equipment for any vehicle I’m aware of. I’ll post pics when I get her done.

 

[Agnem]

Calvin, any chance you'd put all that in a Word file, touch it up and send it my way? That would make a nice article for this site.

 

[towcat]

Calvin, any chance you'd put all that in a Word file, touch it up and send it my way? That would make a nice article for this site.

mel-
I haven't used a word processor program over ten years. I know it sounds crazy especially since I live in sillycone valley. I'll see what I can come up with in July when I get back from TX. I won't even have a landline in TX, so its off to the local library for me if I want to get online. After friday, my postings will drop off drastically for a couple of months.

 

[Agnem]

OK. We'll leave the light on for you.

 

[towcat]

Bringing a post back from the dead........

jaybee did a homebuilt install on his truck and I got permission to repost the pics here. the turbo kit is a Hypermax.

 

[F350camper]

I’m getting dangerously close to cooling my charge air. Still waiting on a couple of things in the mail. Should get them by the end of next week.

How’s yours working out Calvin? Any initial impressions to report?

 

[towcat]

It's hard to say conclusively the differences. I don't gauges hooked up yet, so I can't give you any hard numbers. I can tell you that you can tell the difference in how the truck heats up. Mind you, I am in 95deg heat right now and high humidity. I would say the truck does get warm faster compared to before IC and you can physically tell the difference heatwise before and after the IC. You don't want to put your hand on the before tubing after a hard run, whereas the after tubing is still touchable. The response of the motor is great from idle all the way to the governor and if you are not careful, you will be bouncing off the governor before you know it. There is no longer any fadeout after 3k RPM. Do I think it was worth all the grief and expense? You bet. Even dialed back as it is(no heavy black smoke) due to no pyro, there's plenty of power to get into trouble there. Once I get the pyro and propane put in, then I can start looking for the limits of the envelope.

 

[F350camper]

Here’s what I have going so far. It’s mounted, but not plumbed. I’m gonna get some aluminum ricer mesh for the cutouts, but I haven’t decided if I’ll paint the mesh black or leave it aluminum color.

Can’t wait.

 

[towcat]

nice cutout work. When I get back to CA, I'm gonna re-do my front bumper and have BrianS. plasma cut a bigger hole for me. But I will put a screen on it to keep the rocks from taking out my IC tho.

 

[apextrans]

jaybee did a homebuilt install on his truck and I got permission to repost the pics here. the turbo kit is a Hypermax.

Really nice looking job. what kind of IC is it? Wonder if that set up would work on a newer Banks kit? I gotta learn to weld like that

 

[towcat]

Really nice looking job. what kind of IC is it? Wonder if that set up would work on a newer Banks kit? I gotta learn to weld like that

scott-
that's one from a 99+psd. supposedly, the rage these days is the 6.0 for the early chokers(95-7). I have bookmark for a site that makes plumbing for the early chokers. what you will need to do is do some final fitting work. Also, what kind of banks do you have? the early square box style will require much work to make up for the plumbing in the box.
also, there's one more thing you want to consider. these IC's will soak up a noticable amount of heat. As mentioned earlier, the turbo outlet to IC piping can be too hot to touch and the post IC plumbing can be handled without pain. the heat has to go somewhere. I noticed my truck warming up faster due to half of the radiator getting blocked off by the IC but temps were not to the uncomfortably warm point. I have no idea what the full height IC will do as far as heatup is concerned.

 

[apextrans]

Calvin,

I have the newest version of the sidewinder kit ( wastegated, smaller pressure chamber). My water temp (factory) gauge , or sender, took a dump day before yesterday, so that is a MUST fix soon. How much of a temp increase did you see? I was about middle of the gauge before it went to heaven. I was thinking about a half height IC. Is there are noticable difference between half or full height? Could you pass that bookmark along? Thanks

 

[F350camper]

I noticed that the superduty IC pipes have a heat shield/blanket on the cold side. I assume this is to keep the air from warming back up after it’s been cooled. Anyone have any ideas where to get this stuff, or something similar?

Man I'm getting so close to having this done I can taste it.