Water/Air Intercooler Installed and true CAI (feel free to laugh at it)

[Shawn MacAnanny]

All i have left is some wiring, i'm waiting on some fuses to finish up. I have 3 temperature probes that ill just be taping with foil tape to Inlet of Turbo, Inlet of IC, and outlet of IC to monitor efficiency. They each have an LCD display in the cab. The intercooler is rated for 700CFM, i have a Johnson pump thats rated at 6.9gpm though they do make a 22gpm i may upgrade do it i dont get the heat transfer i want. The kit shipped with a single 10" fan, i installed 2. I have a thermal switch that will activate the 2 IC radiator fans when truck coolant gets to 80F. This will help with cold starts. I have the coolant pump running all the time from fuel pump relay. The IC fans, and radiator fans are on a delay timer, they have power to their circuit 60 seconds after the truck has been started, i did this to prevent them from coming on when glow plugs are on and come putting a strain on the alternator at idle.


I know the CAI is very home made, it's just galvanize heating/air piping. Its a 6" to 8" reducer that the K&N filter fits in perfectly and seals air tight around the fitting so it must pull from the bottom. I just foil tape them together rather than bolting/riviting so i can take it apart easier to inspect and clean filter. The bottom is an adjustable 8" elbow from lowes too. Both parts were around $20 together or so. I didnt want the filter open down there catching water directly that would be spraying from the tires or off of the radiator core. This will also direct it to pull air from below the radiator which should in theory be colder than whats inside. Upsizing to 8" should be big enough that it wont lift rain verticle into the fitler housing, 700cfm in 8" pipe should only be like 22mph and thats not enough to lift water.

All the clamps and silicone fittings i got in an ebay kit for $99 with the exception of the reducer fittings for the intake hat and turbo. The air intake for the turbo is also resting on 2 injector lines, just barely. The silocone couplers are there just to prevent rubbing. If i took them off the intake actually isnt touching them, but i wanted the added peace of mind that it wasnt going to rub my injector lines.

I added a 1 gallon reservoir that i drilled and tapped to be a flow through reservoir to ensure the pump stays charged and all air bleeds out. Coolant is pump in from the bottom of the IC and out the top (since heat rises), goes to the reservoir, it's then returned to the top of the IC radiator and drawn from the bottom of the IC radiator with the coolant pump.

I mounted the IC using two of the AC fan bolts with two 6" angle brackets i got from lowes that i bent and welded together

 

[Shawn MacAnanny]

A couple more pics

 

[Shawn MacAnanny]

Parts purchased:

Intercooler piping kit
http://www.ebay.com/itm/272104114908?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

Intercooler Kit
http://www.frozenboost.com/liquid-air-intercooler/water-to-air-intercooler-p-1006.html

Fans
http://www.ebay.com/itm/111808401257?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

Intake hat to IC piping adapter
http://www.ebay.com/itm/252054442506?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

Turbo to IC piping adapter
http://www.ebay.com/itm/181141954649?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

digital thermometers
http://www.ebay.com/itm/271103991203?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

1/2" npt x 3/4 barbs all hose is gates 3/4"
http://www.ebay.com/itm/30164630997...49&var=600506028997&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

coolant pump
http://www.amazon.com/Johnson-Pump-...&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00

coolant tank
http://www.amazon.com/Dorman-603-10...&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s01

 

[HS108]

I like the intake. My question is, Do you think there is enough space for air to get to the filter, It gonna looks like the air will dead head into the black rubber. Its tough to tell from the camera angles tho

 

[Shawn MacAnanny]

The filter is 6 inches od, so it's sealed at the top to to prevent hot air from getting drawn in, then that's a 6 to 8 inch reducer and 8 inch elbow so there's an inch around the outside of the filter. I think it should be ok. It's how many medium and heavy duty truck airboxes are designed. Usually a 4 or 6 inch inlet pipe into the filter box, then a large canisters completely surrounding the filter with an inch or two around it then a 4 or 6 inch opening run to a colder air location to draw air in.

 

[AcIdBuRn02ZTS]

I wonder if you could extend that filter housing to point towards the front of the truck for a "ram air" effect?

Looks good though... I would be concerned with the size of the filter housing vs the filter and the space for air to move... may work.. may not. Someone smarter then I can tell you if you have enough space for the volume of air you are needing to move through it.

 

[Shawn MacAnanny]

It's basically how all Navistar air boxes are designed except less restrictive. See this international box.

http://pages.ebay.com/motors/link/?nav=item.view&id=222038318209&alt=web

http://m.ebay.com/itm/International...d-Filter-Housing-New-/222038318209?nav=SEARCH

I actually angled it to the side and left it vertical because I was concerned with rain water. Ram air really doesn't do much. I think you have to go about 120mph to make 1psi

 

[Shawn MacAnanny]

Well i got the truck fired up today. Eeverything is working great. I couldnt drive it though as one of the new stianless barb tees for my coolant filter was cast wrong and has a leak in it. The 3 temperature sensors are really nice and very sensitive. The left is turbo inlet temp, middle turbo outlet, and right is engine inlet. So the intercooler defnitely works.

I had trouble with the orginal mounting point pulling from the bottom of the radiator, it pulled so much coolant that there were issues with air bleeding from the system since the top of reservoir and intercooler are higher than the top of the radiator. So remounted the pump lower, i'm pulling hot coolant directly from the reservoir tank and pumping into the bottom of the radiator and out the top. I really dont think the reverse flow is going to hurt anything, it should cool much faster than the hot coolant rises. I'm interested to see wht the temperatures are when driving. Right now i have a coolant thermostat on the engine and the coolant pump wont circulate until engine coolant at radiator hose gets to 80F, then the fans for the intercooler radiator will turn on when the intercooler coolant gets to 70F. This should help with cold start ups.

 

[Koch13351]

I don't think you'll need that higher GPM pump. May move coolant too fast through the radiator to give it time to cool off much. Definitely following this thread since I'm leaning towards water to air when I intercool mine.

 

[Clb]

Keep on it

 

[Shawn MacAnanny]

Well i drove it around about 30 miles today, one of my injector caps is leaking, i couldnt get it to seal. I used Boss 820 lube on orings, very carefully pushed all of them down and felt them snap. Mel/Suzie are sending me another with o-rings. It doesnt leak horrible, maybe 1/2 to an ounce in the 30 mile drive down around the glow plug area. Everything is good. I installed pump, drove it around, checked timing it was at 4 degrees so i set ito 7.5, a little more black smoke but really not much at all.

What is really interesting is how well the water intercooler works. I put the intake temp probe right by the CDR inlet, so i could see how much heat it was adding when mixed with the incoming air. I am seeing almost a 30 degree drop from the incoming air from the turbo, but more amazingly it's actually cooling 10 degrees below what is actually coming into the turbo. And there is zero lag. On the highway at 60mph and 2,000rpm i see 2psi. If i mash the throttle it spikes to 7psi in less than a a second. The new up pipes helped too im sure. If i am in 5th gear at 45mph, and i floor it, it takes until th truck reaches 75mph to get to 1000F in EGT. I think thats plenty good.

One strange thing i noticed is if i rev the engine up then try to rev it as its falling down there is a slight delay until it revs back up. And another thing i noticed when reving it up with the timing light attached i can see timing rev up to 16 degrees. I can hear a slight knock too when shifting, letting off the throttle and getting back into it. Is it normal for timing to move around in a bull moose pump?

Here is a short video of the truck idling, it's very smooth with the misters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgwEvsz2tvE

 

[Shawn MacAnanny]

One concern i have is the water intercooler acting as sort of a catch can for the CDR. Not anything that wouldnt happen with an air IC but i will take inlet line off of it in a week and see how much oil vapor has condensed and it laying in the bottom of the IC. I can always drill and tap the back corner and add a drain for the oil just like a catch can, but i ran a catch can for 3000 miles and drained less than a 1/2" oz so i am not sure what it will do.

 

[Koch13351]

I certainly plan to have a catch can for the CDR line operating before i do an intercooler. I'm pretty sure the intercooler core will act as an oil vapor condenser, being that it's much cooler than the incoming air/vapors, like a cold beer on a hot day. Especially after being compressed by the turbo. So the intercooler would actually accumulate more oil from the vapors than what would normally accumulate in the intake with no intercooler. Just my theory, but it's somewhat backed by science

 

[Shawn MacAnanny]

If it becomes a problem I'll just put a drain on it. I had a catch can before that really did catch anything so unless it's a cooled catch can it'll be better to just drain the intercooler. I could probably even use a 1 or 3psi check valve so it gets pushed out through a small line using the pressure of the turbo, and route it back into engine oil cap with a fitting. A small 1/4" line wouldn't feed much air to crank case I don't think. Or I'll just reroute cdr with 12v vacuum pump and canister.

 

[FORDF250HDXLT]

Shawn that's really cool.nice job! where is your egt probe located?