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

[Shawn MacAnanny]

Driver side either right at 8 or slightly forward i cant remember ill get a pic tomorrow

 

[FORDF250HDXLT]

yeah ok.then i agree with your assessment when you say;

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.

especially considering your running a bull and near 9k lbs.

 

[Shawn MacAnanny]

Yeah and only 7psi, from what i understand higher pressure would lower my EGTs even more? I think water ICs are far more efficient than air. Someone with one should install the 3 temp probes i did to monitor them. They just need 12v DC, tape them with foil tape probes to IC piping and they read very accurately. It was only $46 for all 3.

After i got my timing meter i found timing at 4 degrees and increased it to 7.5 i went from around 14.8 to 15.6mpg. Then this past couple weeks i replaced worn out up pipes, sealed a leaking turbo compressor housing, installed bull moose and misters, the water intercooler, got rid of the clutch fan and rplaced with 4 electric. I am hoping to see atleast 17mpg with the upgrades. I know bigger pump is more fuel, worse ecconomy, but that's only if you use it. I think the mister's spray pattern might help slightly with fuel mileage.

 

[Shawn MacAnanny]

I take that back i can get the EGTs to 1150F from 45 to 75 pull. Here's the video, sorry its so crappy its hard to keep camera focused on gauge while bouncing around. It hit 1150F at 75mph. I went and took some trash to the landfill yesterday and this truck scales in at 8920lbs as it is empty. its 52F here and raining, AC compressor has been running for defrosters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fV_Esg5MiA0

Here is a video of how quickly the turbo spools with a bull moose and new up pipes. My wastegate is still only set for 7psi. This is at 60mph and 2000rpm stepping on the throttle to show how quickly is spools. The bottom gauge is turbo pressure

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBrtrX5LrsU

95 mile round trip at 65mph the majority of the time, 3psi maintained at 65mph i saw a 32 degree drop maintained across the intercooler and 3 degrees below turbo inlet temp.

 

[Shawn MacAnanny]

A consistent 30 mile stretch of 70mph highway, egts were 400-450, boost 3-4psi, turbo inlet temp 119f turbo outlet temperature 160f, cooled to 122f post intercooler. 1063 miles so far with no oil pooling in inter cooler from CDR.

 

[NW_Iron]

That's some ingenuity!

Have you made any long trips in the great with this setup yet? What's the longest distance you've pulled a load with?

 

[FordGuy100]

Unplug the wastegate and let that thing spin! Pulling with my truck, anything below 10psi would lead to higher EGT's. 15+ psi would keep EGT's in check while pulling grades. I wonder how well it would do with your setup...

 

[Shawn MacAnanny]

I drive it 100 to 200 miles per day. In 90f with ac on I can get post ic Temps to 135f 140f.

I haven't towed anything big with it. No trailers over 5k. But I've towed them 70 miles loaded and really saw no difference in post ic Temps. Egts are maybe 500f towing 450f not towing I'm positive it's more efficient than an air ic. I wish someone with one would install the 3 temp sensors on a air ic to compare.

I have an s257x turbo coming from Justin at R&D, I'm going to run that at 10 psi for now but I also have my spare idi turbo at the machine shop being overhauled and getting studs, still haven't decided on piston shaving, but I'm going to try to run 20 or more with that. It's supposed to be good to 32psi.

 

[NW_Iron]

Nice, that seems to work pretty well then.

I was worried about heat soak with the water to air setups. Where I work we use lots of different types of cooling in our processes and typically water is best. We can still have creep deepening on how many processes are running and the temp outside.

Hmmm I was thinking about your cdr, oil, and intercooler interaction. Your setup is not broke but have you considered reinstalling a the catch can? I would think it will lower the IAT. It will raise the water to air IC efficiency and the vapors would be cooler as well. May be worth checking out since you shady have the catch can. But you'll have to clean the IC fins first.

 

[Shawn MacAnanny]

I think air to air setups are far more prone to heat soak than a water setup. You're taking 6ft of piping each way through a 150F engine back, so all off that piping is going to just heat up, the heat transfer takes place up front so from there its heated up passing through the engine bay, where as with a water IC the heat transfer takes places about 12 inches before entering into the engine with the coolant that has about 700 times the mass of air. So a cu ft of water can basically absorb the same ammount of heat as 700cu ft of air. I have two fans on the front IC radiator cooling it too.

The installation of the catch can resulted in a leaking from the front crank seal which i believe is because of the slight pressure on the crank case resulting from the loss of ever so slight vacuum of it tied directly to the intake. I dont think the oil is too much of a problem, many run waste oil, some run water injection, really all of that going back into the engine shouldnt hurt anything so long as it doesnt gunk up the valve but my intake manifold looked really clean.

I don't think the thin layer of oil inhibits heat transfer that much.

 

[FordGuy100]

The problem is you will never be able to cool the intercooler water down to below ambient when driving, and especially when heat soaking it (long grade pull). While an ATA Intercooler, as long as its in front of all the other radiators, has access to ambient air temps. Heat soak will also take a while for the intercooler water to cool back down to near ambient, where an ATA doesn't have that problem so much. That doesn't mean either one is better, I just see each having examples that highlight their capabilities and also their weaknesses.

What makes a WTA intercooler appealing to me is the space savings, and probably an easier install. Con's would be having to run a coolant pump and or fans, which are more electrical load for the alternator.

 

[Shawn MacAnanny]

I don't see how an Ata doesn't suffer heat soak at a greater rate. my water intercooler has a radiator the size of an intercooler up front plus two fans, so more ambient air pass through it than would be passing through an Ata, so as far as heat exchange is concerned should be able to reject more heat.

An Ata also has high velocity air one one side and low velocity air on the other. I don't think an Ata gets close to ambient going Into the intake.

Who has an Ata intercooler and a similar setup to mine? I'll buy the 3 temp sensors and displays and mail them to them to test out so we can compare. Pulling a long grade the water ic will take much longer to heat up the intake charge, longer to cool it, but it'll actually provide cool air for much longer during heavy loading than an Ata will. An Ata will immediately start heat soaking as the only heat sink is has is ambient airflow and the weight of the intercooler aluminum. There's no thermal mass beyond the intercooler itself.

 

[dunk]

I need to do some sort of intercooler. Towing around 5000 lbs with my 6600 lbs truck, bull moose, misters, Banks, EGT around 700 doing 65-70. Any hill and I'm EGT limited. With the moose pump it's not as HP limited on the hills. Gotta watch the pyro religiously on the slightest incline though, can go from 700 to 1200 in 2-3 seconds of inattentiveness. I maintain speed if it can until it hits 1100-1150 then try to keep it at 1100 and lose whatever speed it necessary.

Curious how yours does with EGT towing your ~5000 lbs up any grades with the current ATS as compared to the BW you have on order. If more boost drops temps, that's another avenue I'll need to pursue. Might be getting my hands on a wastegated Banks to fit my ZF5 swap, that would hopefully give more psi at lower load/RPM. Failing that I'm back to deciding between finding a used ATS and modify it vs Justin's complete system.

 

[Shawn MacAnanny]

Well I live in Delaware we have zero grades here. There's a video in this thread of egts with a 45 to 75mph pull in 5th gear basically lugging and over fuelling the engine at 7psi and egts got up to 1150. I'm really not sure what the best setup is, I'll gladly pay for and send the exact same temp sensors and instructions where they should go to be the same place as mine on anyone with a similar setup and an air cooler to compare. Today I saw cruising post ic Temps get up to 140f it was about 95 here, I accelerated some on the highway and actually dropped them to 135. I think i may be getting more heat soak from the engine than air flowing through to cool the piping. I am thinking about insulating the pipes and ic just to test this.

 

[NW_Iron]

The installation of the catch can resulted in a leaking from the front crank seal which i believe is because of the slight pressure on the crank case resulting from the loss of ever so slight vacuum of it tied directly to the intake. I dont think the oil is too much of a problem, many run waste oil, some run water injection, really all of that going back into the engine shouldnt hurt anything so long as it doesnt gunk up the valve but my intake manifold looked really clean.

I don't think the thin layer of oil inhibits heat transfer that much.

Was that with the CC before turbo? I was thinking post filter pre compressor.