Intercooler or charge cooler?! Help me

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tommy10101
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Intercooler or charge cooler?! Help me

Post by tommy10101 »

Hi all,

Really can’t decide if I should fit an intercooler or charge cooler to my rev 3 and hoping someone can help.

It is a track car with minimal road driving. Yet to have its first track outing with me, purchased a month ago and is currently with rogue.

The pros and cons to a charge cooler, as I see them;

+more resistant to heat soak, pre rad up front with lots of airflow, seems the mr2 should have had CC from factory? I have been advised this is the way to go for 20 min track day sessions, on the limit - no coasting.

- more failure points. Added weight. Not really fit and forget like and intercooler. Would an uprated intercooler suffice? On that point, interested to know what is considered the best, money no object, side mount intercooler solution. Spal fans?


Any help or guidance you can give me is appreciated

Cheers
Tom
(Sorry if this subject has been covered millions of times already, I found lots of contradicting posts)



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Re: Intercooler or charge cooler?! Help me

Post by tommy10101 »

Sorry should add, the car is on standard internals and running 1.2 bar
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Re: Intercooler or charge cooler?! Help me

Post by MR2DI4 »

Really depends on what the final engine output power is. Toyota should have had the engine ECU boost control switch the stock intercooler fan in over 5psi and off timer it to turn off again 20seconds after the boost dropped below 5psi again and thats good enough for stock power at the track. More important things to get right first on the car before it hits the track if you want to keep it out there for a full 20min over and over. Any sidemount IC needs a serious fan on it to work properly. The issue is getting airflow across the whole core so a shroud helps a lot.

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Re: Intercooler or charge cooler?! Help me

Post by tommy10101 »

I don’t plan on going higher than 300bhp

Sounds like I could get away with an up rated intercooler with a big fan as you say

Out of interest, the st205 charge cooler and pre rad at the front setup (from celicia gt4) - is that overkill for 300bhp? And would that cooling setup be capable at 400bhp+?

If I ever do plan do go to higher bhp it could be good to just get this charge cooler setup to future proof me to some extent.



Thanks
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Re: Intercooler or charge cooler?! Help me

Post by peteV6R5 »

if you got the kit go charge cooler.
been on track following 300bhp turbos 1 with CC and 1 with SMIC. the CC car kept is power higher up rev range. the SMIC driver also confirmed this after the session.
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Re: Intercooler or charge cooler?! Help me

Post by MR2DI4 »

I don't think you need anything flash for 300Hp, even my modified set-up using the stock IC could handle that.

The main thing is upping the airflow, the sidemount location is hopeless and on the track there is simply not enough "Time off Boost" for it to cool by the pathetic amount of natural airflow.

If you cannot get a boost controlled switch for the IC fan, just pull the hood temp sensor for track days and run the IC fan fulltime.

Note the stock fan ECU is not capable of powering the bigger SPAL that I fitted PLUS a hood fan directly so the fan ECU now switches a spare power steering relay and a 30A fused supply straight from the white main battery feed lines in the fuse box in the engine bay. The stock fan is only using about 3.5A from memory but the P/S relay still uses enough current to fool the fan ECU into not throwing an engine check light for a fan failure open circuit.

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Re: Intercooler or charge cooler?! Help me

Post by tommy10101 »

I’ve got no idea anymore

So many contradicting thoughts

50% of people - side mount is fine, even stick with stock intercooler and just trick fan to running non stop

The other 50% - water to air is a must for track use. Any side mounted intercooler stock or uprated is useless on track etc

I would ideally like to stay air to air as it’s more simple and less can go wrong

But if I am going to heat soak after 3 pulls then obviously I need a CC

Just don’t know which to commit to :(

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Re: Intercooler or charge cooler?! Help me

Post by tommy10101 »

Some people even say charge coolers are useless on track !!!!!
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Re: Intercooler or charge cooler?! Help me

Post by MR2DI4 »

The IC is just one small part of the whole package and there are other things way more important like AFRs for example. Intake temps can be offset by running the car richer. Toyota runs the car stock ridiculously rich at 10:1 under full boost so that helps cool the engine. You get contradictory answers because there is a massive variation on the level of tune and power. People also think the IC is going to conjure up some magical hp gains in an otherwise stock car and in reality it makes no significant difference in hp but it may increase the level of engine protection if done right. Any sidemount IC without a fan and preferably a shroud is not an upgrade and most if not all of the aftermarket sidemounts require you to scrap the cold air intake shroud on the stock setup. I just laugh when I see a Chinese knockoff sidemount just suspended with no shrouds or fans.

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