Anyway to find the thermal efficiency of my inter cooler?

[DPancoast]

Alright so if you've seen my member journal, you know that I have a very home made air to water intercooler setup that was installed by the PO of my car. For those who haven't here are some overall pictures:

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y74/pancoast_dan/Boosted%20MR2/100_2807.jpg

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y74/pancoast_dan/Boosted%20MR2/100_2811.jpg

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y74/pancoast_dan/Boosted%20MR2/100_2806.jpg

- The core is the stock unit from a GMC Cyclone
- The pump/heat exchanger info is unknown (volumes)
-- The heat exchanger is completely exposed to ambient air under the car and also has a high speed pull fan attached to it
-- The pump is to my knowledge a low grade fish pond type unit. I run 50/50 through the system.
-- There are 2 8" high speed fans on the engine lid that pull air from under the car while moving and push out of the engine bay constantly.

Now since I've bought the car, I've heard mixed reviews from people. Some say it's efficient, some say it can't be that efficient. One thing that I do know is that is is more efficient than the stock air to air that comes on the car which usually sits in the passenger side engine bay scoop with a tiny 6"(?) fan on it and is constantly exposed to hot engine bay temps.

Anyway. Is there a way to test how good my inter cooler really is to see if it's working or if I should switch setups? If I start the car cold, let it warm up, do some hard pulls/driving, I can open the engine lid and put my had on top of the inter cooler immediately.. it's hot but it never burns. If I let the car sit for 5-10 mins, it gets pretty cool to the touch. In hot weather/heavy driving, I don't see any drops in boost pressure (a usual sign of heat soak correct?).

I have not visited the dyno yet and I'm sure I have an idea after 2 pulls as to how my intake temps are being treated but I was just seeing if there was a way to track how efficient it is with other kinds of facts instead of just assumptions. If I had a bunch of money, I would just buy a trunk mount or some other types of setups on the market and just dyno test all day.. but I can't lol.

I'm kinda thinking moving the heat exchanger to the front of the car where the rad is would help temps and how fast the liquid cooled itself, but that's a lot of hose, which I guess wouldn't be too bad to run anyway.

[superskaterxes]

you could always put a thermocouple before and after the IC and see exactly how much heat the LIAC is actually pulling from your charge air.

[11secdsm]

^^

http://content.ytmnd.com/content/f/2/c/f2cf9faf32af1dad63bb701e6d361900.jpg

[Nick 95 6sp]

once you get some in/out temp data, you might enjoy a look in this good article written by George Spears, founder of Spearco, now part of Turbonetics, it's all about intercoolers, page 8 on how to quantify efficiency http://www.turboneticsinc.com/sites/default/files/AllAboutIntercooling.pdf

[superskaterxes]

wow sick article ^^^

[DPancoast]

wow great, thanks for the link. and thanks for the idea about the thermocouples.. I'll have to look into them.

[Gregory]

FYI, you wouldn't see a drop in boost pressure from the intercooler getting heat soaked. It would just cause for a less dense charge and make you more prone to detonation.

Water-air systems can be efficient, but that doesn't mean yours is. I don't see another heat exchanger for the system. Is there a radiator somewhere that I can't see in the pictures for your system? It's worth **** without it unless you are constantly adding ice to the reservoir. And the intercooler itself looks pretty home made. Are the internals home made? I would question the efficiency of it if it was.

edit: I just saw that you have a small heat exchanger in/below the trunk with a fan and everything. It all looks pretty good as long as his intercooler can exchange the heat well enough. You actually have a major advantage if you want. You can add ice to the reservoir as long as there is a screen or filter to keep the ice from getting in your pump. You also should have less lag with that system since you would have to plumb all the way to the nose with an air to air intercooler.

Oh yea, make sure your water pump is still working.

[marshallpre1]

Some people place two IATs and monitor those. I think that's a little extreme. I've always thought about maybe using one of those temperature guns and measure the temperature of the hot side versus the cool side. You can use heat transfer, known variables, and some basic assumptions to solve the actual temp inside the pipe. Granted it is a little more complicated and requires you to have a dyno, but it does give some engineering calculation practice lol :-p