You want a fancy billet intercooler to add to that list? Its awful at removing heat but it looks awesome.

 

You've peaked my interest, what's going on? I've been driving myself bat shitt crazy here lately looking at either the Lingenfelter intercooler intake or a MSD Atomic (irony there in this thread) with a behind radiator A2W Garrett setup.

 

Just swapping over on my truck. Currently has the 417 motorsports 1500hp unit that got shredded over on ls1tech, which I didn't see before buying it. New Shearer unit arrives Thursday...so the 417 will be listed for sale at some heavily discounted price that better reflects how badly it underperforms lol. I haven't even filled it up yet...guy's data on tech was pretty solid, so away it goes.

 

Heat exchangers (intercoolers) in general are more complicated that just a horsepower rating. Thats partly why you see so much BS about pumps and tanks and line sizes and fittings and fans and all that crap. To really characterize it you have to do it in terms of temperature and airflow. Then once you get all that data, you arbitrarily decide what your criteria is for "good enough". To some a "1500hp intercooler" may mean the air coming out is the same temperature as ambient with no pressure drop across the core while the engine makes 1500hp. Thats obviously impossible, but to someone else if you only get a 100F temp rise at a 10psi pressure drop that may be good enough.

The second problem is once you characterize and test the **** out of a cooler, how do you compare that to other options fairly? Unless everyone that makes an intercooler does the same standard testing just having data doesnt help you much. Is Ron's any better? I dont know, would have to test both to see under the same conditions. Maybe 417 just got unlucky that the guy on tech picked theirs, maybe they are all the same...

 

Hey you're preaching to the choir, I feel the same about torque converter stall ratings. K factor what? And don't even get me started on mustang dyno numbers

 

Yep, been through that thread and that ol' boy did ALOT of testing of everything (pumps, lines, fittings, cores). The kiss of death was rating it at 1500hp, which has me curious again. Where are you at power wise that it is under performing? I would say there is a place for everything and would not sell it short, unless it really is that bad off the mark. The Shearer 1800hp core is 4.5" thick vs a 2.5" (417) that only has a 300hp rating between them, seems like the 417 should be closer to 1000hp rated. I've researched so much on this I'm at wits end as to which direction I want to go. I've seen ADM's Camaro with the Lingenfelter intercooler intake make a shade over 1000whp without breaking a sweat on that intake (rated to 1600hp) and have to say that Andy (the owner of the shop) seems like a very particular guy when it comes to what he builds and supplies. The ice/water box was just that with no flow just a reservoir and actually had a heat exchanger inside of the ice box on a separate closed loop system with the intake.


Yeah I'm not a thermal or fluid dynamics expert by any stretch of the means. I find it interesting in comparison to how Garrett rates their liquid cores to what these builders are doing. I know Ron uses Garrett cores and have to assume he's using the ladder of the two 1000hp cores below:

7.8" (hot flow) x 3.5" (thickness) x 9.8" (cold flow)
4.8" (hot flow) x 4.5" (thickness) x 11.9" (cold flow).

Most of his intercoolers are rated in the 1800-2000hp unless you get into the real big boy pants category. I have to believe when Garrett rates a core they have a handle on it as their R&D is a step above most companies in the game. Also interesting in that the "1000hp" rated cores above are actually rated at normal operation and not max effort (they say it in fine print).

 

Again though my point is the devil is in the details. What criteria is it that dictates if its a 500hp core, a 1000hp core, or a 5000hp core? Some amount of pressure drop at a given volumetric flow rate? Some amount of charge temperature drop with a given ambient air temperature and flow condition? Some combination of both of those things? What does "normal operation" mean vs "max effort"? A normal operating 600ci engine at 10psi makes more power than a "max effort" 5.3 ever will.

Bigger isnt necessarily always better with core size; with more surface area you can get more heat transfer but you increase the pressure loss, so then you drive the compressor harder which in turn makes the incoming air hotter than it otherwise would have been.

 

I guess this thread motivated me a little bit





Its actually pretty sturdy, not worried at all about putting a ladder on there

 

I'm only at like 700-800 right now. But I haven't filled up the IC system yet...it has been empty due to my lack of fluid tank. Lots of stuff on the to-do list. So I personally don't have any data on it. But the conclusion from that thread was convincing enough for me to get something else. I'll update over in the ol build thread.

 

So as a quick update from the last post here...

End up shortening the ladder rack so I wouldnt keep hitting my garage door when I forget its there -_-


Went to the track with the same everything as before, except the converter was waaaaaaay too tight now. Literally sat at WOT for 10+ seconds and RPMs would barely climb, just wasnt enough to get the turbos going. First half of the track was slow, but man once these things light party was on.

I wanted to race the next weekend so pulled it out and took it to PTC to have loosened up since they are just down the road from me. Turns out my lockup clutch was fried which is interesting because I never used lockup on this converter, ever. They didnt have the parts in stock to fix it so I told them just to leave it out and it drives so much better now. I am thinking the lockup was dragging at idle which was causing some of my issues, stalls around 3600ish now.

On the first and 2nd (final) run of the next weekend though I kept blowing up water pumps by blowing off the back cover,


Didnt have a chance to work on it for a long time (this race was middle of March and just took it apart in middle of June). Turns out was probably pushing water on all cylinders but ol number 2 gave up:





So I slapped it back together with some athena SCE cut ring fancy schmancy gaskets and just gonna keep sending it with some timing pulled out because why not on this 8 year motor that just keeps going



Also cut the downpipes so they would stop dragging on the trailer