On Tue, 15 Aug 2000, by way of Jon Steiger <jon@dakota-truck.net> wrote:
> It looks like I'll be putting in the motor first and run it (possibly without
> the supercharger) to work out the kinks in the installation before I go ahead
> and start hacking for the installation of the intercooler. Now I know you're
Sounds like an excellent idea; keeping the variables to a minimum...
> interested in doing something similiar, and since you seem to have a knack
> for creating "kits" and a few other people on this list show interest in an
> intercooler, perhaps we can help each other out. Do you know anyone who can
> custom-form plastic pipes?? It looks like it's gonna be kinda rough shoving
> that large of an intercooler in front of a radiator, and still have room for
> the 5.9 behind it. The belt-driven fan if definitely out. I was thinking
> along the lines of an electric between the intercooler and the radiator. The
> intercooler itself is 30" wide (39" total) 18" high and 2" deep. 3" inlet and
> outlet. I figured the best plan of attack is to take all the measurements I
> need to get custom 3" piping made to go from the powerdyne to the inlet and
> from the outlet in the intake manifold. All the pipe routing will kill
> efficiency but the lower intake air temps should make up the difference, plus
> I will be able to push more boost without detonation to compensate for
> frictional losses. If you got any brilliant ideas lemme know!!
I don't know of anyone who does custom-form pipes, but what a lot of
people do is to use exhaust tubing. If you have access to a pipe bender
or an exhaust shop, you can have the exhaust pipe custom bent. Another
(easier) solution is use straight pieces of exhaust tubing, which
you cut to size, and for the bends, you can either use pieces of radiator
hose (if you can find some big enough) or they make elbows out of the
same sort of material you'd find on a Quick D kit to connect the
intake tube to the air hat. You just put the whole thing together with
hose clamps.
Another (temporary) solution is to build it completely out of PCV.
There are different types of PCV elbows and such available, and its
cheap, so you can afford to screw up. You can fab up the system out
of PCV, and you can even run it for a little while. (I wouldn't go
too long though, the pressure and heat will start to take its toll
eventually.) Anyway, once its mocked up in PCV, you will know how much
exhaust tubing to buy and/or you will be able to tell someone who can
fabricate pipes exactly what you need.
When I twin turbocharge my Dak, I will be intercooling it, but I
want to use a two into one intercooler if at all possible. Sounds
like the intercooler you've got should work pretty well though,
since you're using a single blower.
As far as the pipe routing killing efficiency, I wouldn't worry
about it. Granted, I don't have any firsthand experience with this,
but based on the research I've done, I have learned that on boosted
engines, pipe routing isn't as important as in naturally aspirated
motors. In a NA engine, the motor has to suck the air through a
straw, whereas with a turbo or blower, you're blowing through the
straw; the entire pipe is pressurized, so restrictions don't affect
the power output as much as on an NA engine. (As long as you use
a big enough straw to give the motor all the air it can use.)
That's a simplification; obviously, any restriction will affect the
final output, but much less so on blown engines. I would agree with
your assessment that the intercooler will more than make up for the
additional plumbing and the pressure drop across the intercooler itself.
If I can be of any help, just give me a holler. TTYL!
-Jon-
.---- Jon Steiger ----- jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@twistedbits.net ------.
| Affiliations: AOPA, DoD, EAA, NMA, NRA, SPA, USUA; Rec & UL Pilot - SEL |
| '92 Ram 150 4x4 V8, '96 Dakota V8, '96 Intruder 1400, '96 FireFly 447 |
`------------------------------ http://www.cs.fredonia.edu/~stei0302/ ----'
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 11:53:27 EDT