Air 2 Air 2 Air 2 Water set up idea
 

Anybody ever tried to run an A2W after an A2A intercooler?

I feel this is a simple idea that I've never seen done...assuming there is a reason.

I am basing this off of the idea that cooler intake air is ideal.

I would run the pipe from the front mount intercooler strait to the A2W placed over the driver side shock tower then out the back to a side draft intake.


Thoughts?

Why not just have one properly sized intercooler instead of making things complicated?

The first thing that comes to mind is if it’s daily driven, I’d much rather deal with A2A. Second thing if not daily, weight.

If you want colder, you can always spray it to chill it.

There’s a reason people don’t reinvent the wheel. Round is great. I guess they make those with the rollers on them though...

If it's race, I'd say A2W with ice water will be your best bet.

If it's daily, and you're set on doing this, I'd recommend A2W then A2A. The reason being, you won't always have ice water (barely ever), and if you put it on it's own circuit, it'll be a big, bulky thing that'll sit a bit above ambient, in a best case scenario. What would make the most sense would be hooking it up to your coolant circuit (probably tee out where your water for your trans heat exchanger is), running a small W2A right after the charger (water at 180F), and letting a small A2A do the rest of the work to get it close to ambient (ambient at ~100F in summer).
I bet if you measured your intake temps, it'd only be marginally cooler though.

If you plumb it in at the right after the water pump, the water shouldn't be significantly warmer than your radiator outlet.

I’m not up and running yet but I used a small water to air on my inner stage and a large air to air for my final run to the intake. My water to air will have it’s own radiator and ice box, which I’ll route my fuel lines threw.

On a street / Strip truck my thoughts were running a normal A2A then thru an A2W that had a heat exchanger / radiator mounted in the bed.

I figure on the street it would just run water and then on the track it could run ice and I could still spray water / meth if I wanted.

The question is, why is this a bad idea? Are the gains just not worth it? Some people run water, some run air. why not run both for twice the cooling?

Because in the order you’re listing, you’re cooling the air, just to likely warm it back up a bit (when not using ice)

I honestly thought that a A2W with a heat exchanger would cool without ice..just not as much.

If it would bring temps above what it is leaving the A2A without ice then ill just scratch that idea all together.

Do as the others said, a2w for interstage then a2a

"Bad idea" in this case, is a term that is subjective, I just think that it's not going to be as good as you're hoping it to be.

Bottom line, each type of IC will work effectively on it's own. Adding a second IC (doesn't matter the type) isn't going to make much of a difference, since ultimately you're using the ambient temp of the air surrounding your ride to cool them (using an ice box is the exception)

There is also a con to this, thats being completely overlooked and thats how much resistance the air flow inside is working against when you have two IC's. That restriction could cause a drop in pressure and potentially create much more lag.

If it were me, and I wanted to build a dual purpose ride, I'd ditch the a2a and go totally w2a. I may even build a system with two heat exchangers. I'd stick one h/e where it was exposed to the airflow (maybe under the hood, in front of the rad or in the bed with an air duct or some type of scoop to direct air thru it) and a second h/e in an ice box. Then plumb it with valves to direct the coolant to which ever h/e I wanted to use.


Ed