air/water Intercooler

What she ended up looking like. Seems to be working good. I can actually notice a big difference on the first pull after start up. The intercooler is just acting like a giant heat sink right now. After the first pull it has hardly any power because now it is heat soaked. Can't wait to get some water running through it to keep it

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Ok guys, I need your opinions on what to do here. Just like everywhere else on the truck, I am limited for space under the bed as well. I was hoping that I would be able to fit it where I have it mocked up with the slight tilt towards the rear; but as you can see, I don't have an clearance for adding the bed floor boards in the future. Just looking at it real quick it would appear my only option would be to lay it 100% flat or maybe even tilt it slightly towards the front until I get too close to the driveline. I could also center it up in the bed and push it toward the back more. This would allow me to bring it down on the crossmember a little more while keeping the rearward tilt. Either way I will most likely need to construct some type of exhaust heat shield.

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Could always find smaller rads so you can run smaller units in two locations on either side of the driveshaft. Stacking smaller rads with push/pull fan setups could be an option too.
I like that mod to the cooler, makes everything line up real neat in there.
 
Well this sucks. I have a cross leak somewhere in my intercooler. I have half of my system plumbed and decided to run some water through it to make sure any aluminum shavings and such were out. On the drive home the intercooler was half full with water sitting in it and the water ports open. When I get on it and hit about 50-60psi of boost, I see a mist of water come out and spray my windshield. I'm not sure how to narrow down the leak point.
 
Make a couple nipples and pressure test it with air.

Hopefully you don't have to cut to much of it up to find the leak. Good luck!


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Well guys, I believe I have good news. While I haven't had the time to get the fittings and stuff I need to do a full pressure test for good measure, on the drive to work yesterday I had an intriguing experience. When I initially drove the truck home the other night, it was dark out so I couldn't really see everything that was going on. When I drove to work yesterday I got on the throttle good, about 60psi I got some droplets of water on my windshield, BUT what I wasn't able to see the night before was the steam that was coming out of the intercooler! I wasn't blowing the water out of the open intercooler ports because of a boost leak; I was flash boiling the water that was sitting in it during the drive! Its not all too surprising really after I thought about it. My charge air temps have to be getting over 300 degrees when Im really on the throttle. Cruising at 10psi I probably have the water somewhere around 190 degrees, then once I build more boost it just pushes it over the edge.
 
Got everything mounted up except the fan. Need to tidy up the hoses and buy a leather belt to fully secure the Jerry can after I paint it.

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Redrider2911 said:
Got started on the fan shroud today during lunch.

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Not to derail your thread but I'm curious to know a few things about fan shrouds. I have electric fans that I want to put on my semi. I am thinking of making a shroud to cover the whole radiator and have a cutout for the fan but I am worried that enough air wont pass through it driving down the road. Should I drill more holes in it to allow air to pass through or am I over thinking it and the air that passes through the fan be enough.

I can also wire the fan to push or pull the air. The fans will be mounted on the back side of the radiator, I am thinking I want the air to be pulled through the radiator to keep fresh air over the charge cooler.

Edit: Normal driving the truck never gets over 200*. The only time I put turn the fan on is after a pull. And even then its not really necessary.
 
So I still haven't ordered a datalogging setup yet but today before I left for work I attempted to get a little creative. I used the stock charge air temp sensor in the manifold and hooked up a multimeter to the corresponding black/red black/blue wires at the PCM and read resistance. According to a 10k thermister chart, below are my findings.

It was 72* ambient out when I left this morning. Thermistor showed 75* as I sat there and let it idle for warmup. I have the water pump running and the Volvo fan on high speed.
Cruising down the road it sat in the low 90s until my first pull from a stop sign. First pull I hit around 40psi using a little less than half throttle, letting off when I shifted to 3rd. Hit 115 to 120*. Back to cruising and it immediately dropped back to about 95*. A couple more of those pulls through some back roads with a few minutes of 40mph cruising in between. Same results.

Did a decent pull through 3rd gear from a stop sign turning on to the highway. hit about 60psi. Temp got to about 130-135*. Went almost immediately back down to just below 100* as I cruised in 4th, 1400rpm, and 10psi of boost. Got to a decent 1-1/2 mile long grade, shifted to third, powered up the grade hitting about 85mph and 70psi at times. Most of the time I was between 50 and 60psi. Temps at the most got up to 145*. Pretty much coasting down the other side, temps dropped to around 110* immediately and then by the bottom of the grade (about 1 mile or less) got down right below 100*. Back to cruising at 10psi for the remainder of my trip and temps idled around 95-100*.

Needless to say, so far I am extremely happy with the setup. Not ever being able to compare to an air/air; I don't know if my results are anything to brag about, but it is definitely running a lot better than no intercooler at all!
 
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RockinRam96 said:
Not to derail your thread but I'm curious to know a few things about fan shrouds. I have electric fans that I want to put on my semi. I am thinking of making a shroud to cover the whole radiator and have a cutout for the fan but I am worried that enough air wont pass through it driving down the road. Should I drill more holes in it to allow air to pass through or am I over thinking it and the air that passes through the fan be enough.

I can also wire the fan to push or pull the air. The fans will be mounted on the back side of the radiator, I am thinking I want the air to be pulled through the radiator to keep fresh air over the charge cooler.

Edit: Normal driving the truck never gets over 200*. The only time I put turn the fan on is after a pull. And even then its not really necessary.
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Some how I missed this when you posted it. Don't just go around drilling holes in it, it will kill the fan's efficiency. You might do something like what BMW does with their electric fans. They cut a few nice rectangle holes, then they have a "specially" formed piece of rubber that covers the hole from the outside. It kind of acts like a check valve, allows air to free flow through but then once the fan kicks on it will suck it closed forcing the fan to pull air through the radiator. Somewhat simple concept, if you wanted to do something like this then I would rob those rubber pieces from the junk yard and cut your holes to match.

I would make the fan shroud without the holes first and see how it acts. If you still feel they are needed, then attempt to do what I outlined above.
 
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This is the thermistor chart I used. If you want to hook a multimeter up to check this, you will need to back probe the black/light blue wire in PCM cavity 4. And then you would need to cut the black/red wire in PCM cavity 21 then hook your other lead up to that wire on the harness side. You have to cut it or the PCM will complete the circuit and you can't read the resistance properly. DONT CUT THE BLACK/LIGHT BLUE WIRE. This is the ground for all of your engine sensors.

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This is also with a straight water. I assume I should see at least a 5* drop with a good mixture of antifreeze due to the better exchange rate?...

Another thing I need to look into is if my intercooler is actually 100% full of water. Since the output is in the middle of the "tank" I'm guessing that I have air trapped in the top half. I'll probably need to add a bleeder...
 
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