[s-cars] Re: [S-Car]Ain't no small intercooler here

[mlp qwest]

Hello Peter,

Finns?  As far as I know, the last time a Norwegian tried putting Finns on
his  intercooler, there was an international incident  :-).

Seriously, no I haven't thought of, or considered it.  In the admittedly
limited discussions I've had about optimizing air flow, people who claim to
know a lot about these things seem to adamantly stress the importance of
orientation of the cooler (be it radiator, oil or charge air) to the cooling
air stream ~ full, dead face being the most important determinant of
effectiveness.

When that's not possible, they've stressed good ducting to trap & "force" as
much of the air stream as possible through the cooler.  I guess that would
come closest to your point to adding a few or (?) lots of little external
fins to the face of the IC.

Frankly my thoughts on handling the IC's effectiveness is (a) try to situate
the it as vertical and full face on to the oncoming air stream as possible;
and (b) to the extent (a)'s not possible, try to put a collar (i.e. ducting)
around the outside edge of the IC to capture and force flow through the IC.

FWIW, I think the air flow guys favor a
              \   <-
            |     <-
       IC   |     <-
            |     <-
              /   <-
kind of configuration vs.

             /   <-
            |     <-
       IC   |     <-
            |     <-
             \   <-             /

But I suppose opinions vary on the best type of arrangement.  The idea being
to try to trap as much cooling flow as possible in front of the radiator &
keep, or make it as difficult as possible for the excess to spill around the
top and sides.  But adding multiple rows of fins?  At first blush at least,
it doesn't strike me as being cost effective or practical to do.

Mike

~-----Original Message-----
~From: Peter Berrevoets
~
~Michael,
~
~Very nice looking welds and construction. I'm thinking of building
~something
~like this for my project car, but I'll have to find someone local to
~fabricate it for me. How many hours did it take you to build it (skipping
~the design and development phase/portions)? Where did you find/source the
~core material? is it from another vehicle/truck or is it special order?
~
~I'm concerned about one aspect of the core shown in your pictures. It looks
~very restrictive from an airflow perspective, lots of flat surface on front
~that look like they might create a (not sure of the term)
~'pressure wall' as
~the incoming air hits it, that will direct more air around (than into) the
~cooling fins. Would it be possible to create some kind of 'knife edge' on
~those flat areas to direct the air into the cooling fins? and do you think
~that might be worth implementing.
~
~Just a few thoughts on what looks like a very effective design.
~
~Cheers!
~
~Peter
~
~1990 200Q MC2
~1989 200Q MC1 Parts
~1987.5 Coupe GT NF
~AAN on shelf...
~
~