Hi all over these winter months I would really like to find a way of adding cooling to my supercharger setup. Currently I have a blacktop with m45 supercharger but no cooler. The supercharger is bolted directly to the plenum so I would have to flip it 180, get a new plenum/inlet and custom pipe work.
Questions are
-will I loose pressure by having a run of hoses from charger to intercooler than to plenum as oppose to direct connection as it is now?
-is there such thing as a water cooler that could sandwich between my plenum and charger?
-am I better off having water/meth injection straight into my plenum on current setup?


Ignore the current air filter position as this is changing.
As you can imagine I don't have much room but need to sort cooling out as supercharger is not being used to full potential.

Many thanks

You will lose a little pressure, however the gain in power will more than offset this, especially when you start running it hard.

You can get air to water intercoolers or even make one, get a small air intercooler and case it, you then need a front rad and pump.

[Edited on 3/1/14 by mark chandler]

I have looked but can't find a sandwich type cooler.
Also how does it work with pressure going through radiator type fins, surely that kills it as oppose to no restriction.

Just out of interest what boost are you seeing now and what power does it make?

Also, what engine management have you got?

In the ideal world you would use a front mounted air to air cooler, but pipe work would be a pain with your setup.

Sandwich type units are available that go between the charger and the inlet manifold, as part of a charge cooler setup with a pump and a separate rad.

The other option is water injection

www.baileyperformance.co.uk

It's currently at 6psi and 175 at the wheels.
Water/meth is an option but I'm worried about constantly having to refill and possible completely running out on long runs

so thats about 195-200 at the engine, well down for 6psi - as you say the charge temp is probably the issue.

we just fitted water injection on a Porsche 944 (already fitted with an eaton M90) it allowed use to advance the timing under boost to release more power, depending on your ECU you can setup to redard the timing back to a safe setting id the charge temp goes high or you run out of water.

A 1/2 gallon water tank will last a long time, depends on your driving as it should be setup to only inject at say 4PSI. Most of the time you will be driving off boost.

Thanks for the info, it's running off an omex 500.
So do you reckon water/meth on its own will be sufficient or should I really look into a sandwich type charge cooler.
Just trying to work out if loosing pressure through hoses/cooler will be better or worse than just cooling the air with water/meth with charger directly connected as is.

The omex should be fine, we use megasquirt as its has duel ignition tables - one for water, one without, switched by a water pressure switch or water tank level.

I'm sure Omex will have something similar.

Charge cooler sandwich plate will be better than water, but water is simple to install and cheap. The kits we have used are from Snow Performance.

i wouldn't solely want to rely on water injection unless there was a fail safe for pump failure or an empty tank as it could quickly be then end of the engine

what about clearing all the stuff of the front of the scuttle and running a small inter cool fed by a bonnet vent there, then no need to reverse the inlet not ideal but cost effective, a mr2 turbo cooler is small enough to go there

other than that if it were me i would go front mount like my setup is

quote:

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Originally posted by beaver34
i wouldn't solely want to rely on water injection unless there was a fail safe for pump failure or an empty tank as it could quickly be then end of the engine

what about clearing all the stuff of the front of the scuttle and running a small inter cool fed by a bonnet vent there, then no need to reverse the inlet not ideal but cost effective, a mr2 turbo cooler is small enough to go there

other than that if it were me i would go front mount like my setup is

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surely an intercooler before the supercharger wil be doing next to nothing benifical?????? assuming you've got a good cold air feed to your charger (which it looks like you have)....then the intercooler before the charger will have an "air-to-air" temp difference of zero.... and so no heat transfer can take place.......basic physics?

After the charger is where you need to position the intercooler.......

Yeah as said intercooler would have to go between charger and plenum otherwise it would be pointless. Another thing has sprung to mind which is, wouldn't the charge cooler sandwiched between charger and plenum get very hot from the heat produced by the charger? This would mean the cooler would constantly be hot and trying to cool itself.

pipe it into a normal intercooler , specify a modern bar and fin type and you wont get much pressure drop across it .

having to retard timing under boost because of charge temperature robs quite a bit of power and also means lots more fuel consumption , adding fuel being a means of lowering peak cylinder temps....

Any idea what plenum/inlet, tb can be used?
Also what's your thoughts on the charge cooler getting hot sandwiched? If it's been designed to fit there then it might work better than I think

quote:

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Originally posted by BaileyPerformance

quote:

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Originally posted by beaver34
i wouldn't solely want to rely on water injection unless there was a fail safe for pump failure or an empty tank as it could quickly be then end of the engine

what about clearing all the stuff of the front of the scuttle and running a small inter cool fed by a bonnet vent there, then no need to reverse the inlet not ideal but cost effective, a mr2 turbo cooler is small enough to go there

other than that if it were me i would go front mount like my setup is

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Are you suggesting the intercooler can be piped into the supercharger not after it???

The engine will not be damaged if the water system fails, that's why you need a duel ignition map so the retarded map is used if you run out of water or the pump fails.

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top mount intercooler and a bonnet vent?

Not really an option as it's the limited space for pipe work that's the issue, if it wasn't I'd go for front mount. I've emailed a few companies about a sandwich type charge cooler so will see what they come back with.

I've had a good look at the car today and there is absolutely no way I can sandwich in a charge cooler as there is no room at all. This would mean completely changing the setup with new inlet/plenum, brackets for supercharger and pipe work for intercooler. Also engine out to do all the work so could add up to a lot of money.
I may give the water/meth a go and see what happens.

I've also taken my induction hose off and fitted a 90' pipe to show where the new air filter will go which should hopefully feed the engine colder air

Make sure you plumb the Fuel Pressure Regulator to the Plenum feed for the MAP sensor.

I have a £80 eBay special chargecooler, lies bracketed across the chassis, they are fairly compact and can be mounted anywhere you have room. It would need a small radiator in airflow somewhere, and an electric pump.

My own view is your better off reducing intake temps to avoid knock and improving performance , than relying on water & meth with retarded timing.

It's not the room for the cooler that I'll have trouble with its positioning the supercharger so I can run the adaptor sand pipe work off it without having to completely redesign the engine as I can imagine that'll be very costly

quote:

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Originally posted by Sierra
It's not the room for the cooler that I'll have trouble with its positioning the supercharger so I can run the adaptor sand pipe work off it without having to completely redesign the engine as I can imagine that'll be very costly

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Thanks for your help but it's not the space for the cooler that's the issue, it's the having to completely change the one side of the engine setup as my current inlet/plenum, supercharger would have to be taken off which can't be done without the engine coming out. I haven't had a quote yet but can imagine it'll be quite costly.

I can't see clearly from the pictures but it looks like your throttle is in front of the supercharger so any cooler placed after will increase plenum volume and could affect throttle response . Based on the weight of a chargecooler system I would go for water meth spray into the charger body , I had my system spraying into the charger and it gives the extra benefit of cooling the charger case as well as the air in it .

A 2gallon tank will last a while based on your power level and no need to touch your mapping as you will gain some power based on your current map set up with higher charge temps .

Not saying this is an especially cheap or easy solution but due to your space issues you would want to build some Laminova cores into your existing air box.

Then you need the additional plumbing for the rad etc. of course.

Here's the very neat solution on the GT86 Innovate/Sprintex supercharger kit. You can buy the kit without the Laminova core and plumbing initially then upgrade later. The core simply slots in the initially empty plenum.

You would have to lose that big black box and replace with something like a Nissan pulsar plenum then build an adaptor to exit the air from the charger along the new plenum to do it properly. Unless the existing plenum is used to secure the charger I do not see why it's an engine out job?

Regards Mark

I only say engine out as you can't get to half the bolts you need to remove the inlet/plenum. The charger is bolted directly to th plenum and again half the bolts are unexcessable.

Somebody has obviously spent a lot of time on building it this way. I assume the M45 is directly connected to the Plenum? So, potentially, you could turn the M45 upside down, exit from supercharger into a intercooler/chargecooler in the nose, intercooler/chargercooler into a Pulsar GTiR Plenum with the thottle body inbetween the intercooler and plenum.

This would give you the best result.

Yeah a lot of time has been spent as it does look very well made, the m45 is bolted directly to the bottom of the plenum then the inlet of m45 has a section also going into the plenum and a second section for tb and air filter.
As you say flipping it would work but after looking yesterday the steering shaft is literally mm's from the bottom of m45 already so physically no room to flip and fit adapters.
Unless of course a new plenum was made to sit higher up which in turn would give the m45 a little more room and may fit flipped around.
Is the gtir plenum a direct fit or does it need welding onto a ford inlet?

You could certainly get an adaptor made (Flak Monkey on here did mine)

Have a look through this for ideas

http://www.locostbuilders.co.uk/viewthread.php?tid=165764



[Edited on 5/1/14 by jeffw]

Ok thanks I'm going to have to work out the cost all in as I can imagine it will all add up to a lot.
Then work out whether it's really worth it at the minute. Obviously have to get someone to check the inlet temps for me first before buying anything as they might not be as bad as I think at only 6psi. But saying that the inlet does get really really hot after a run so probably way to high.

I thinkit would be worth measuring your inlet temps for now, you can see what they are in the omex 500 I presume, I run the later 600 and can log mine.

If you have a base to work from you can see how bad the situation is or not