intercooling the SC S4 engine

[ginkof]

so there has been a lot of talk about these supercharger kits for our cars and as far as i know they seem to be intercooled. But for the obvious reasons of cooling the charge is there really a need for an intercooler on a low boost SC kit? Wont the pressure drop just cancel out any gains that may take place from a cooler charge?

[Das General]

AWE does not have an intercooler.

A cooler charge is almost always better than non-cooled.

[phantom b6]

Superchargers make a TON of heat. Rub your hands together really hard.. imagine that times 100000. A S/C is two blades that spin against each other.. tons of friction to compress the air. Even at 5psi your IAT is gonna be in the hundreds.

[Das General]

Superchargers make a TON of heat. Rub your hands together really hard.. imagine that times 100000. A S/C is two blades that spin against each other.. tons of friction to compress the air. Even at 5psi your IAT is gonna be in the hundreds.

Yes, but you have to understand that certain types of superchargers don't generate as much heat, as they have no parts rubbing, for a lack of a better word.

But nevertheless, they do produce heat.

[phantom b6]

Are you referring to twin screw?

[Das General]

Yes.

[phantom b6]

Haven't looked into that much.. I'm used to your typical Eaton roots blower.

[Daddie]

Meth injection would bring those down in a hurry...

[Justincredible]

AWE does not have an intercooler.
.

The AWE kit DOSE have a intercooler. It is a air to water. The real question is how big is the core.

Wont the pressure drop just cancel out any gains that may take place from a cooler charge?

As for charge temps. Although some superchargers are more efficient than others they all produce massive amounts of heat. You can run low boost apps with no intercooler sure But in the end you are still getting above ambient temps. The faster you spin the blower the more heat that is created. But when you design a system you take into consideration a few factors and pressure drop is going to be one of them.

There is also the fact that it takes about...ABOUT 30hp to just spin the supercharger at say 7lbs of boost. So you would set a target power and then subtract the variables. So with a system it might look like this.

Ok so you want 500hp total from a 300hp car. This would mean you need 200hp and if each lb of boost equated to 25hp then you would need 8lbs of boost. But after say 5lbs of boost the supercharger is just pushing hot air. So going with the thought that any boost over 5 is going to cost us power lets Say now were at 6 lbs of boost. You whent from 25hp per lb to 8hp per lb. of boost (or basically you loose power per lbs of boost above 5) adding the intercooler might take you back to 25hp per lb. But in most cases adding a PROPER cooling agent will boost the efficiency of the charge and allow for more hp per lb across the board.

So lets say with a intercooler we now have 32hp per lb of boost. So now even with a pressure drop of say 1.5 and with the 30hp loss to drive the supercharger you are still at the 200hp mark.

But IMHO to make enough power to make a difference you are going to need quite a bit of CFM out of the blower. To get more CFM you need to spin the blower faster faster blower=heat. To make enough power you probably had to spin the blower fast enough where it made good sense to use a intercooler.

So in the end you would have to make a pretty inefficient system or run very low boost to not want to use a intercooler. But you can run a supercharger with out one. The GTP Pontiac supercharged cars don't have a intercooler of any kind
//////////////////////////////////// Disclaimer ///////////////////////////////////////
I am not Erik Eaton nore do I claim to be the #'s above are only for example to answer a question with an example to explain my point

[UberDave]

Heat soak was a major issue for my B5 A4 with PES G2...

[CHECKERED]

Meth injection would bring those down in a hurry...

however not practical to have it in use 100% of the time, unless you want a 5 gallon tank in the trunk

[Todeshandler]

The VF/AWE supercharger kit does have an intercooler (actually a liquid-to-air charge cooler if you want to be technical). It is integrated into the intake manifold.

[audispeed]

however not practical to have it in use 100% of the time, unless you want a 5 gallon tank in the trunk

not true. but i agree that an intercooler is a better option.

[Ill 3.0]

however not practical to have it in use 100% of the time, unless you want a 5 gallon tank in the trunk

that's why it's progressive or MAF controlled so only comes on around 3k or 4k or whatever engine speed you want, and builds until redline. No need for cooling at 2500 RPM and a couple lbs of boost.

You're right, it's not perfect, but certainly does the job and you won't use any water/methanol unless you're really getting on it.

[Justincredible]

MI is a great idea. But how are you going to do it with out spraying it before the supercharger other than tapping the runners for it. I personally have seen the benefits of MI. IMHO it would just be tough to get it to work with intake supercharger design

[Ill 3.0]

lots of people run MI before the s/c. It has the advantage of cooling the s/c itself and air before it is compressed making it more efficient. But the disadvantage of possibly wearing the coating some on the blades. Supposedly blowers made within the last few years tend to be resistant to wear and are often ceramic coated, making this a non issue. This is something I've been conflicted about for my s/c 3.0, but in the next couple of weeks I'll be installing the nozzle pre-TB. At the very worst, I'll lose a little clearance and maybe 0.5 lbs, but the cooling effect will likely make up for that loss and I may never see a drop in boost.

[audispeed]

lots of people run MI before the s/c. It has the advantage of cooling the s/c itself and air before it is compressed making it more efficient. But the disadvantage of possibly wearing the coating some on the blades. Supposedly blowers made within the last few years tend to be resistant to wear and are often ceramic coated, making this a non issue. This is something I've been conflicted about for my s/c 3.0, but in the next couple of weeks I'll be installing the nozzle pre-TB. At the very worst, I'll lose a little clearance and maybe 0.5 lbs, but the cooling effect will likely make up for that loss and I may never see a drop in boost.

Eaton says it is fine to do. They said the coating on the rotors "might" wear off sacrificing 5-10% efficiency at most. The coating is also "safe" to go through the motor according to eaton. All that said, mine is post supercharger.