Intercooling: Air/Water or Wally style

[Eatoniashoprat]

Hi all,

Please read before you vote! Sorry its long, but I'm interested to hear your thoughts.

After a full season of beating this car fairly hard (see link below for some build thread pics and details, in short: turbo subaru 2L) I need a better intercooler. Right now if I turn it up to 14-15 psi I can watch the intake temps shoot up to 70C. Plus it is very restrictive.

http://www.germanlook.net/forums/sho...?t=9599&page=2

For some reason I had it in my head that I wanted to have an air/air unit and fit it in the engine bay (what I've done already), and the notion/challenge of doing this somehow distracted me from the fact that no matter how much airflow (3-300cfm fans) goes passed the stock WRX intercooler its not big enough, AND not to mention the routing is terribly restrictive.








The criteria behind this car was that I wanted to keep the exterior as clean as possible with minimal signs of 'theres a 300hp turbo subaru in the back'. So I bought a Spearco 500hp A/W intercooler for a deal I couldn't pass up, but I'm stuck between two thoughts now:

A/W - I could mount the IC in the rear parcel tray so there would be ZERO heat soak, have a resevoir back there and a big 'ol radiator in front of my current radiator to cool the IC fluid. This option adds a pump, tank, radiator, BUT is still completely unnoticeable outside the car and actually cleans up the engine bay a lot. (no ice here just antifreeze/water mix)

A/A - copy Wally's setup (see pic below). To me this is the most simple, robust, proven solution, however although I'm typically a function>form kind of guy this would completely transform the look of the car IMO and not for the good. If this was a track car then I wouldn't hesitate. However I plan on putting 3-7000km on this a year and drive it to work everyday in all weather (no snow though) and its not supposed to 'look' like a race car.



I'll also be making a cold air intake setup sort of like Wally's in this pic (behind licence plate)^.
Mike