Has anyone tried chiller with a water to air cooler on RBs?

[Joni Boi]

Has anyone tried chillers with an water to air cooler on their RBs instead of air to air intercoolers? 

I know there has been some people that have tried the water to air intercoolers with the water/coolant running into a seperate radiator with fan and then that water/coolant runs through the water to air intercooler via a pump. Some has said that there were problems with this setup, one of them being heat soak. And they don't really make a difference compared to air to air, or it wasn't really worth it the money?

But, has anyone tried this setup with a chiller instead the water being cooled in a radiator+fan?

There is a company called FI Chillers that make chillers for supercharged and turbo drag cars. Mainly for hellcats, holdens and other v8s...

They explain it better on their website: https://fiinterchillers.com/tech_articles/how-does-a-universal-interchiller-kit-adapt-to-my-car/

The chiller mounts somewhere (anywhere), water (AC Delco 50/50 anti freeze recommended) flows from a reservoir into the chiller via a pump then into a water to air intercooler and back to the reservoir. The chiller is cooled with refrigerant gas by tapping into your exsisting AC system. Doesn't sound too complicated?

Alot of the guys that run these chillers rave about how low their IAT are. 

Just curious if anyone has tried this on their RB's or any jap related turbo engine? (Mainly daily/street use)

Wanted to see what kind of gains you could see and/or feel with a setup like this.

 

 

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

Complexity not really worth the effort, especially if you're on E85.

That's why noone has done it. Also most of these RBs are straight line warriors so will have ample of air being fed into the FMIC to bring down the charged temps.

[The Bogan]

Water to air will heatsoak and never be close to ambient temps flowing over a air to air.

Apples and Oranges. I had a W2A on my HTV2300 supercharged LS1, IAT just cruising around was 50°c with 25°c ambient, and would peak at 70°c after a run down the 1/4. Then I fitted an interchiller, it now cruises with a IAT of around 25°c in 25°c ambient, and hasn't gotten over 35°c on a 30° day after a good flogging.

For a turbo I would definitely run a A2A for IAT and cost, just get the right size A2A and have good airflow through your heating stack.

Good airflow is key. You want your engine bay air pressure lower than the high pressure zone at the front of the car.

#fluiddynamicsblackmagic 

 

 

 

 

[MBS206]

Daily driving, street work, or even circuit work, those chillers aren't going to work.

 

Most "chillers" people run, are for a short burst, IE, at the 1/4 mile. Some guys will even drop dry ice in to get things cold.

 

But those temps only stay down for so long. It's all about heat transfer. If you're not continuing to cool the chiller, it's going to end up warm and heat soaking.

[The Bogan]

9 minutes ago, MBS206 said:

Daily driving, street work, or even circuit work, those chillers aren't going to work.

 

Most "chillers" people run, are for a short burst, IE, at the 1/4 mile. Some guys will even drop dry ice in to get things cold.

 

But those temps only stay down for so long. It's all about heat transfer. If you're not continuing to cool the chiller, it's going to end up warm and heat soaking.

Some idiots spent to much money fixing a WTA intercooler and high IAT by getting a interchiller fitted. 🤣

[robbo_rb180]

Yes they work well for the Blower guys as most already have a w2a cooler in the manifold. A decent reservoir of 10-12L helps too.

Depending what you doing with your car it's an option but cost vs reward a quality a2a (pwr or plazmaman) will be better. If drag racing take a few bags of ice in an esky and chuck on intake and intercooler before runs or run an extra injector for methanol before the intercooler (a quality ecu with safety for methanol level and pressure is highly recommended when doing this)

[The Bogan]

 

[Joni Boi]

Ah ok haha. there you go.

I work in a plastic injection moulding factory and I was looking at our big industrial water chillers that cools our mould dies and machines and thought, hmmmm imagine if you could have a mini chiller in your car that could cool a water to air intercooler. And I thought I was on to something. Googled chillers on engines and FI Interchillers came up and thought, holy shit, whys no one using these more on other engines. Even looking at this video made me tempting to try one:

I would never buy one of the FI interchillers (waayyy to expensive for trying something like this). I'll always stick to my a2a. That's why I just wanted to check if anyone has tried this with success so I could try and make my own chiller maybe. There's just not much info on a chiller+water to air setup. Would be a good video for someone to do on 😉

[Kinkstaah]

Nobody escapes the laws of thermodynamics.

What do you do when your aircon system heats up?
What's the aircon condenser cooled by?

.......air 😛

[The Bogan]

My in cabin aircon temps haven't changed, my fancy pants FI interchiller aircon condenser and lines are wrapped in some thermal protection stuff so recieves no actual airflow, the aircon refrigerant does it all. Great for the street and drags. I assume long sessions at the track would see the the intercooler coolant struggle, even with a large reservoir. It does have a bypass to bypass the cabin air-conditioning to stop water from the in cabin air-conditioning stuff dripping water from condensation at/on the track.

Edited March 7, 2023 by niZmO_Man
bloody hell man, fix your posts

[The Bogan]

😞 fu ck my phone

[tridentt150v]

E85 or WMI [depending on availability or convenience] really has this covered for the street.

One day I'd like to run my setup without and then with the WMI and test the various [air, engine, exhaust etc] temperature differences.......but without is engine destroying😂  I get knock levels over 200.

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

Here's some real world track data from my car. Runs a Plazmaman 76mm Pro Series, plenty of boost and used more than 10s at a time.

This was on the 2nd last lap of SMSP GP Circuit. Plenty of heat soak, water/oil temps show. Ambient temp was about 25 to 30°C I suspect.

[MBS206]

6 hours ago, Dose Pipe Sutututu said:

Here's some real world track data from my car. Runs a Plazmaman 76mm Pro Series, plenty of boost and used more than 10s at a time.

This was on the 2nd last lap of SMSP GP Circuit. Plenty of heat soak, water/oil temps show. Ambient temp was about 25 to 30°C I suspect.

Able to show the log of IAT from start to finish of the whole session?

How many laps and how many minutes?

 

The IAT looks to be slightly higher at end of lap than the start, I'm wondering if IAT was still climbing in total lap after lap (only more laps during that session would tell).

[Dose Pipe Sutututu]

11 hours ago, MBS206 said:

Able to show the log of IAT from start to finish of the whole session?

How many laps and how many minutes?

I only decided to start recording towards the end of the session for some data (just to assess the car's performance and my self tuning abilities)

15 minute session, started recording just after my cool down lap and there's about 5 minutes worth of data.

You can see IAT peaked at 44 degrees C