intercoolers--all info!!!

[MerkXRTurbo]

I'm sure the put it on top to reduce costs of tubing.

[Ed Lijewski]

The mass centralization effect also applies to keeping the battery where it's located instead of moving it to the trunk.

[Who wants to be known as having more "junk in the trunk"? LOL]

YMMV

[DPDISXR4Ti]

Oh bloody hell - I'll give a prize to anyone who can measure the difference in the polar inertia on a Merkur due to the location of the I/C. IMHO were picking fly crap out of pepper on this one - but it's a fun discussion so lets keep it going eh

Damn, and I was looking forward to a dissertation of how polar moment of inertia applies to air-flow. I was all set to bring Don Haulsee in on retainer to cover the topic!

BTW, does anyone know what the FDA spec is for allowable fly crap in pepper???

[MerkXRTurbo]

Mass centralization differences on motorcycles is pretty easily felt--Honda does it better than others, almost magically. Same principle in cars, while it's harder to assess/feel with your butt; but then real engineers use instruments to measure these effects, don't they.

Yeah, but everything is relative. You gotta use the same scale. 20 lbs on one end of a 400lb bike you may feel. You have to apply that to scale on a 3000 lb. car... you're looking at around 150lbs on one end... and that's enough to make a pretty big difference. Laws of mass centralization don't apply differently to motorcycles, smaller loads are felt on a bike where they wouldn't be on a car.

[jasonty]

mine is mounted flat as you mentioned. i do have a rubber flap mounted to the core. there is no flap on my rad. all that have been in my car can tell you that its quick and pretty damn powerful. is it because of the 'cooler? i have no idea. was it a easy install and a clean look? yes and yes

Yes its mounted flat, and no scoop was used. I was going to reinstall a rubber strip on the crossmember again but i never got around to it. I modeled my install after Dimitri's setup in his first 2.3 scorpio. Pics are over on the Merkur Tech picture pages. As you can see this is by far not the best mounting location and the Supercoupe intercooler does a great job of cooling the charge air.

I've read (dont recall where exactly) that a flat mount btween the rad and crossmember is actually a good place for an I/C in a Merk after front or a cowl mount. But it didnt mention a scoop. I was wondering if there was downflow in that area (with the flap) or if it needed a scoop. I have a T/C cooler in the stock position now with no airflow but I put a fan on it and a snorkel to the original intake slot as I have a cold air cone anyway. I havnt decided whether to try a fron mount, I want to keep the A/C as well.

[turbofan]

Oh bloody hell - I'll give a prize to anyone who can measure the difference in the polar inertia on a Merkur due to the location of the I/C. IMHO were picking fly crap out of pepper on this one - but it's a fun discussion so lets keep it going eh

Damn, and I was looking forward to a dissertation of how polar moment of inertia applies to air-flow. I was all set to bring Don Haulsee in on retainer to cover the topic!

BTW, does anyone know what the FDA spec is for allowable fly crap in pepper???

speaking of Don Haulsee, i have a friend who is VERY knowledgeable about turbochargers and intercoolers. this is what my friend had to say about Don Haulsee's intercooler primer:

A few of the "highlights" from my list of issues with his web page info:

* at one point, he says 20 psi makes the charge air temp "almost 400"
degrees. Then for his intercooler power charts, he says he the charge air
temp is "calculated" at 293 degrees. So which is it--almost 400 or 293?

* the guy apparently doesn't know how to properly measure backpressure.
Even the worst intercooler in his comparo has a pressure drop (according to
him) of only .7 psi. A stock TurboII IC on our engines (dodge 2.2 SOHC) has about 2 psi
pressure drop at 15 psi; the drop increases to at least 6 psi when you're
at 25 psi boost (it's not a linear relationship). The single Volvo IC has
nearly equal backpressure, yet this guy says it's nonexistant. What gives?

* for all his IC power charts, he bases the power figure EXCLUSIVELY on the temp of the air as it exits the IC. This is a gross oversight. When
backpressure begins to add up, your turbo has to work harder to overcome it. This increases your exhaust restriction, which will in turn rob you of horsepower. In other words, you can have two intercoolers which produce equal outlet temps but they will result in different amounts of horsepower. He claims otherwise.

* and that's another thing. He has supposedly written a fancy computer
spreadsheet to calculate power output. Where is his factual, real-world
evidence to back up his claims? I don't see a single dyno plot, or a
single timeslip. He can calculate until he's blue in the face, but it
don't mean jack until you can verify it in the real world.

* speaking of, how exactly is this guy qualified to make sweeping
generalizations? Corky Bell (author of Maximum Boost) is a degreed engineer.
Furthermore, Corky has been designing, building and testing turbocharged
engines since the SEVENTIES. He has decades of real-world experience; he
doesn't base his beliefs on goofy ideas or unsubstantiated calculations.
Why does this Don guy get to make pronouncements with no evidence or
experience to back them up?

* I have a Turbonetics catalog. They acquired Spearco a few years back, and
the catalog shows all the standard Spearco cores you can buy. For each
core, they show the flow rate (at a given pressure drop) and also list
horsepower capacity for each core. Their HP figures are DIRECTLY related
to flow rate, NOT thermal efficiency. Spearch has been designing and
testing ICs for decades, and they've got the experience to say what works
and what does not. Don seems to not agree with them. Who are YOU gonna trust?


end of quote. i've read this book Corky has written, and it's amazing. check it out sometime: once again, it's called Maximum Boost. everything he says makes PERFECT sense and is very easy to understand.

sorry guys but on this one, don's all wet...

[DPDISXR4Ti]

I don't think I've ever actually read Don's "Intercooler Primer" - any idea what it's dated? I know Don has publicly stated that there are errors and assumptions in his program that render it near useless. He talked about fixing it, but he's not selling anything, so I suspect it keeps falling to the bottom of the list.

It's easy to make judgment on someone with a limited amount of information about said person. Heck, we do it all the time on this forum and others. I can assure you that Don is a really smart guy, and on a lot of topics - he's thoroughly designed a DOHC for the Lima motor - just couldn't figure out a way to make it financially viable. More recently, he's designed something that I could tell you about ...but then I'd have to kill you. Like anyone, he makes a lot of mistakes too.

FWIW, several people way smarter than me on the topic indicate that Corky's book is full of mistakes and they regard the book as fiction. Most hard-cores recommend the Hugh McInnis (sp?) book simply called "Turbocharging", IIRC.

[John Brennan]

I had a FMIC and a/c, you just have to use the right pieces; in this case, a C&R rad with a DG IC (which in combination weighed substantially less than a stock rad, BTW). Using a FMIC in concert with a rotated intake will keep pipes short, which I believe IS relevant, as is keeping your cooled-off air on the cool side of the engine. Just look in the engine bay of any Cosworth. The top mount isn't ultimately as good as the FMIC, but if done right, will work fine for someone not expecting to produce huge amounts of power, as said.

[anglin]

Argue with the Mazda engineers, I don't pretend to assume they've not calculated it as they called it for the Mazdaspeed6 top mount.
...
Same principle in cars, while it's harder to assess/feel with your butt; but then real engineers use instruments to measure these effects, don't they.

The engineers don't write the advertizing copy, the marketing folks do. Some egghead was having a conversation with another egghead in a hallway and they walked past some marketing monkey going the other direction at the same time one of them said the words, "polar moment of inertia." The marketing monkey likes the phrase and asked what it meant. When he found out that it was a good thing, he decided to incorporate it in his next new product pamphlet.

The marketing folks took a cost-saving measure and turned it into an advertizing charade.

- Should we jump on board and ooh and aah because they did it and the engineers have sensitive instruments?
- Do you really think they made comparisons between the FMIC and TMIC and chose the TMIC on its PMOI virtues?
- Is moving a 12 lb IC core 28 inches closer to the center of gravity really going to make that big of a difference on a car that has a curb weight of 3590 lbs and a length of 186.8 inches?
- If the engineers were that concerned with PMOI, did they put the brake calipers on the car in an orientation that brought them closer to the center of gravity?

They DID put the front calipers in front of the front brake rotor. They DID put the rear calipers behind the rear brake rotor. Do you think they really cared about PMOI? As an autocrosser (and a future egghead) and nutcase for weight reduction and reducing all inertias by as much as is sensibly accomplished (I have a drawing for titanium lug nuts and the machining capabilites to make them), I do appreciate reducing PMOI. I really appreciate it, because a lower PMOI will help me defeat the competition. However, claiming that it matters in the environment of the Mazdaspeed6 is a stretch.

So, Ed. Is it possible that this is just good marketing on a compromised product? Did it work on you?

YMMV

Uh, that's missing something.

[Maurice S]

What about the fact that it's over the engine (I think) and not necessarily directly over the exhaust manifold on the Mazda, that's gotta count for something.

[turbofan]

What about the fact that it's over the engine (I think) and not necessarily directly over the exhaust manifold on the Mazda, that's gotta count for something.

i would think low front mounting it would be better than top mounting it since center of gravity has more effect than polar inertia. so... why's the mazda6 have a sunroof? top mount is EASIER. that's the only reason they do it. wrx, same way. it's simple and easy, and different. so there.

[MerkXRTurbo]

What about the fact that it's over the engine (I think) and not necessarily directly over the exhaust manifold on the Mazda, that's gotta count for something.

Doesn't count for much. Just the head and block get extremely hot... even that's enough to heat soak an IC.

[Ed Lijewski]

What about the fact that it's over the engine (I think) and not necessarily directly over the exhaust manifold on the Mazda, that's gotta count for something.

i would think low front mounting it would be better than top mounting it since center of gravity has more effect than polar inertia. so... why's the mazda6 have a sunroof? top mount is EASIER. that's the only reason they do it. wrx, same way. it's simple and easy, and different. so there.

The Mazda6 has a sunroof; the MazdaSpeed6 doesn't offer it as an option (neither is leather seating available on that bad boy).

YMMV

[Ed Lijewski]

What about the fact that it's over the engine (I think) and not necessarily directly over the exhaust manifold on the Mazda, that's gotta count for something.

Doesn't count for much. Just the head and block get extremely hot... even that's enough to heat soak an IC.

It's not that simple...the air flowing constantly through the TCIC mitigates thermal load permeating it. And the TCIC in particular is covered by a quite solid (i.e., thick) steel housing on each end which appears likely to contribute to that. Also, air (space between turbo and manifold and TCIC) is an insulator although it will carry heat to other components in closed compartments--over time. Thus, provision for a small fan and/or ducting air from outside easily deals with that.

YMMV

[turbofan]

What about the fact that it's over the engine (I think) and not necessarily directly over the exhaust manifold on the Mazda, that's gotta count for something.

i would think low front mounting it would be better than top mounting it since center of gravity has more effect than polar inertia. so... why's the mazda6 have a sunroof? top mount is EASIER. that's the only reason they do it. wrx, same way. it's simple and easy, and different. so there.

The Mazda6 has a sunroof; the MazdaSpeed6 doesn't offer it as an option (neither is leather seating available on that bad boy).

YMMV

where do you get that it's not an option? boy, MOST mazdaspeed 6's come with leather. it's standard on the Grand Touring model. a power sliding moonroof is optional on the grand touring model and not available on the sport. come on Ed! http://www.mazdausa.com/MusaWeb/display ... leCode=MS6