Good points except that the water to air still has to have a heat exchanger to reject heat to the air at some point. If you have a large resevoir you will take a long time to heat it all up, but you will eventually have to cool it down too. Ideally you have a dedicated heat exchanger(read: small radiator) for the water-air intercooler and a resevoir that can be cooled below ambient by adding ice for greater than 100% efficiency. However, when the ice is gone it should still work as well as a normal air-air intercooler. Packaging is just easier and piping is smaller though the overall system is more complicated.

warmonger

Former owner of '99 CSVT - Silver #222/2760 356/334 wHP/TQ at 10psi on pump gas! See My Mods '05 Volvo S40 Turbo 5 AWD with 6spd, Passion Red '06 Mazda5 Touring, 5spd,MTX, Black