Who wants an intercooler for Vortech Cars

Hey all, I'm trying to guage interest in the possibility of making a water to air intercooler for the vortech cars. I'm currently working with Keyser to get the main pieces and then will be doing the fabbing and fitting on my car as soon as I get the engine dropped back in. I'm doing this for my own purposes right now, but if there is enough interest I will offer it as a kit from Buckshot Motorsports. Rough estimate on cost is around a grand or less. This is the same setup as on the turbo cars with the exception of different end tanks and this will also have an option of an upgraded blowoff valve to replace that piece of junk bosch one that comes with the kit. Please post here if you are interested and have the money to put in on this. With any luck the kit would be ready mid spring.

Thanks,
Rick

I would, but then again that would be giving my 'new' plans away wouldn't it??

DOH!

Rick,

I thought someone had installed an older eclipse intercooler
onto their svt, and that it would work w/a hood vent.

wouldn't that be a cheaper alternative? I'd really like an intercooler
but $1k is not in my price range....

Simon (fst4dr) was working on getting the old style air to air intercooler fit up to his car. I beleive he had a problem with gluing some of the tubing onto the intercooler and it not holding up to the air pressure. In theory you can mount about any type of intercooler you want and air to air would probably be your cheapest with the amount of old cores to be had on ebay fairly cheap. This setup will be similar to what vortech offers for the mustang crowd at a cost of $1500.

Rick

Originally posted by Buckshot77:
This setup will be similar to what vortech offers for the mustang crowd at a cost of $1500.

I was about to say a water to air IC kit for under a grand is a deal!

...but you beat me too it...

Something else to mention is that air to air isn't nearly as effective as water to air, especially come race day when you can pour ice in your coolant tank!!! Cheap = make and air to air yourself, hack a hole in the hood, or run pipes to under the front bumper, yet stil not be as effective as the water to air. Which brings up another advantage of water to air in most cases... it minimizes the piping = less boost wasted running through extra lengths to get to the engine.

The only real downside to a water to air is the added complexity that the water circuit brings w/ it.

and for the record, in my educated opinion, the Vortech kit desperately needs an intercooler . . .

Actually the water circuit is pretty dang simple on this one. Just a nice closed continuous loop with about 8 hook ups in it and some simple plumbing.

Ya, I wanted to bump my boost to 12 psi so I pretty much have to go intercooled since I'm not dropping the CR on the pistons. I also don't think the trim on this S/C will pump out much more than that on our cars.

Rick

That was a good quetion I once had. I did some looking on vortechs website and its good up to 20psi. Ricklee is supposidly pumping out 15 psi in his 2.7 cougar. He had an intecooler made by spearco. I am not sure weather it was air to air or air to water. What do you think about vortechs intecooler units? There was one unit that it looked like if you clocked the outlet that it would work with are cars.

I'm figuring with my extended redline and smaller pulley I'm probably able to go up to the 15 psi range on my 3L but I don't plan on running that high unless I'm really in the mood to blow something up. I'm upgrading my BOV as well so at least I'll be able to adjust it on that route. I saw 9 psi at 6K when the engine blew last time and this time I'm running a smaller pulley yet and the redline is going to be set at 8K. I'm not sure of the vortech stuff as I didn't look too closely. Basically this is a spearco core and then the rest of the kit was put together by Keyser and I'm making the modifications to fit it for the vortech. From holding it up in place it should be a very nice install.

Rick

Originally posted by Buckshot77:
Actually the water circuit is pretty dang simple on this one. Just a nice closed continuous loop with about 8 hook ups in it and some simple plumbing.

Rick

Sure, but simply having the water circuit is added complexity. Not that a little added complexity is horrible or anything (heck the Vortech itself is a LOT of added complexity!) especially not when it is justified.

I think the added complexity is quite justified, given the dire need of charge cooling on the vortech setup, and the extremely limited package space.

While $1000 is a lot of cash, it is certainly not unreasonable for a good water to air IC, heck a good air to air core alone can run you $700 or more. in addition to the other fabrication and part costs to fit it to your application.

I want one! I did try the Eclipse style intercooler, but I would have had to cut a hole in the hood for air and I was not up for that. This is just what I want and WILL buy one if you offer it.

Originally posted by fst4dr:
I want one! I did try the Eclipse style intercooler, but I would have had to cut a hole in the hood for air and I was not up for that. This is just what I want and WILL buy one if you offer it.

Woohoo, my first taker! LOL Simon, I should have mine up and running in a few months so I will keep you posted. I held the tank up to the S/C tubes on another car I'm working on last night and it should be a very nice fit.

Rick

Rick

I'll take one, but, I would like to see some pictures of the kit and HP numbers before I give you a 100% commitment.

Chris, not a problem. I'll be doing the beta testing on my own car with dyno numbers as well. They won't be a direct relation due to the fact I'll be running a 3 liter with more boost and such but we should be able to at least get a with and without peak HP number for comparison reasons.

Thanks,
Rick

A big thing folks should think about is that in weather over 60 degrees an intercooler is going to let the engine produce significantly more power and do it much safer.

The Vortech is notorious for dropping power and boost with it gets hot out or hot underhood. Sometimes it's like losing 20% of the power you already had!

Originally posted by DemonSVT:

The Vortech is notorious for dropping power and boost with it gets hot out or hot underhood. Sometimes it's like losing 20% of the power you already had!

I agree. For this very reason, I finally removed the hood liner. We're talking some serious "heat stroke" when I was driving the car just after it was put back on the road. It was almost as if the the engine was seizing up, relatively speaking. It lost that much power when the underhood temps got very hot.

Originally posted by Buckshot77:
Chris, not a problem. I'll be doing the beta testing on my own car with dyno numbers as well. They won't be a direct relation due to the fact I'll be running a 3 liter with more boost and such but we should be able to at least get a with and without peak HP number for comparison reasons.

Thanks,
Rick

Excellent, I suppose I have to install a smaller pulley and change out the bypass valve too.