Thread: Vertical vs. Horizontal Intercoolers

im just recapping what a inter-coolers function is, and the dynamics of the system. im still kind of drunk but im pretty sure i didnt stay on topic and im also sure i never said to use a horizontal or vertical ic. just to use your head and rationality, but yeah if that guy made numbers like that thats pretty cool, wonder why more ppl dont use a ic like that? must make that much of a improvement!

Dema, you're falling into the trap of thinking that pressure makes power. It doesn't. Flow makes power. No matter what, you want flow, not pressure. Effectively, there is no such thing as too large of an intercooler. Yes, a 60" x 60" x 6" intercooler may be too big, but you get the idea.

thats what im saying? i must be not articulating well atm, ill come back to this thread later

I am swapping radiators tomorrow I will get some of the NX then.

Here is basically the styles I am talking about the top one is the best design, the bottom one gets heat soaked on the right side by the inlet and outlet unless you weld in a divider.





I tried to find a picture of an IC with a divider but google images failed me The divider is a flat piece of metal that runs from the middle of IC inlet (inside the endtank) to the middle of the core. It forces air to both sides of the intercooler.

You are right about minimizing the volume in the turbo charger system. This is a good thing to a point in some situations. I disagree with Ben's personal idea about this, but all I know is what I read in some books like max boost and that is a whole new off topic argument.

Another way to look at the differences between the two core styles is the traditional core bottle necks the air through the system more than the top to bottom feed. It is like the difference between a stock sr maf and a 300zx maf, the traditional core is like the stock sr maf. It has tiny inner diameter compared to the z maf, so the air gets slowed down.

If you are cooling to ambient temps with a certain size at high boost then anything bigger would be too big...

Here's the vertical flow FMIC I picked up for the b13...I'll try and get to mounting it tomorrow to show fitment. It's the basic style import FMIC that cost less than $200

Most big power cars run water to air intercoolers with inlet and outlets on the same side. Doesn't seem to hurt anything.
And also don't you plan on running a back door intercooler setup, that's also two 90 degree turns.

I'm thinking about doing something like this with custom tanks and a good core, my only concern was the heat soaking on one side but I'm gonna think about a divider setup now.
I like the idea of having more bars of less length. The only time temp. Changes rapidly is at the first contact of a cooler surface, then change takes more time, so the 2nd half of a long cooler prob. Isn't cooling significantly. Therefore its a waste. Where as on the vertical there is more oppertunities for initial contact with the cooler surface, and less air per bar, leading to better efficiency.

Yes, I plan on running a dual backdoor but the way the intercooler is designed it curves into the core fairly smoothly.

Thing with the dual backdoor intercooler is that it shortens my piping by literally about 6 feet and removes about 5 90 deg bends in the piping so its a trade-off but honestly if you think of how compressed air work it really doesnt matter much how the piping or intercooler is, Its going to pressurize and flow through every given area of the piping, endtanks, and intercooler core. Your not going to have more airflow over one section than another during boost, at least not enought to matter.

What mainly matters on an intercooler is its cooling ability and thats really all there is to it. Most w2a intercoolers are fairly small cores but have very large cooling abilities because water can gather and remove heat better than air not to mention the ability to cool below ambient.

There is some good pics on honda-tech going over intercoolers, ebay vs greddy vs garrett vs precision and so on giving core pictures and some real life numbers with them. Its already proven the garrett cores are by far the best cores out there nothing else even coming close to competing and its clear in the design as to why.

Once i see how my massive ebay intercooler does and if it proves to be a problem at the power level im shooting for then ill be moving to a 5" thick 12" tall 24" wide garrett core and do custom backdoor endtanks.

This whole arguement of vertical vs horizontal is pointless. Id say pick the one that best works with your setup to make the piping as short as possible and not have any clearance issues. As for performance, its negligable at most everyone here's power levels.

the thread.. what happened to it? is the thread over now? was it just /'d?