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Thread: Vertical vs. Horizontal Intercoolers

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Posts: 21-29 of 29
2012-03-25 09:54:35
#21
Originally Posted by ashtonsser
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.



I agree that the change in power is small but all the small things add up. And I think what you mean about the intercoolers "cooling ability" being most important is it's efficiency. If an intercooler is only cooling a pin hole sized tube to -30 and bottle-necking all the air going through it to 1% of what the turbo can push, that -30 is going to do any good.

The big problem about having lots of bends is each 45* bend drops the pressure like 3%. So the boost at the start of the turbo system will x% higher than what the intake is seeing, this is pressure drop. Then every time you shift or your boost drops the turbo takes longer to spool back up, it injects x amount higher temps into the intake, and it works the turbo harder. That all adds up more the more power the car is making. It could mean the difference between a car that is knocking and one that's not. If you are going up and down your gears a lot it could mean car lengths and so on....
Last edited by jere on 2012-03-26 at 07-17-14.
2012-03-25 09:57:05
#22
Originally Posted by javierb14
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

...


Looks just like mine except it's still shiny and clean :o





Last edited by jere on 2012-03-25 at 18-59-52.
2012-03-26 01:53:40
#23
Nice! I test fit the intercooler and have a little more tweaking to do, but it sure looks like it will fit.

This is the intercooler i'm using.
Top to Bottom Intercooler





2012-03-26 02:31:12
#24
What is the length of that core. The length looks about as tall as my intercooler is. If so thats not a lot of surface area. Seems like the end tanks take up a lot of space whereas a horizontal intercooler the end tanks are easier to accomidate making more room for a larger core. You could always do a horizontal flow intercooler and still get your piping back on the same side if you chose to and they make horizontal intercoolers with custom end tanks for that.

A good example are the intercooler kits for the Civic SI and EP3 where the inlet/outlet is on the same side. There are a couple options that do this.

Dual pass horizonatal



And one with piping to bring the inlet/outlet on the same side.



And a final note: I think horizontal intercoolers look way better than verticals. IMHO
2012-03-26 02:46:09
#25
The specs are listed on the link. I could design/fab a really nice V-FMIC, but it wouldn't be $169 We have used these in the past on budget builds and they work very well, performance/$ ratio is pretty good. Also, avoid dual pass if you can, pressure drops are greater with that design and sealing the inlet/outlet can be tricky.
2012-03-26 03:52:21
#26
Is that a traction bar on the B13?
2012-03-26 05:52:49
#27
Originally Posted by javierb14





money shot....

i think that bar is a mounting point for those awesome harbor freight jack stands
2012-03-26 12:04:25
#28
I could spend hours researching and breaking down the fluid mechanics to answer this question definitively and quantify the actual difference in results, but I am sure the results would show that the difference is fairly minor.

The primary advantage of a vertical cooler, as far as the fluid mechanics, is the difference in the mass flow per unit surface area inside the heat exchanger. The internal surface area is directly proportional to the cross-sectional area of the tubes core, so for comparison, you can just use that.

I'll try to come up with some equations later. Mass flow can be considered constant, as can the internal volume of the intercooler. The vertical will be *better* than the horizontal due to two factors, time spent in the core and density in the core. The question is how much better they actually are.
2012-03-27 04:28:46
#29
Originally Posted by P10FTW
Is that a traction bar on the B13?


Originally Posted by Dema
money shot....

i think that bar is a mounting point for those awesome harbor freight jack stands


that lower bar runs from tow hook to tow hook and has "anti torque" mounts coming off of it for the engine block and transmission. just so happens that it's super easy to lift the lowered car from the bar and set it on my awesome jack stands i'll probably add a nub for the jack in the future.
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