N54 water to air intercooler street build

[bantam]

I found this picture online of somebodys e82 but this is what I have in mind. I will be doing this soon and can post up data from track before and after. Should make it more efficient.

I had the AA race intercooler on my car previously, it comes with a shroud. The resulting Iats were not much different than my ATM intercooler with no shroud.

One problem that I have with these shrouds and stepped intercoolers is that they effectively block airflow to the lower half of the condenser and radiator, not the best idea from an overall system performance view.

In my opinion, the factory fan shroud looks pretty restrictive from an airflow exit point of view. For a track car, I would look into cutting up the OEM shroud.

 

[bantam]

So I have more or less got the charge piping figured out, here is some info about the system. I took some measurements of the factory charge piping with my ATM intercooler vs my new layout so that I could get a rough idea of the changes that I am making. I was surprised at how much air volume that the M3 charge cooler holds. I bought an aftermarket M3 pipe to go from the TB to the IC, fittment is flawless, you just need to block off one port and add a port for your BOV of choice.

The poor rear turbo has to push the air almost 9ft and through quite a few bends to make it to the Throttle Body. I am hoping that these reductions in pipe length and turns will slightly improve high RPM performance for the small factory turbos.

The system volume decrease was actually much more modest than I was expecting, probably a result of using such large piping. A more fair comparison of system volume might be to compare this system to other "high flow" options.

If someone really had a strong desire to reduce the volume further for throttle response, they could use 1.5" OD tubing all of the way to the intercooler, but it really does look silly, plus it may be a restriction if you wanted to upgrade turbos in the future.

 

[Nugs]

ETS used to offer a carbon fiber shroud kit for their IC.

Evolution Racewerks does as well http://www.evolutionracewerks.com/node/50

 

[bennythebimmer]

I had the AA race intercooler on my car previously, it comes with a shroud. The resulting Iats were not much different than my ATM intercooler with no shroud.

One problem that I have with these shrouds and stepped intercoolers is that they effectively block airflow to the lower half of the condenser and radiator, not the best idea from an overall system performance view.

In my opinion, the factory fan shroud looks pretty restrictive from an airflow exit point of view. For a track car, I would look into cutting up the OEM shroud.

One thing that guys don't want to do, but is required to make an effective shroud is to cut the bumper some. If you are looking straight at the car it doesn't require cutting in that regard (like up or down). The recessed portion of the bumper that actually touches the FMIC face does need to be cut. This can be cut back and allows much more air to flow into the FMIC. This is especially important for the guys running a stepped design. The shroud for a stepped one will have to make almost an curve from the top and out the front of the bumper to make that ram air effect.

 

[bantam]

So I paid a visit to a welder that came highly recommended, the results were less than stellar for the tubing welds, and he essentially scrapped my custom heat exchanger (more on that later). The longer tube to the rear turbo is a bit funky as a result of me attempting to use a tubing expander to step my way up to the 2inch pipe from the 1.5" factory pipe. The expander was garbage, I would definitely suggest purchasing a 1.5->2" premade expansion like I did for the front turbo, it looks much better. I also didn't like the location of my BOV after I had initially placed it, so I had the welder patch over the hole I put there =/.

Pipes laid out:


BOV fittment:


Aftermarket M3 chargepipe fitment:


Front Turbo fitment:


Over engine view:


Original A2A charge system overview:


Bantam "F80 style" charge system:

 

[The Convert]

This is awesome! I'd love to see this on a single turbo setup.

 

[Rcboosted2007]

What ever came of the Vtto water/air set up

 

[ShocknAwe]

awesome. Great work so far.

 

[doublespaces]

Oh this is so interesting. The other thing I wanna see is the S55 block switched over.

 

[bantam]

Oh this is so interesting. The other thing I wanna see is the S55 block switched over.

If this engine craps out on me, I will try to explain to the wife that a LSX is the only logical replacement engine....

 

[iminhell1]

This is the most interesting thing going on in the scene to me right now.
Really interested in how the IAT stability turns out. And what results you can achieve using an ice box.

 

[Aaron]

Almost makes me wish I hadn't just bought the VRSF Race intercooler .

 

[The Convert]

Almost makes me wish I hadn't just bought the VRSF Race intercooler .

Makes me wanna drag my feet ten times harder with getting my car back up and running. The A2W routing would simplify my pipe routing so much.

 

[JBacon335]

I really am thinking this might be the hot ticket. Probably going to want to do this over getting upgraded outlets. I'll give my fmic to my brother

 

[dyezak]

This is inspiring

 

[doublespaces]

Personally, I'd like to see a someone make some proper routing for a single turbo. Then, have to figure out how everything is going to sit up front, and what other benefits this could hold.

 

[dyezak]

Personally, I'd like to see a someone make some proper routing for a single turbo. Then, have to figure out how everything is going to sit up front, and what other benefits this could hold.

Actually, with the A2A core on top of the intake manifold like that, a top mount single turbo would be super easy to route the piping. Like, almost cheating easy.

 

[dyezak]

Oh this is so interesting. The other thing I wanna see is the S55 block switched over.

What would be the benefit there?

 

[doublespaces]

What would be the benefit there?

Besides the oem closed deck, you've got no water pump in the way of bottom mount kits. Its a mechanical pump, on the front of the engine somewhere, or so I'm told.

Getting a deck closed isn't cheap, nor is the process perfect. This may be something people consider, particularly for anyone designing a custom bottom mount. Theres much more room once that water pump is gone.

 

[The Convert]

Besides the oem closed deck, you've got no water pump in the way of bottom mount kits. Its a mechanical pump, on the front of the engine somewhere, or so I'm told.

Getting a deck closed isn't cheap, nor is the process perfect. This may be something people consider, particularly for anyone designing a custom bottom mount. Theres much more room once that water pump is gone.

I wonder if we could just move the wp?