DS3 Intercooler

[rthahira]

Wow, the discussion here runs up. Thanks for share the email Chris. Do you will buy it?

[Czar]

Response from Airtech:

hi chris. they are a larger surface area and thicker core, using airtecs well proven bar and plate design.

its so new i don t know the actual gains. all depends on your cars state of tune. generally the more tuned the better the gains and on a stock car i generally say about 10bhp and 10lbsft as a conservative estimate. they are hugely popular with the ford rs and st market.

if you have further questions. please do ask

thanks

Neil


sounds good to me

LOL, I am trying to educate anyone willing to read my posts, trying to open your eyes to the bewildering array of misguided information, which surrounds Intercoolers, bar and plate is not specific to Airtec, it's a very common form of Intercooler construction, the other alternative is tube and fin, there are pros and cons to both.

As I've mentioned before, Intercoolers do NOT add any additional HP, they merely maintain the maximum available HP given the thermal temperature parameters within the ECU for the given air intake temperatures which affect the advance or retardation of the variable timing camshaft phase.

That's a very interesting statement by Airtec, given that the greater the state of tune, and we all should know if you read my posts, that any increase in performance, increases the internal thermal temperatures, that their Intercoolers offer a greater thermal delta the harder it works, remember heat soak.

Furthermore, whether the Intercooler is new to the range, if it's been produced to in this case the Citroen DS3 shouldn't Airtec have all technical information available ?

Otherwise how can you produce an Intercooler for a specific vehicle, if you don't have any technical data to support what your offering for sale, a couple of questions spring to mind.

How do they know the correct volume of Intercooler core to produce, if they don't know the CFM output ?

Operational thermal delta, which would give the data for the above.

When a company offers their aftermarket Intercooler, shouldn't they have this data already, no matter how new to the range, or is it simply an Intercooler produced to fit within a given frontal area void, working on the larger volume theory, instead of actual time consuming individual vehicle specific calculations.

I'm not here to knock any individual aftermarket Intercooler manufacturer, just merely undoing the myths.

[Chris_Blue]

Wow, the discussion here runs up. Thanks for share the email Chris. Do you will buy it?

I would certainly buy it instead of Forge at £800+ and would attempt fitting myself I think

Will I do it before my warranty runs out- No
If the car gets too many issues (Just had the carbonned valves) they can have it back

If keep the car- would buy this as my first "après warranty" modification (More than likely keep the car)

[Hyperkev]

Haven't got a clue , but love reading the tec talk .

[Chris_Blue]

Would 2 OEM Intercoolers work better?

With the OEM cooler intake temps can race up to 70degrees causing timing intervention, this begins to happen at around 40 degrees. The forge cooler keeps the temps below this now, usually just few degrees above ambient. Like Czar said it's to do with cooling efficiency not size of the actual cooler. Have always thought moving the OEM cooler to a behind grill position would be a cheap effective mod.

Thanks for your help yesterday Jamie- top work as usual

Needing a bit of help understanding this

In relation to moving the OEM intercooler comment, would the benefit of that be the same or better, if an additional OEM intercooler was placed behind the front grill and tubed into the existing OEM intercooler in series. IE From OEM intercooler to new standard DS3 intercooler in a front grill position then onwards. Would it not give the cooling air more time to do its work as there would be dual intercoolers

Or just reposition the OEM. Problem is with this method, if it isn't effective its gotta be all put back.

[Czar]

Thanks for your help yesterday Jamie- top work as usual

Needing a bit of help understanding this

In relation to moving the OEM intercooler comment, would the benefit of that be the same or better, if an additional OEM intercooler was placed behind the front grill and tubed into the existing OEM intercooler in series. IE From OEM intercooler to new standard DS3 intercooler in a front grill position then onwards. Would it not give the cooling air more time to do its work as there would be dual intercoolers

Or just reposition the OEM. Problem is with this method, if it isn't effective its gotta be all put back.

In a nutshell Chris, you are overthinking, adding a second OEM Intercooler positioned behind the grille, making sure all of its face surface area is in the airstream, whilst linked in series with the original Intercooler which from my previous photo, shows less than 50% of its face surface area receiving any airstream flow, is completely pointless, impractical and will have no additional cooling benefit, the resulting extra tube work required to link it all together, will not only add heat, as it slows the charged air, the extra tube work and Intercooler will also rob charged pressure resulting in a lower charge pressure (boost psi)

Stop overthinking and complicating a simple solution, just relocate the stock OEM Intercooler, making sure it's face receives as much frontal airflow as possible, keeping all tube work as short and straight as possible.

[Chris_Blue]

^ Thanks Czar. You did ask us a couple years back to think about things. LOL.
Its just easier to add one, than move one.
Nice little summer job then, or maybe Forge if price is right :-)

[Czar]

^ Thanks Czar. You did ask us a couple years back to think about things. LOL.
Its just easier to add one, than move one.
Nice little summer job then, or maybe Forge if price is right :-)

LMAO, I did indeed, how on earth, do you come to that conclusion ? If you were going to add one, you've still to remove the front grille, bumper etc etc, just as you would to relocate the original.

[Chris_Blue]

LMAO, I did indeed, how on earth, do you come to that conclusion ? If you were going to add one, you've still to remove the front grille, bumper etc etc, just as you would to relocate the original.

Yes- but then if you want to put back to standard, you've got to do all the faffing again, and reposition it back
If theres just an extra intercooler, you can just snatch that out again, if you resell or whatever
And my common sense tells me the bigger area to cool, surely the more effective the cooling (And yes ive read your above posts:-)
Obvs I'm wrong

[BeefMasta]

Yes- but then if you want to put back to standard, you've got to do all the faffing again, and reposition it back
If theres just an extra intercooler, you can just snatch that out again, if you resell or whatever
And my common sense tells me the bigger area to cool, surely the more effective the cooling (And yes ive read your above posts:-)
Obvs I'm wrong

Why not see if you can get your local dealer to agree to overlook the moving of the stock intercooler?

If the only modification is a bit of extra pipework then you might be able to persuade them. It's surely better for the engine in the long term? (lower intake temps etc).

When/if you do it though, you need to make a note of intake temps before and after, to see how much of a difference it makes.

[Chris_Blue]

Good comment Beef. But think I'd rather keep them out of it TBH. Just go to them on warranty issues

My intake temps aren't too bad, as the bonnet vents really help a lot with engine bay temperatures
Was driving pretty hefty speeds on 250 miles of motorway yestday- and went between 9-15 deg c
M25 Car park lot for an hour, and it only peaked at 23deg c.

Its the summer that concerns me- hit almost 50deg c on a hot day in traffic last year. Think that was pre bonnet vents tho

[Czar]

Yes- but then if you want to put back to standard, you've got to do all the faffing again, and reposition it back
If theres just an extra intercooler, you can just snatch that out again, if you resell or whatever
And my common sense tells me the bigger area to cool, surely the more effective the cooling (And yes ive read your above posts:-)
Obvs I'm wrong

LOL, yes on this occasion your common sense has let you down, the temperature differential between the two Intercoolers, will actually go against what you are trying to achieve, it is easier for air to be heated than cooled, the more time the air spends passing through one Intercooler, along the additional tube work, passing through the second Intercooler, then taking the extended route to the inlet manifold, you will find that for all that extra work, the inlet temperatures will not have reduced, you may even find a slight increase in temperature.

Why not see if you can get your local dealer to agree to overlook the moving of the stock intercooler?

If the only modification is a bit of extra pipework then you might be able to persuade them. It's surely better for the engine in the long term? (lower intake temps etc).

When/if you do it though, you need to make a note of intake temps before and after, to see how much of a difference it makes.

Actually lowering the intake temperatures which affects combustion temperatures, is not as good as you might think, all GDI (gasoline direct injection) engines have been designed to run hotter than regular port injection engines.

Two reasons, greater MPG and secondly reduced emissions, yes a cooler intake temperature charge has benefits, you can't have it all, you either have power or fantastic MPG.

Good comment Beef. But think I'd rather keep them out of it TBH. Just go to them on warranty issues

My intake temps aren't too bad, as the bonnet vents really help a lot with engine bay temperatures
Was driving pretty hefty speeds on 250 miles of motorway yestday- and went between 9-15 deg c
M25 Car park lot for an hour, and it only peaked at 23deg c.

Its the summer that concerns me- hit almost 50deg c on a hot day in traffic last year. Think that was pre bonnet vents tho

All these quoted temperature figures are not what they seem, let's take the above quoted figures, so we see that the air intake temperatures are 9°c - 15°c these temperatures are not what go into the cylinder/s, these figures are calculated by the air temperature/pressure sensor, once the air has passed this sensor, the air very quickly starts to increase from the thermal heat produced in the inlet manifold and cylinder head.

That said, the air temperature/pressure sensor, is quite vital, it's the calculated values from this sensor, which are responsible for timing advancement and retardation, as well as fuel trims and fuel injection shots during the compression and power strokes, so if you've got you're head around that, getting cool air to this sensir can have advantages, yet it can also play havoc with MPG and emmisions.

[Chris_Blue]

When watching the air intake, I can see the timing variating a fair bit, obviously relative to throttle use
Its fantastic to see the ECU controlling all that

In an above post, Jamie suggests that an air intake of 40 deg Celsius manifests at around 70dec Celsius within the engine
So that's the temperature I certainly don't want to go above as an intake temp

My thought process next spring will be in relocating the OEM intercooler :-)


Not worried bout MPG too much- its Power that I want So long as the engine can handle it
Get that heat out!!

Maybe even bigger bonnet vents eh

[Ragnarok]

You guys make this unbelieveable complicated

Czar is talking about racing conditions and Chris considers A/C cooled IC

I am lazy and have lust for comfort. Just threw in an oversized Clemens-Motorsport IC and it has served it's purpose perfectly for a daily mini-sporty car.

Anyways keep going *grabs a new bag of popcorn* :Joni:

[Czar]

N

When watching the air intake, I can see the timing variating a fair bit, obviously relative to throttle use
Its fantastic to see the ECU controlling all that

In an above post, Jamie suggests that an air intake of 40 deg Celsius manifests at around 70dec Celsius within the engine
So that's the temperature I certainly don't want to go above as an intake temp

My thought process next spring will be in relocating the OEM intercooler :-)


Not worried bout MPG too much- its Power that I want So long as the engine can handle it
Get that heat out!!

Maybe even bigger bonnet vents eh

Larger bonnet vents will not reduce engine temperatures or indeed reduce air intake temperatures, relative to the vent opening size.

Here's a little tip for you on controlling and reducing combustion temperatures, which is vital as you increase power, remember increase power you increase the heat, and heat is an engine killer.

The somewhat overlooked and forgotten spark plug, is crucial in removing combustion cylinder heat, I can see a series of questions coming, LMAO.