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by Type_R on April 6th, 2005

Type_R

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Most cars use intercoolers for turbos. Wouldn't intercoolers be good just to bring cool air in so more oxygen could be burnt regardless of having a turbo?

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  • by Thom64 on April 16th, 2005

    Thom64

    The simple answer is: air that goes through a throttle body is already colder than ambient air, so you can't cool it with an intercooler - you would warm it up.

    As gas expands (goes from regular atmospheric to the partial vacuum in the intake manifold) it cools. For an intercooler to do any good, you have to have something significantly warmer than the atmospheric air you put through the intercooler to cool it.

    I guess an intercooler would be good IF you had some way to cool down the intake air even further - but that kind of refrigeration system would weigh too much and take too much power to justify.

    You would probably want to cool the air before it goes through the throttle to do the most good, and you would still have to cool it below the temperature a regular intercooler could provide.

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  • by 8 Jan 2004-10 Dec 2009 on April 6th, 2005

    8 Jan 2004-10 Dec 2009

    Technically, yes. However, the return on that investment on a non-turbo engine is considerably lessened. Part of the reason that forced-induction engines benefit from intercoolong is that the very act of compressing air like you do on the intake end of a turbo heats the air up (insert complicated physics here). Normally-aspirated engines don't suffer from that problem, so they wouldn't really get nearly as much benefit from intercooling.

    For a non-turbo engine, just get a decent cold-air intake ;)

    Response to Type_R - This isn't the area to go into a deep discussion of the Ideal Gas law or other thermodynamics.

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  • by mk4scjetta on September 29th, 2009

    mk4scjetta

    ok so i have a neuspeed supercharger on my car if i used a intercooler and put a filter on one side and ran th epiping to my intake inlet it will not bennifet me at ll?

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