vag.gary

is a charg cooler better than a fmic ?????

jonny gav

iTrader: (1)

No, they are a lot less efficient due to the layout of the subaru engine.

silent running

That's a pretty broad question with no real definite answer - a bit like is blue better than red. It depends on what you need out of the car.

GavinP

At the risk of digging up an old thread - how is that ?

Fitting a RS Legacy air/water chargecooler to a WRX

Thanks

Gavin

dunx

iTrader: (3)

Better suited to areas with extremely high ambient temperatures, like Greece.

imho

dunx

The Rig

iTrader: (13)

ive got all the bits from a legacy chargecooler i was going to fit to my wrx but have never got around to it,i have measured inlet temps and moving the temps havent got higher than 35/40 degrees c, staionary howver,touches 70 easy with heatsoak !

silent running

I guess probably the easiest way to summarise it is that to me there are two advantages to a chargecooler system: 1 - it makes light work of plumbing/routing problems in a tight engine bay and you can have the boost circuit as short as in the original Subaru TMIC layout, which is a major advantage. All you need to do is run a couple of narrow water pipes down to the cc rad at the front. 2 - there is a lot more heatsink potential in a chargecooler system - it takes ages to get any significant heat into it at all under the most arduous of conditions and it evens out temp spikes in a way that no intercooler can. Downside of this is that it takes a while to get the heat out of the system at all, although if it's doing its job properly the system should never get near as hot as an intercooler system would in places.

GavinP

There is an old article here where the different top mount intercoolers are compared and the Legacy chargecooler does pretty well:

Autospeed article

The real eye opener in that article however is how bad the turbo to intercooler pipe is for most of the factory units

Part 1 of the article is here

Thanks

Gavin

scooby1doo1

iTrader: (7)

O.K so what intercooler is best for my00 ( the sti7 )

jonny gav

iTrader: (1)

The question was is a charge cooler better than a front mounted intercooler!
All charge coolers use a standard top mounted intercooler size heat exchanger that is easily overpowered by by the heat of the charge going through it in turn not cooling the air.
A front mount has enough surface area to cool the air due to the size of the core.
In my opinion a charge cooler in no better than a top mounted intercooler.

GavinP

I would recommend a read of this article which explains how air/water intercoolers work...

The Complete Guide to Intercooling - Part 2

silent running

??? Since when is every chargecooler heat exchanger a standard fixed size? And even if they were, which is ridiculous, the exchanger's performance is not just a function of its size alone! It is down to internal design, water flow through it, pump capacity, size of the front mounted rad etc. You can't just claim 'it would be easily overpowered'. The front mount intercooler that you claim is much much better, works because it is in the position where normally a water rad goes. Which is where a chargecooler's water rad goes as well! A chargecooler system is easily capable of doing everything an intercooler can - and better in some cases such as offshore power boats where I understand they use seawater to get the charge temps below ambient air temp which no intercooler can ever do in normal air-air operation.

scooby1doo1

iTrader: (7)

As above

GavinP

Firstly I would recommend measuring your intake air temperature to see if you need to upgrade your intercooler.

If an upgrade is required, the decison would come down to your other modifications, what type of driving do you do/average speed, how much time is spent on boost and if you do trackdays.

Speaking in very general terms, a good air/water unit works VERY effectively if you spend relatively small amounts of time on boost (which allows the water to cool down between periods of boost) but if you spend a lot of time on boost (i.e. do trackdays), a good air/air intercooler is a better choice.

Thanks

Gavin