Grs Intercoolers Possible Group Buy

August 18, 2004

Website: www.grsmotorsport.co.uk email:graham@grsmotorsport.co.uk

IC Details: Will be a 3 core with 2 or 2.5inch piping, pricing is around £425 + postage.

My original idea was to get a charge cooler made up to help keep our valuable temperatures as low as we can get them, however what he has experienced is that any thing over 14 psi shows a decrease in the efficiency this is what he came back to me

“Charge Coolers are only efficient up to 14 psi. The problem with a charge cooler is that heat sock is experienced when stopped in traffic, once on the move it takes about 4-5 miles for the water in the system to cool down, where as with a intercooler the charge air is been cooled instantly and of course its less complicated i.e. nothing to go wrong. When cars run high boost the water can't be cooled down quick

enough because of high ACT's, this is why you don’t see rally cars using them!

The above was proved last year, I built a charge cooler for a Series 1 RS Turbo 3 years ago running 14psi ACT’s 40 degrees, the car ran really well with no problems. The customer then decided last year he wanted more boost so the car was chipped to a higher spec 20 psi, but the car seamed more lethargic! This was because the air temps had crept above 60 degree causing the ignition to !Removed! and amal valve to shut, I then built a large intercooler, reducing the ACT’s to 30-40 degree’s and then came back to life with more power!!”

The intercoolers are constructed very well, I have seen them and they do look very good. I asked Graham to tell me a bit about the intercoolers: -

“The cores I use are vacuum brazed and not glued together like some!, Vacuum brazed cores release the heat better than glued cores which hold the heat in longer.

All my intercooler are manufactured by hand, and the quality of my workmanship is second to none. I was offered a job with the Williams GP team 8 years ago, which I was unable to take at the time.

GRSmotorsport has been running for nearly 5 years, the fastest Ford Escort RS Turbos and Fiesta Rs Turbos in the country use my intercooler and radiators. I have sent intercooler and radiators to most of the European countries and have just started manufacturing intercoolers for the Mini Cooper S for Taiwan, Hong Kong, USA and the Philippines.

All GRSmotorsport products are discounted, and are made to order only

Graham”

At present I would like a list of names for the people who are interested in the group buy. I will not be handling money and therefore will not be making any profit on the product.

Many thanks

Liam

link

August 18, 2004

I was under the impression that charge coolers were better.

August 19, 2004

I was under the impression that charge coolers were better.

You're correct Jimlad.

The only reason you'd suffer from heat soak and therefore increased charge temps on a chargecooler is if the cooling system of the chargecooler itself was not up to spec. If the pump wasn't doing it's job, if the water reservoir was not big enough to disperse the heat and if the water/cooler matrix was not big or efficient enough then you could suffer from the water heating up and keeping some heat in the cooler. Bare in mind though that you can't compare an RS Turbo to an MR2 Turbo. An RS Turbo is front engined and has force fed air straight into an intercooler... so an intercooler will always be more efficient on a car that has the cooler in a direct airstream... i.e. the front bumper with gaping hole.

This is very unlike an MR2 which is mid-engined and struggles to get a great flow rate into the engine bay. The side 'intakes' do not force air in. The volume per minute is relatively low. A chargecooler is not influenced by a direct airflow... therefore you will notice the biggest difference when switching from intercooler to chargecooler on the MR2. You do, however, need to put the water cooler matrix into a direct airflow to cool the water that is cooling the charge temps. On a drag strip a common trick is to fill the water reservoir up with ice just before the run... as long as you have a filter in place to stop the ice cubes blocking up the lines!!!

An intercooler with more rows and larger core is more efficient than the stock one... but not by much. The pure engineering of the car limits the efficiency of the intercooler. Bare in mind that the larger the core, the more air it has to cool in the same amount of time from entering to leaving the intercooler. You could get round the airstream issue of the car by roof mounting the intercooler... but then due to the increased length of hard pipework, you'd increase turbo lag. This is the reason the Ford RS200 roof mounted the intercooler on the rally versions... the turbo lag was less obvious due to the lairy cams it was running anyway.

Admittedly it is quite a good price... but I'm still going chargecooler.

August 19, 2004

Yip... I'm going charge cooler too once Roguesystems have their one finished.

August 19, 2004

i can definatly reccomend grs to anyone, graham built the intercooler and rad for my 1.9 240bhp fiesta, on some days i saw ACT temps of -3 :eek: (it was cold anyway outside) but they averaged out between 14-20c on normal days. plus the build quality is amazing graham really knows what he is on about when it comes to cooling.

the same design as mine worked on a 550bhp fiesta with no heating probs at all!

August 19, 2004

read jesus' post about Front engine and rear engine cars etc.... might be good for you, but not the best for a MR2.

August 19, 2004

i can definatly reccomend grs to anyone, graham built the intercooler and rad for my 1.9 240bhp fiesta, on some days i saw ACT temps of -3 (it was cold anyway outside) but they averaged out between 14-20c on normal days. plus the build quality is amazing graham really knows what he is on about when it comes to cooling.
the same design as mine worked on a 550bhp fiesta with no heating probs at all!

I don't doubt their workmanship at all... just highlighting the pure mechanics of the MR2. It doesn't matter how well made an intercooler is if you can't get the right amount of air flow/supply for it to work efficiently.

Not sure of temps of -3!!!

Off boost on a Rev3 charge temps are down to 15-30oC depending on ambience, but it's when you hit full boost that the party heats up. 120-130oC going into the intercooler... 60oCish coming out on the stock intercooler running about 16psi boost. Even a bigger intercooler would do very well to get temps down a further 10oC let alone 20oC to the maximum target temp of 40oC. Chargecoolers on MR2's have been track proven (where better?!) to keep charge temps down to ~35oC when running about 14psi and still only ~39-40oC when running about 20psi (which is way more than enough on a MR2 tubby). Obviously temperatures are dependant on ambient temperature/humidity and can drop quite significantly at intake. When boosting, even when just 4oC outside, you will still see over 100oC going into the intercooler at 16psi boost.

Make your own minds up gentlemen and ladies... and bare in mind a chargecooler is quite significantly more expensive than a comparative intercooler.

August 19, 2004

I guess it just depends on how far you want to take your MR2 in terms of performance. I'll be definately getting an IC, but I only plan on getting mine upto somewhere around 280bhp, and 15 psi.

Other owners may want more out of their engine, so a CC would be the way to go. Just a matter of how much you have to spend, and what you're prepared to live with at the end of the day.

August 19, 2004

I'm thinking CC & WI would be a good combo .. I'd do it, if I can't afford my other plans ..

August 19, 2004

i would love to get a roof mounted one like the rs200..so

nice...

August 20, 2004

cheers for coments people just need to save up and get one now :lol:

August 20, 2004

Yip... I'm going charge cooler too once Roguesystems have their one finished

It's ready now Jim - we're currently taking orders, quoting a 2 - 4 week delivery time and have a sizeable discount for orders placed before the end of the month!

In my opinion chargecooling is definitely the way to go with the MR2 Turbo, and for all of the reasons that Jesus stated earlier. This isn't just idle speculation either as the research has been done to back it up. The best place to start would be Neil Johnson's site:

ChargeCooler Figures

The interesting thing to note is that Neil was already running a Greddy/Trust intercooler before the chargecooler kit was installed so the figures show the improvements over and above an aftermarket IC. He got an increase of 10BHP simply by installing the chargecooler, and more after his car was remapped. Mark at Owen Developments was very impressed with the improvement, and I'm told he currently rates it as the *best* solution for MR2s.

We've also put together a car with the following spec:

Revison 2 3SGTE engine and gearbox

Owen Development Stage 2 CT-26 Turbo

ExtremeBoost 3" Downpipe

Helix Organic Clutch

Fidanza Flywheel

Walbro 255l/h Fuel Pump

Garage ********ui Departure2 Exhaust

Apexi Induction System

Apexi AVC-R

Greddy eManage

Aquamist 2c Water Injection System

Revision6 Engine Fans

Revision6 Chargecooler

On the dyno at Thor Racing we got 284BHP at the hubs - which is well over 300BHP at the flywheel. Impressive figures indeed for a revision 2 turbo, and Peter at Thor was convinced that it was the chargecooler making the difference. Incidentally, we achieved that figure after three hours solid on the Dyno on a very hot day. The front mounted pre-rad was fed by Thor's fans, and the intake temps barely budged the whole time. An IC would have heatsoaked after the first run...

Anyway, just thought this might be of interest,

Matt. :thumbsup: