So most of you have seen photos and details on our 1995 Nitro Yellow Green Neon with SRT-4 swap.
Its been running great, but while doing some monitoring of the engine with a Aeroforce Scangauge we were able to notice that air intake temperatures were varying wildly between the air intake temp before the turbo and the air intake temp AFTER The intercooler.
Now, naturally, by the time the incoming air passes through the air intake, and the blazing hot turbo, the temperature will raise by 30-80 degrees. By the time it passes through the intercooler, the temperature should drop another 25-30 degrees.
However, thats assuming that the air thats hitting the intercooler is passing THROUGH the intercooler and not going around, or over the top or bottom of the intercooler. If you have air going through the front bumper, hitting the intercooler and bypassing the intercooler you’ll be losing intercooler efficiency.
If you look at factory turbocharged cars, the intercooler is ALWAYS sealed so that air will pass through the intercooler and not bypass it.
After studying our swap car, we came to the following conclusion:
– Air was hitting the intercooler, and then going below the intercooler and out the bottom of the car
– Air was hitting the intercooler and then going above the intercooler and through the radiator
So here is what we did :
We constructed a sheet metal plate that attached onto the crash bar that sealed off the air from going over top of the intercooler.
We constructed a sheet metal plate that covered the bottom of the intercooler that prevented air from escaping below the intercooler.
After doing the sheet metal work to improve air flow through the intercooler we noticed about a 10-15 degree temperature drop due to more air being blown through, and sucked through the intercooler.
