Recommend me a race turbo setup
 

Hi There

I've running a water-to-air turbo kit for a while and just can't get the temps low enough for my liking. Time to move to air-to-air. I've been out of the 86 scene for a few years and lost track of which manufacturer is doing what and if there has been any stand-out winners emerge over the last few years.

I'm looking for 350kW (470hp) the wheels and aim is to keep inlet air temp to 20C over ambient.

All the supporting mods are there (CP Carillo internals at 12.5:1, Motec ECU, sequential gearbox, brakes, e85 Flex fuel, crash bar etc).

I'm after the best engineered, highest quality option kit that just works.

How do you expect a air-to-air intercooler to perform better than a air-to-water one?

Bigger more efficient turbo.
Water/meth injection.

Both

See attached. This shows that the intercooler water temp grows over time and drags the air temp with it.

There is a 10-20C degree delta between each set of temperatures in a heat exchange process as they are not 100% efficient. Intercooler water stays say 15-20C above ambient, intake air another 15-20 above that again.

A bigger, more efficient turbo is part of my question.
I'm not doing water/meth injection

and removing your air-to-water system to put an air-to-air one should cool the intake charge temp down better ?

Welcome back.



For track use and low temps it is still hard to beat P-Tuning Competition kit. The only downside is slightly more chargepiping costing a fraction of transient response. If I were ever go back to another turbo setup on this playform I'd easily pay the premium price to get away from the front mounted setups.

Do what @CSGMike did.

I've always wanted to see the PTuning kit with an air to water intercooler mounted on top of the engine. It should make the transient response on par with any other kit and you get the excellent hot side setup. Though clearly that wouldn't help OP.

What kind of racing do you plan on doing? (i.e. drag, autocross, sprint, endurance, airstrip, etc.)

Water can absorb more heat in bursts. You just have to also be able to shed that heat, and packaging becomes a challenge.

Real world example: Ferrari vs Mclaren.

Shouldnt air to air work better than water to air? Unless im missing something, in a water to air sytem you still need to cool down that water, that in turn is used to cool down the air. Two steps = less efficiency in the overall heat exchange (loss at each step).

Sorry OP, I have no idea regarding turbo setups. I swapped to an LS because I didnt think any turbo setup would beat the reliability and power delivery of a big NA engine.

Sort of.

The water can absorb more heat faster out of air (charge to intercooler), then air can; the delta is larger. But then, the water has to shed that heat back into the air (intercooler to ambient), which is more difficult to do, since the delta is now smaller.

Double edged sword.

I don't think OP's goal of 20C over ambient is very realistic at that power level, unless OP has huge money to burn on the cooling setup. It will require far more than just a bolt-on kit.

at that WHP he is going to have more than just cooling issues to worry about. 470 is a pretty lofty goal and under race conditions(still don't know what type) you better have a pretty large check book.