Has anyone tried building a custom charge cooler setup?

[bluesleeper 3]

Hey guys, saw a random picture on the Web of an inlet manifold with a built in charge cooler setup. (sorry can't remember where it was now!) 

I was wondering if anyone had thought about doing it on here? 

I may have a go with my supercharged Mi 16 possibly. 

[boldy205 74]

Cant say I have. Obviously normal charge cooler setups have been done. Thought the idea of air to air was simplicity,  weight (no water) and packaging? I may be wrong.

[Biggles 65]

Air to water can be great for packaging as they can be so small albeit with the added 'complexity' of an additional water circuit.  The ones on VAG TSI stuff are tiny - a colleague got some 1.0 TSI Skoda as a hire car a few months back and the intercooler took some finding it was so small.

[welshpug 1,621]

Subaru used it wayy back on the early Legacy, I think when the Impreza arrived they soon went top mount intercooler instead.

 

I do recall quite some time ago a member on here started building that charge cooler system into a 205, no idea what came of that one and every turbo and supercharger equipped car I've seen since has had an intercooler.

[xstian 12]

I fitted a charge cooler to my diesel 205. The main reason for doing it was, I had one in the shed and wanted to get rid of the top mount intercooler, before it blew another head gasket. The diesel runs cooler temps and has been fine. 

 

With a petrol it would definitely need a much bigger pre-rad to keep temps down. At which point it becomes difficult to justify the advantages over a front mount air-air intercooler.

 

A chargecooler built into the inlet manifold would be a very cool build though and you could potentially save loads of room in the engine bay. Google image "chargecooler inlet manifold" brings up a few interesting home made jobs. I think Jaguar did this on the supercharged XK8. 

 

 

[jackherer 543]

16 hours ago, welshpug said:

Subaru used it wayy back on the early Legacy, I think when the Impreza arrived they soon went top mount intercooler instead.

 

I do recall quite some time ago a member on here started building that charge cooler system into a 205, no idea what came of that one and every turbo and supercharger equipped car I've seen since has had an intercooler.

That was James (phyr). He ran a Legacy charge cooler which worked well for him.

 

6 hours ago, xstian said:

With a petrol it would definitely need a much bigger pre-rad to keep temps down.

James used a second 205 gti rad in front of the original one.

 

Doesn't the 405 T16 use a charge cooler? I think the same one was also fitted to 605/XM 2.5 turbo diesels.

[Tom Fenton 1,524]

The trouble for me in a 205 is the engine bay is already busy. Adding a second water circuit, header tank, pump, radiator, etc, just makes it worse! An intercooler can be achieved easily enough without the extra complexity of a charge cooler.

[SRDT 146]

Yes the 405 T16 was using a chargecooler, basically the same than the 605 2.5 turbo diesel.

The 405 had a special 2 in 1 radiator:

 

 

On the 605 it was a secondary radiator:

 

With a supercharger you have less heat so you don't need something this big and even on supercharged 90° V6 and V8 you mostly find twin chargecoolers that don't take much of the space left inside the V.

[bluesleeper 3]

Some great replies, with interesting thoughts. I think I need to delve deeper. My thinking behind it was it would kill two birds with one stone, as in modify the manifold to fit the supercharger better and get rid of the need to mount a great big intercooler.

Cheers guys. 

Gareth. 

[jackherer 543]

I just remembered James wrote this when he fitted his -

 

I can't believe that was 18 years ago.