monster intercooler?
#23
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Fab9 welds tabs onto Vibrant ICs.
Sealing the IC to the mouth is just about the worst thing you can do for airflow. Most intercooler setups I see do it this way, and it's 100% wrong. BTDT. Radiator needs fresh air, and the only way to do that is to make the IC shorter (and fatter to maintain flow rate), then use a core design with turbulators (i.e. not Vibrant or anything from eBay) to improve efficiency and maintain low IATs with the smaller core. The painful realization is that nobody makes an intercooler that's correctly dimensioned for this application, yet. Ours will be.
Sealing the IC to the mouth is just about the worst thing you can do for airflow. Most intercooler setups I see do it this way, and it's 100% wrong. BTDT. Radiator needs fresh air, and the only way to do that is to make the IC shorter (and fatter to maintain flow rate), then use a core design with turbulators (i.e. not Vibrant or anything from eBay) to improve efficiency and maintain low IATs with the smaller core. The painful realization is that nobody makes an intercooler that's correctly dimensioned for this application, yet. Ours will be.
You need ambient air flow through the intercooler which requires a pressure differential it wont work for **** if you just stick it in a plenum area without forcing flow through it.
#24
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Yep. I tried this, I've never had a car overheat so fast.
![](https://www.miataturbo.net/attachments/diy-turbo-discussion-14/158187d1451261335-monster-intercooler-1.jpg)
This setup let my 350whp track car run 20min sessions at <215*F in 105*F heat. IATs were ~30*F above ambient. There are two sealed chambers behind the IC, one ducted to the top of the rad (fed by the upper mouth duct) and one ducted to the bottom of the rad (fed by the lower mouth duct). I suspect I could have dropped IATs a bit more by venting the IC under the radiator.
![](https://www.miataturbo.net/attachments/diy-turbo-discussion-14/158188d1451261335-monster-intercooler-2.jpg)
You need ambient air flow through the intercooler which requires a pressure differential it wont work for **** if you just stick it in a plenum area without forcing flow through it.
#26
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Fab9 welds tabs onto Vibrant ICs.
Sealing the IC to the mouth is just about the worst thing you can do for airflow. Most intercooler setups I see do it this way, and it's 100% wrong. BTDT. Radiator needs fresh air, and the only way to do that is to make the IC shorter (and fatter to maintain flow rate), then use a core design with turbulators (i.e. not Vibrant or anything from eBay) to improve efficiency and maintain low IATs with the smaller core. The painful realization is that nobody makes an intercooler that's correctly dimensioned for this application, yet. Ours will be.
Sealing the IC to the mouth is just about the worst thing you can do for airflow. Most intercooler setups I see do it this way, and it's 100% wrong. BTDT. Radiator needs fresh air, and the only way to do that is to make the IC shorter (and fatter to maintain flow rate), then use a core design with turbulators (i.e. not Vibrant or anything from eBay) to improve efficiency and maintain low IATs with the smaller core. The painful realization is that nobody makes an intercooler that's correctly dimensioned for this application, yet. Ours will be.
the 1st bolded part is simply not true, since many of us have found 1 specific brand from ebay that actually has properly placed and spaced turbulators.
the 2nd bolded part is a very bold statement, I can't wait to see if it holds true (because I can think of at least 2 sizes currently available that are, IMHO)
#27
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this one was quite large.
![](https://www.miataturbo.net/attachments/diy-turbo-discussion-14/158198-monster-intercooler-80-engine_bay_774720d0131258860e437e737544c9f073104c3f.jpg?dateline=1451306758)
His AIT's would never break ambient on a 1/4 mile track.
why do you care about such a large core? building a drift car?
![](https://www.miataturbo.net/attachments/diy-turbo-discussion-14/158198-monster-intercooler-80-engine_bay_774720d0131258860e437e737544c9f073104c3f.jpg?dateline=1451306758)
His AIT's would never break ambient on a 1/4 mile track.
Most of my searches have only led to small ebay cores, or just small cores in general neither i am interested in running. I just need sizes as i will most likely end up buying one of the many options through treadstone or someone else with a good rep for a solid intercooler.
#30
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I want a good starting spot so i can purchase a core and cut things to make it fit.
In classic turbo miata fashion a simple question had a couple helpful answers..and then went down hill from there
. Back to googling to find info vs asking for helpful advice from people with experience on that subject.
In classic turbo miata fashion a simple question had a couple helpful answers..and then went down hill from there
![Thefinger](https://www.miataturbo.net/images/smilies/thefinger.gif)
#31
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I want a good starting spot so i can purchase a core and cut things to make it fit.
In classic turbo miata fashion a simple question had a couple helpful answers..and then went down hill from there
. Back to googling to find info vs asking for helpful advice from people with experience on that subject.
In classic turbo miata fashion a simple question had a couple helpful answers..and then went down hill from there
![Thefinger](https://www.miataturbo.net/images/smilies/thefinger.gif)
#32
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In all fairness, there's probably 10 good post in this thread already. Maybe only 2 or 3 answer the exact question you asked, but still it's a 9/10 compared to what it could have been here. Better still, most of those extra post that were useful were people who go fast with real world experience posting their experience, not BS.
Yours were included in the helpful post of course. I am going to buy a treadstone of similar size to yours.
#33
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Selecting a core size has several considerations.
Cooling air to the rad.
length of tubes
thickness of core
end tank shapes
internal flow area
Tube length: 12" is about 80% efficient, 22" approaches 92/93%, 25" is excess dead weight.
Thickness: The thicker it gets the lower the efficiency. The back half of the core gets nothing but hot air. Suggest 3.5 to 4.0 is about optimum.
Tank shapes are very important for low flow losses. Streamline, streamline, streamline..
Internal flow area controls (in major part) the flow loss. Look at Bellintercoolers.com for some guide lines.
Longer tubes have more drag, keep in mind
In my experience, keep the core thickness under 4.0, tubes over 18" and flow area to match BIC suggestions.
Almost everything else become dead weight
Consider that an 18" tube can offer about 90+ thermal efficiency, then what would a core do that is twice as long? maybe 6% better, twice the cost, more drag and heavy.
Keep it within reason. There are many good cores available, but not all are created equal. Quite hard to easily distinguish. Density of turbulators is one tip. The more the better.
Corky
Cooling air to the rad.
length of tubes
thickness of core
end tank shapes
internal flow area
Tube length: 12" is about 80% efficient, 22" approaches 92/93%, 25" is excess dead weight.
Thickness: The thicker it gets the lower the efficiency. The back half of the core gets nothing but hot air. Suggest 3.5 to 4.0 is about optimum.
Tank shapes are very important for low flow losses. Streamline, streamline, streamline..
Internal flow area controls (in major part) the flow loss. Look at Bellintercoolers.com for some guide lines.
Longer tubes have more drag, keep in mind
In my experience, keep the core thickness under 4.0, tubes over 18" and flow area to match BIC suggestions.
Almost everything else become dead weight
Consider that an 18" tube can offer about 90+ thermal efficiency, then what would a core do that is twice as long? maybe 6% better, twice the cost, more drag and heavy.
Keep it within reason. There are many good cores available, but not all are created equal. Quite hard to easily distinguish. Density of turbulators is one tip. The more the better.
Corky
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