Have either of you men tested or considered an aftermarket intercooler? Non-painted air to air....Also, would this make enough of a difference? I know custom is not cheap. I was just thinking about the boxes/turbo/EGT concerns everyone has. If it made enough difference for say Crabman....maybe he could use the existing turbo....how far out in left field am I?

TIA - John is still learning

Rod, thanks for being patient and answering all of my previous questions...

 

This has been something that we've been looking into for about a year now. We've managed to find some very high efficiency cores, and believe they would make a difference, especially for those over 500 HP. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to convince a core manufacturer to produce small lots, only massive quantities

Rod

 

If you had a stock truck and switched to aftermarket cooler how much would the temps drop? Any idea or ballpark?

John

 

You kinda got two seperate issues here. The OEM turbo was designed to work at stock power. From their standpoint as small as possible while maintaining egts at stock fueling is the ticket. This is of course a roadblock for us because stock fueling is not on our agenda. I have not come across any data on the potential improvement from an increased capacity aftercooler.

 

ON a high-hp truck, you can sometimes gain power by losing the cooler. This, because the restriction is more harmful than the lowered temps are beneficial.

You'll see a lot of pullers using a water or water/meth injection for cooling since it doesn't cause the flow restriction that an intercooler can.

Spearco makes some GREAT coolers, but they're very $$

Justin

 

What would happen if you lost the intercooler...just went from turbo to intake? Would the truck stay cool enough to be functional?

 

Conjecture: 2002 and under - Probably not much. The factory stuff is pretty well mated to the engine and truck. 2003 and up - no help at all until you rid yourself of the airbox.

Also keep in mind that you don't necessarily want your truck running cool EGTs. When under a good load, I like to see 1100F or so, as Cummins feels that their efficiency is at its peak at 1100F.

As for eliminating the intercooler all together, you would need to find an alternate method for cooling. It doesn't take much boost to get a compressor to 400F, and that hot air will rob some serious power from you.

Rod

 

thanks Rod..air box will be gone soon

You have PM.....