Originally posted by baadgn
Bruce.
I am curious what type of testing did you do before buying cotton's intercooler I mean how did you make your choice. If testing is an important thing to you what testing was done before purchase was it price? performance? their are smaller intercoolers and their are bigger intercoolers please tell it was not because it only takes 1 bolt to mount it.
To condense ~5 years of GN ideas, into a few paragraphs:
In addition to tinkering on the GN I was really involved with a Pulling Tractor for a few years, and an oem turbo program in the late 70s. In the class the tractor ran, no intercooling was allowed, but water injection was. being hobbyists, durability and reliability were paramount, so we put ALOT of time into refining the water injection. That's when I first stumbled on the NACA papers. Between those papers and having already read Harry Ricardo's High Speed Internal Combustion Engine, I wanted to try WI, and see where'd it get me. I'd also read Max Boost and a few other books on the subject. While Mr Bell was spot on about mentioning Interheaters, I didn't agree with his conclusion of WI being a *bandaid for a poorly designed system*. Then there were some online discussions.
So I remounted the MAT/IAT, into the plenum, and started data logging. So tried with and without fan, then with and without shroud. Then repeated most all of the above with a big neck.
Then took the intercooler off and ran a U-Pipe from the turbo to the TB, and ran a 7th injector full time. Again, a bunch of data logs. Then added a used AI kit, and more data logs seeing what the MATs did.
In the mean while had done a few chips for friends, and saw what it took to get the AE right for running a F/M.
Finally, got the AI, to where I wanted it.
But, it took alot of alky to get the temps I wanted. And there was just no way to store enough alky for the way I wanted to run it.
Then at BG I talked to alot of people, and looked at their cars.
Last year, I took my WB, and spent a day plus making short hops with a few folks to see what they're AFRs were, and offer the guys a *reading* on where they were.
I've also spent alot of time looking at DS files for guys. And often they seemed to lean out as the car goes down the track.
Also, takled to some guys that had some serious head gasket collections.
In working with the Syclone ecm, I saw much fuel was needed to keep a motor at it's commanded AFR, as a function of MATs. It was a shock to see how much it took. The GM cal, was way lean, and I wound up adding a bunch of MAT fuel at the higher temps..
Running without, the 7th injector, and AI, I started to see MATs of 210dF +.
Also, seeing Cal use AI only and make some serious HP, was a validation of what I was working on.
At first I had bought a IH Truck intercooler, that was a matter of convience. But, it would have taken adding new side tanks to get it the way I wanted, and it just was too much of a hassle. Then I bought a PS again, more on it having as much frontal area as possible, and least cost. *Luckily* I had an oversized rad, and the PS wouldn't fit.
So while it took some more saving, in order to get the max amount of *frontal area*, and knowing what I'd need to do tune wise, Cotton's was the only choice that made sense to me.
The reason that I might seem Pro Cotton's is that I did my homework, and spent alot of time gathering info. (as much first hand as I could). And have seen the results of what **Good** really is. I've actually wasted enough money, buying parts twice, and was just hoping to save some people some aggravation. I've done the baby steps, on injectors and wasted alot of monwy following conventional *wisdom*.
You might note, that I raised some issues, about intercooler design that while not entirely *my ideas*, I see that no one else around here has mentioned them and they seem to be important.
The timer I use for measuring performance doesn't translate into much other then for my own studies. It runs off the VSS, and counts tire revolutions. This way, I can ignore the first couple of tire rotations, and get a pretty accurate comparison to other runs of mine.
That's the short of it.......
Now, the trick is trying to get the MATs to or below ambient. and min heat soaking of intake tract.
