I ran one of the Mark Brown liquid intercoolers several years ago. It worked great. I had a larger water resevoir in the trunk, but it may be better to use a smaller resevoir at the front of the car for a track only car (to mainly save on weight). I did not plumb an external heat exchanger inline. The heat exchanger would be a good idea for the street. I just ran 2 marine pumps, one pushing to the intercooler and one pulling, with 5/8" black garden hose from my resevoir in the trunk. I believe that the volume of water that I was able to pass through the intercooler helped on the street. You will go through some ice at the track! One solution that I used was the blue cooler packs in order to keep from having to buy ice each time (I would just refreeze them). This also kept me from having to drain the excess water from the resevoir created by the melting ice. I did install a drain valve inline after the pushing pump, so draining everything wasn't a big deal. I'd open the valve, turn the pumps on, and the water was emptied.
Then I got fancy (and faster) by not using water, but alcohol and dry ice. If you go this route, be sure to have a vent on the resevoir to vent the dry ice. Dry ice can't be capped up. If your resevoir doesn't have a strong seal it may vent the dry ice okay. I always drew a crowd when I would put chunks of dry ice into the trunk of the car and the fog was come billowing out. Some of the local spcetators also found out that the alcohol/dry ice combo did an excellent job of cooling of their beer during a run. One thing to note, get in good with your local dry ice distributor or this will get expensive. Our local distributor had several Corvettes so we also talked cars for a while and he would give me a deal.
As far as times for this combo, my friend and I began working on our cars at around the same time. Both cars were running 7.80-7.90's in the 1/8 mile (this was fast in the early-mid 1990's). I installed this intercooler and he installed a set of ported/polished heads. Both cars then responded with consistent 7.50's-high 7.40's. Then he installed a Eastern FM and I installed a set of ported/polished heads. Both cars then responded with consistent 7-teens. Some basically the liquid intercooler picked me up about the same as a P/P set of heads and his FM did about the same too. He eventually got into the 6's with this combo and I was working with BFG testing the new (at this time) drag radials running 7.30's.
That is basically my experience with liquid intercoolers. I sold the whole setup several years ago and installed a 17 row stock location as my car became more of a street car and I liked the no maintenance of the air to air intercooler. Unfortunately, thanks to a 2-piece Buick GN racing crank (SNAP!), a botched rebuild by a local machine shop, and a "friend" who I am still trying to recover parts that came up missing from his shop, my poor car hasn't run in about 6 -7 years.
Dang! This story just reminded me of how much fun it was to race these car when I had money to spend (not married, no child, no house payment)! It sucks to be getting older and have to grow up, but I've had more fun with the wife and child than the car. However, my daughter is 6 now and has already started learning about Buicks. I have gathered the most of the missing parts, so hopefully, my Buick will be alive again one day!
