The Rig

iTrader: (13)

seen one down my local scrappy, doesnt want much for the chargecooler/rad etc, would this better or worse than an intercooler, the idea sounds better to cool downn the air, but is it ?

borat52

Got any pics of how these fit onto a legacy? Did not know they existed, I'm very interested in doing this myself, and if the legacy already has one then it could be much easier than I first thought.
Don't know if they are any good or not, would doubt it becuase people seem to go FMIC rather than these. Chargecoolers per se are an excellent idea though.

joey_turbo

iTrader: (26)

I personally don't think they could be too much better. The coolant, or whatver is used, would still suffer from heatsoak.

Couple of pics:

klunker

iTrader: (4)

Lad up here has one in his track day Impreza RA.
The radiator sits in front of your engine radiator, then the charge cooler sits in where the intercooler goes. Smart, and different, and effective as he is a mechanic I think he would know.
I thought the charge would be kept at a more constant level as the water used to cool it would suffer less from heat soak when sitting still, as air heat's up quicker then water. Then when on the move its getting the brunt of the air coming in through the bumper like a front mount IC.

twistybits

Doesn't Zen Performance's (Paul) Monster use a charge cooler?

joey_turbo

iTrader: (26)

Ah Ok. I assumed that thats all there was to it. Didn't know it had its own rad. Just thought the you fill it up on the cooler itself, and the water is static.
So to fit one oft these, you need all the gubbins. I take it thy have a pump for the water/coolant?

borat52

In principle they should be better than a FMIC, however there are 2 problems:

First lets assume you can keep the water (or whatever liquid you use) at ambient temp all of the time (I'll deal with why this is hard later). So cold water is always circulating the chargecooler. You intake temps are now purely down to how efficient your chargecooler is - if its good then lots of hot air will be giving up its heat to the cold water and it will work reeally well. If the chargecooler is a bad design then the hot air will not interact enough with the cold water and will leave the CC as hot air still.
So the first task is to ensure that your CC is very efficient.

Now lets assume that the CC is highly efficient so as long as you provide it with endless cold water it keeps intake temperatures low.
This means that the hot air entering the CC is conducting a lot of heat into the water system. The water system needs to deal with this through a radiator somewhere (normally in fron of the coolant rad). If the radiator is too small or inneficient then the water will gradually heat up, and hotter water means less heat diffrence between the air in the CC and the water which means higher intake temps.

This is different to a standard intercooler as no matter how inefficient it is (assuming we are moving and taking staionary heat soak out of the equation) it always has a supply of ambient temp air on the cooling side, so while your initial temps at the start of a run may be higher with a FMIC than a CC they should stay at the same temp throughout your run. Unless your able to keep the water in the CC as close to ambient as possible then intake temps will gradually rise as the air intake is interacing with the ever hotter water not the constant ambient temp air on a FMIC.

Theoretically, if the CC is efficent and the rad on the water system is super efficient it should mean lower temps than a FMIC with less lag.

Its very hard to achieve this in practice.

My idea is to fill my existing FMIC up with water and run it through a chargecooler. The legacy CC may well make that a much easier proposition now.

The Rig

iTrader: (13)

well,i got it all from the scrappy, cool- good price too

i now have the charge cooler, the charge cooler Rad all the pipes and most important, the Electric pump that circulates it all, the legacy ECU gives the pump 2 speed steps, WRX dont so i wil lwire the pump up to a 12v supply and have it working at tis higher speed so the water is running quicker no matter what speed im doing.

it was a bitch tot take off LOL, i now have to work out where the pump is to go as it cant go where it does on the legacy !

Comper100

Wouldn't be that hard to do, you would need a feed to hard wire the pump as the legacy ecu controls this normally, pipes run down the pass side of the inlet manifold to the rad at the front.

I must admit mine is great, its never warm even after long traffic use its still very cold to the touch.....

Comper100

Just posted when you did Its behind the front bumper chap....

The Rig

iTrader: (13)

i think this is why the legacy has them and the impreza doesnt, the legacy is the more "family" turbo version of their cars, hence more traffic,slow speed conditions warranting the chargecooler ?!???

dunno, weird why the impreza and legacy are different tho

The Rig

iTrader: (13)

LOL, yeah,bloody time delay !
do u mean the pumps behind the bumper, i know that bit but the scoob doesnt have the space/bracket or the holes to put it there, wil have to see where it can go, also if the chargecooler rad wil bolt to where it does on the legacy, not sure if the threads ar on the impreza where they need to be ?

Comper100

I doubt they would be but i guess its a case of ripping the bumper off and having a look... its not that big anyhow....

The Rig

iTrader: (13)

yeah,luckily the bumper doesnt need removing,even on the legacy,to remove the CC Rad.

cheers....

silent running

I had a chargecooler on my old turbocharged Clio. TBH the primary concern was one of plumbing rather than performance. Chargecoolers and intercoolers are just two approaches to the same problem and they both have their strengths and weaknesses.

The one big advantage a chargecooler has is that you can have the rad down in the front bumper and the chargecooler core pretty much wherever you want to give you the shortest boost circuit. The best way of running it is just to leave the pump permanently on when you switch on the ignition, IMHO. The more water capacity you build into the system, the better the performance will be but of course this brings issues of weight in the end.

Comper100

Good stuff, should be easy then

dan83590

Try this from Eblag.

eBay.co.uk: SUBARU IMPREZA WRX STI INTERCOOLER SPARES (item 190086535365 end time 03-Mar-07 20:02:05 GMT)

The Rig

iTrader: (13)

what is used in the system,pure antifreeze,as the stuff that came out was BRIGHT green

Comper100

I use the same as the coolant.