I would like to understand the beneifits and reasons for having an intercooler if somone could be so kind to explain.

Is it purely to feed the coldest air into the turbo?

Thanks in advance.

 

Hope this helps.

Intercooler - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

It cools the air after it leaves the turbo.

 

Thanks mate.

 

After?

Why?

 

As air is compressed its temperature is increased so the intercooler is used to cool it down before it enters the engine.

 

Colder air also has more oxygen molecules in it or summink so hence better combustion.

 

Colder air is dense making more power, like nitrous its flammable but cold which makes the air denser

 

yes basically. as a gas is compressed, its volume decreses and density increses.... buuut temperature increases too. As the gas gets hot its molecules whizz about faster and the concentration, if you like, of molecules per unit volume decreses, reduceing the overall efficency of the turbo's boost charge (so its like the turbo wants to compress the gas to a higher density, but the heat generated wants to expand it and reduce density!). we want as many oxygen molecules as possible so we can burn lots of fuel and therefore get lots of power. by cooling the compressed, very hot air from the turbo or supercharger by running it through an intercooler, we increase its density (and therefore the concentration of oxygen molecules among others). Same principal applies to cold air at low altitude being better for max power then hot air or high altitudes.

 

Also, the hotter the air, the more likely the engine is to knock, so timing has to be retarded to prevent knock (which saps power, of course)

 

Ok. That explains it pretty nicely.

So once the compressed air from the turbo goes through the intercooler, by the time it gets to the engine and mixes with the fuel it is full of oxygen which makes a for better combustion?

 

the oxygen content is exactly the same, it's just that hot air essentially takes more space, so you can cram less hot air into an engine than cold air. Not talking volume of air, but mass.

 

 

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JohnD