Air to Coolant CAC

[Keith Browning]

I was surprised to see that this engine uses an air to coolant charge air cooler. I have always been under the impression that that air to air was more efficient because ambient air temperature are significantly lower than engine coolant temperatures... unless the difference is not all that great and a liquid is more efficient than air at transferring heat. That makes sense since a liquid is much denser than a gas.

[jimmy57]

liquid to air has the capacity for more heat transfer but is usually more costly but also takes less room. I bet the need for the second cooling system was already established and to increase its size and add the L-A CAC may have been little cost and freed up some much needed room for other items.

Maybe one of those really in the know will chime in.

[Fredsvt]

Remember the gen 2 Lightning? It has air to water charge cooling.

 

Supposedly, on a cold day it can lower charge temp to near ambient even under full boost. With a much less efficient "blower".

 

I know of a lot of guys who have modded them with larger heat exchangers under the bumper, or with A/C cooled heat exchangers for use in hot weather. The drag of the a/c is offset by the extra power from the chilled coolant.

 

The "second design" intercooler worked much better, since it didn't leak coolant into the intake. My truck's original mid manifold and intercooler got done under the campaign.

[GregKneupper]

I am assuming that since the intercooler runs on the secondary cooling system that the coolant is actually cooler than the primary cooling system.

[cbriggs]

I have installed a few vortec s/c kits on various cars that use an air to water cooler with a stand-alone cooling system. Worked really well.

[jw33]

113 degrees is the water temp going into the cooler, 5 psi on the secondary system

[DamageINC]

Yeah I thought it had an auxiliary pump and reservoir?? That would make sense, at least, every air-to-water intercooler I've ever seen before had it's own standalone cooling system.

 

They are much more effective than air-to-air intercoolers and are physically smaller than a good air-to-air unit as well. They're also more expensive and a little more complicated to plumb which is why OE manufacturers tend to stray from the design.

 

The REALLY cool ones are found in modern Super Street Outlaw and Drag-Radial class drag cars.. these guys usually run twin turbo small blocks (we're talking like 88mm + size turbos too) making over 2,500hp and they have a small refridgerator sized intercooler taking up the space where the passenger seat used to be. Ridiculous.

 

Dave

[dieseldoc]

I know our older 3406A and early 3406B engines among lots of others used in heavy equipment have used Jacket Water After Coolers with great success. I am pretty sure we had fairly little trouble with them. When they were popular I wasnt even old enough to pick up a wrench, but the ones that have come in while I have been wrenching have had little trouble. They would occassionally fail or leak but all in all pretty good. Our JWAC were plumbed into the engine block to circulate coolant. In fact I am working on a 97 model year cummins 5.9 in a sprayer right now with a JWAC.