Any intercooler tricks?

[Oranoco]

Took my A4 with me to a RR day at Torque of The Devil and was quite happy with the power and torque (181bhp, 196lb/ft). The operator said the intercooler was really struggling to drop the temps and the more runs we did the the lower the figures got as heat rose.

Was thinking of drilling the airch liner to the back of the cooler and fitting a air dut straity to th eintercooler along with a fan. Failing that my Escort RS Turbo has a water injection kit that it no longer uses (thanks to a 'kin big intercooler), maybe it would be worth fitting that up.

 

[olds_kool]

i beleive s4 wheel arch liners come with a grill to aid airflow, probably expensive new though

 

[Blue_Thunder]

S4 wheel arch liners are only about £20+vat each from Vagparts I think. Got a quote the other week. You'll probably be able to find one at a breakers even cheaper.

 

[PaulJC84]

Yeah you only need one for the side mount ic so £20 is not too bad new.

 

[olds_kool]

think ill get one myself then

 

[aragorn]

i'd also be wary of the temps the rolling road gave you has you'll probably find when on the road proper there would be quite a bit more air flowing thru the intercooler.

If you have VAGCOM you can view the intake temps live while your driving and that should give you some idea whether the intercooler is infact struggling in real conditions.

IIRC byzan_a4 had done some intake temp logs with his scroll SP51 turbo with it making something like 240hp and the stock intercooler was handling it pretty well. He might have the graphs kicking around for you to see

 

[Blue_Thunder]

Just found the email from Vagparts re: S4 wheel arch liners-
"£14.94+vat each side, screws are separate, allow a fiver for the fixings."

 

[Oranoco]

S4 arch liner on order as of tomorrow at 9am then.

 

[ALPINE]

lol... coz my car is so low i have worn away part of the arch liner... my intercooler is open in my arch now.

saved me self a score i suppose!!

 

[Oranoco]

I was just going to drill mine but for a score I might as well get a proper one.

 

[AUDI TURBO]

would it really make a difference though?? if does i might be temoted myself as a cheap mod

 

[Oranoco]

Well for less than £20 it's worth a punt. The wife won't even notice me spend that (which means no ear ache). lol

 

[AUDI TURBO]

you will allways get ear ache mate....if it not for the car it will be for somewhere else. tempted to try that then

 

[aragorn]

its still worthwhile imo checking what your actual IAT's are on vagcom under full throttle runs, although letting the intercooler breathe better cant be a bad thing.

I'd imagine you could probably rig up the offside S4 cooler so that the flow went thru both, would keep everything nice and factory, but give you twice the cooling capacity!

Anyone looked into that?

 

[Oranoco]

good idea that. Might have a look at doing that.