Here is a question for everyone to ponder. I still prefer the immediate grunt of a SC to the exhaust driven turbo.. the only trouble is, boost is limited due to the inability to cool the charge with the way Alpine designed the system for the beta engine.
core
Recently I had the chance to examine the Laminova intercooling system as used in the Saturn Ion Redline. It is a small, highly efficent, tube that fits into the intake manifold beneath their supercharger.. working with a seperate coolant supply and radiator to produce a water to air intercooler.

Ok, here is the question for the experts in the field. I can handle most of what it takes to have the machining done to the intake on the alpine unit to fit the laminova cores.. but is there enough room to fit them? I unfortunatly do not have specs on the cores themselves, they appear to come in many sizes and shapes, so that is variable.. I just want to know if I can do this to the stock alpine intake, or will I need to have a larger intake fabbed up with a bigger plenum under the Supercharger to fit the cores.. perhaps in a totally custom intake with a large box beneath the charger with straight tubes to the head

 

From your drawings I can easily say that you are creative. If you go through all that work and do this on the small Alpine unit, it would be a waste of time in my opinion. Take your skills and make your own. You could easily fabricate something that could turn your "fashionable" hood scoops into a functional "ram air" type system. No sense going through all that work on something small. Get Xorro or somebody that owns it to gice you some specs. Line it up and go to town.

Water cools better, obviously, so what you're saying makes perfect sense. You just need to find out how they cool the water back down after it cools the charge air. Once you have that set, you could bang something out I'm sure.

 

well, I have looked at the centrifugal S/Cs like RippMods uses.. that would move it around to the exhaust side of the engine and allow me to put the water to air intercooler near where the airbox normally sits... and still use the airram AND a header...

And yes. air to air only cools on a 1 to 1 basis... air to water cools on a 4 to one basis. MUCH more efficent. Also, Chrysler products used to use an water pump that sat OUTSIDE the block.. easily adaptable to circulate the intercooler coolant... all I would need then is a small radiator down behind the passenger side fog (which is one of the reasons I made those openings so large.)

 

I knew you had it in you. wink1.gif

 

That is a cool little do-hickey, I had no idea they came in such small packages.

 

yea.. air to water intercooling is MUCH more efficent.. this allows a smaller intercooler and a more direct path for the air to take.. making for less lag..

Maybe not as sexy as a front mount.. but I am not out to impress the pimply faced civic owners..

 

Ahhh, but you see a front mount also gives away what you might have.

 

exactly... and I like to play my cards close to the vest.