What is the difference b/t Agency Power IC, and other much more expensive ones?

[S-351]

Originally Posted by vividracing We build and test all of the Agency Power products here before we release them. There is a whole section about R&D on the Agency Power website. The intercoolers were flow tested, built to spec, and then tested in the real world as you see from the results above. There has also been a couple of revisions we have done. R&D = Research and Development. Happy Friday Brian! Were you ever able to dig up the flow data from your testing on the intercoolers Dan?

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[crna]

^You can go on agency-power.com and check the flow rating for yourself (as I did) instead of what appears to be putting down a forum sponsor.

[cjv]

After all these posts does anyone know the efficiency factor (%) of the IC they are using? After all that is what you are paying for!

It just might be nice to know before you put any of your money down.

[Prche951]

Originally Posted by VividRacingTX

No, they are built by Agency Power.

Todd, they are exactly the same as B6's. There is no discernable difference. Nothing wrong with that. B6's are good when B6 decides to send them to people, instead of people waiting a year to get theirs.

[VividRacingTX]

They are built in AZ by Agency Power. If they are similar, then people should be them (AP's) because they are in stock.

Originally Posted by Prche951

Todd, they are exactly the same as B6's. There is no discernable difference. Nothing wrong with that. B6's are good when B6 decides to send them to people, instead of people waiting a year to get theirs.

[Prche951]

Originally Posted by VividRacingTX

They are built in AZ by Agency Power. If they are similar, then people should be them (AP's) because they are in stock.

Good enough. I'd rather get them from vivid then pay B6 and wait a year if I am lucky. There was a group buy B6 thread that got kind of ugly if I remember correctly.

[cjv]

You guys might as well be talking about who has the prettiest IC when making a choice.

Often we know why a turbo application requires an intercooler but not many talk about computing the efficiency of an intercooler. We see that the intercooler is a standard part of a turbo kit.

Many of us have used the term intercooler loosely to describe an air-to-air heat exchanger. The terms however have a deeper history behind them. Technically, if a heat exchanger is placed after the turbo, it's called a aftercooler. The word "intercooler" came about when in the old days of fighter planes where more than one compressors were used, a heat exchanger was placed BETWEEN the compressors. Thereby, coining the term "inter-cooler'.

That aside, we move on to understand what kind of efficiency are we looking for when testing an intercooler. The common myth is a bigger intercooler is always better. Not always true. Reason is while the thermal efficiency has improved, the pressure efficiency may not. Sure you increase the boost of the system to compensate the loss, but our objective really is about maximizing thermal efficiency and minimizing pressure loss.

So just how do you go about doing that?

Thermal Efficiency.

For intercooler thermal efficiency, the ratio is defined as:

T_in : intercooler inlet temperature (or post compressor temperature).
T_out : intercooler outlet temperature.
T_ambient : ambient temperature.

Intuitively, what this ratio is telling us is that ideally you want an intercooler that can cool the charged air back to an ambient temperature. A simple arithmetic calculation will show that is a ratio of 1, or 100% efficiency. But of course in the real world it's quite impossible to attain 100%.

I have a turbo setup with pressure/temperature sensors mounted before the intercooler and after the intercooler.

As an example if the T_in is 213F and at the same time T_out to be 140F. T_ambient is 104F. A simple computation arrives at 73.3%. Note T_out also depends on vehicle speed and area of exposed intercooler core.

Pressure Loss.

Again, the two words we have heard so much about, but not a lot of folks have hard data to show what exactly is pressure loss.

The common laboratory test is to have air blown through the inlet of the intercooler and measure the inlet and outlet pressures. But the potential flaw in this experiment is that the flow is in steady state. In a laboratory environment, one can create a transient state to obtain data from. But in real life, this is hardly the case.

I have two analog pressure sensors, one mounted before and the other after the intercooler. Both send signals to a A/D convertor and into a micro-processor. While a pressure gauge can give a more continous needle reading, a A/D converter captures data at a preset sampling rate. This means I have analyze pressure gradients rather than instantaneous pressure points.

The bottom line is before buy know both the Thermal Efficiency and the Pressure Loss. Otherwise you might as well be listening to claimed quarter
mile times without any time slips.

[Prche951]

Originally Posted by cjv

You guys might as well be talking about who has the prettiest IC when making a choice.

Often we know why a turbo application requires an intercooler but not many talk about computing the efficiency of an intercooler. We see that the intercooler is a standard part of a turbo kit.

Many of us have used the term intercooler loosely to describe an air-to-air heat exchanger. The terms however have a deeper history behind them. Technically, if a heat exchanger is placed after the turbo, it's called a aftercooler. The word "intercooler" came about when in the old days of fighter planes where more than one compressors were used, a heat exchanger was placed BETWEEN the compressors. Thereby, coining the term "inter-cooler'.

That aside, we move on to understand what kind of efficiency are we looking for when testing an intercooler. The common myth is a bigger intercooler is always better. Not always true. Reason is while the thermal efficiency has improved, the pressure efficiency may not. Sure you increase the boost of the system to compensate the loss, but our objective really is about maximizing thermal efficiency and minimizing pressure loss.

So just how do you go about doing that?

Thermal Efficiency.

For intercooler thermal efficiency, the ratio is defined as:

T_in : intercooler inlet temperature (or post compressor temperature).
T_out : intercooler outlet temperature.
T_ambient : ambient temperature.

Intuitively, what this ratio is telling us is that ideally you want an intercooler that can cool the charged air back to an ambient temperature. A simple arithmetic calculation will show that is a ratio of 1, or 100% efficiency. But of course in the real world it's quite impossible to attain 100%.

I have a turbo setup with pressure/temperature sensors mounted before the intercooler and after the intercooler.

As an example if the T_in is 213F and at the same time T_out to be 140F. T_ambient is 104F. A simple computation arrives at 73.3%. Note T_out also depends on vehicle speed and area of exposed intercooler core.

Pressure Loss.

Again, the two words we have heard so much about, but not a lot of folks have hard data to show what exactly is pressure loss.

The common laboratory test is to have air blown through the inlet of the intercooler and measure the inlet and outlet pressures. But the potential flaw in this experiment is that the flow is in steady state. In a laboratory environment, one can create a transient state to obtain data from. But in real life, this is hardly the case.

In my setup, I have two analog pressure sensors, one mounted before and the other after the intercooler. Both send signals to a A/D convertor and into a micro-processor. While a pressure gauge can give a more continous needle reading, a A/D converter captures data at a preset sampling rate. This means I have analyze pressure gradients rather than instantaneous pressure points.

I want mine anodized red......red is fast.

you are correct. No one has info. It would mean more to me to see 5-8 IC, compared in a test being done on one car, with the only change being the IC's. Use the 996tt IC as a baseline and run through the 5-9 most popular IC's including secan who inspite of all the money they charge cannot seem to provide comparative information to other IC mfg's.

[cjv]

Originally Posted by Prche951

I want mine anodized red......red is fast.

you are correct. No one has info. It would mean more to me to see 5-8 IC, compared in a test being done on one car, with the only change being the IC's. Use the 996tt IC as a baseline and run through the 5-9 most popular IC's including secan who inspite of all the money they charge cannot seem to provide comparative information to other IC mfg's.

The only test required is the two mentioned above.

The difference cool charged air makes "can" be dramatic or hardly noticed. I''ll explain. Besides monitoring the intake, output and delta temps along with pressure drops on KA we also installed a dual jacketed Y pipe where the outer jacket was injected with liquid CO2 and then the liquid CO2 exited and was then sprayed over the intercooler cores.

An ambient temp below 70 degrees F made no improvements. At an ambient of 100 degrees F the power pick up was huge. As the ambient rose above 70 degrees F, the power pick up steadily increased.

A highly efficient IC will have similar results, especially after the IC's have been heat soaked.

[Prche951]

so wait, you mean to tell me, that you can test this but we can hardly get any info from mfg's on this?

Another issue I can see with testing is location. Testing at the same barometric pressure, altitude and humidity is nearly impossible unless it is done by the same tester at the same time of year. Maybe all these companies should send you their IC for testing, of course you get to keep the samples

[bbywu]

Originally Posted by cjv

You guys might as well be talking about who has the prettiest IC when making a choice.

Often we know why a turbo application requires an intercooler but not many talk about computing the efficiency of an intercooler. We see that the intercooler is a standard part of a turbo kit.

Many of us have used the term intercooler loosely to describe an air-to-air heat exchanger. The terms however have a deeper history behind them. Technically, if a heat exchanger is placed after the turbo, it's called a aftercooler. The word "intercooler" came about when in the old days of fighter planes where more than one compressors were used, a heat exchanger was placed BETWEEN the compressors. Thereby, coining the term "inter-cooler'.

That aside, we move on to understand what kind of efficiency are we looking for when testing an intercooler. The common myth is a bigger intercooler is always better. Not always true. Reason is while the thermal efficiency has improved, the pressure efficiency may not. Sure you increase the boost of the system to compensate the loss, but our objective really is about maximizing thermal efficiency and minimizing pressure loss.

So just how do you go about doing that?

Thermal Efficiency.

For intercooler thermal efficiency, the ratio is defined as:

T_in : intercooler inlet temperature (or post compressor temperature).
T_out : intercooler outlet temperature.
T_ambient : ambient temperature.

Intuitively, what this ratio is telling us is that ideally you want an intercooler that can cool the charged air back to an ambient temperature. A simple arithmetic calculation will show that is a ratio of 1, or 100% efficiency. But of course in the real world it's quite impossible to attain 100%.

I have a turbo setup with pressure/temperature sensors mounted before the intercooler and after the intercooler.

As an example if the T_in is 213F and at the same time T_out to be 140F. T_ambient is 104F. A simple computation arrives at 73.3%. Note T_out also depends on vehicle speed and area of exposed intercooler core.

Pressure Loss.

Again, the two words we have heard so much about, but not a lot of folks have hard data to show what exactly is pressure loss.

The common laboratory test is to have air blown through the inlet of the intercooler and measure the inlet and outlet pressures. But the potential flaw in this experiment is that the flow is in steady state. In a laboratory environment, one can create a transient state to obtain data from. But in real life, this is hardly the case.

I have two analog pressure sensors, one mounted before and the other after the intercooler. Both send signals to a A/D convertor and into a micro-processor. While a pressure gauge can give a more continous needle reading, a A/D converter captures data at a preset sampling rate. This means I have analyze pressure gradients rather than instantaneous pressure points.

The bottom line is before buy know both the Thermal Efficiency and the Pressure Loss. Otherwise you might as well be listening to claimed quarter
mile times without any time slips.

I think I've read this before. You left out the equation...

[bbywu]

Originally Posted by Prche951

I want mine anodized red......red is fast.

you are correct. No one has info.

Actually, there are a few tuners that do provide this data as part of their testing. Not to cheerlead, but:

[Dr_jitsu]

the true test has been in real world applications. We used to think that a 4.5 inch intercooler was plenty, even for a 1K hp car, but actual experience has shown that the larger IC's usually give a performance increase, either from better flow or from a cooling advantage/less heat soak.

Even on a modest 700 whp set up like mine I expect to benefit from the 5 inchers I am currently having installed. And as I mentioned, end tank design is very important so as not to inhibit flow. I am certainly anything but an EVO nut hugger but if you compare their end tank design to the B 6's, it is definately better (as far as 3.5 inchers go).

[BLKMGK]

My thanks to Chuck for the ARE linky, VERY interesting site that will now suck a few hours of my time!

CJV, that is the sort of data I like to gather but few seem to take the time to do. I used to always look for weird ways to use the A/D and binary inputs on my previous car's programmable ECU to do things like what you've logged. So, since you've done this can you share findings? I know I learned a great deal from an Aussie site about intercooling - they were doing a great deal of data logging with various sprayer setups. For one thing - mass makes a difference. It seems that intercoolers act like heat sinks - they absorb a bunch of heat and then radiate it after the car slows or the mass is "full". Thermal performance isn't flat and when the intercooler is sprayed the change in temp isn't immediate. Good series of articles I thought starting here -> http://autospeed.com/cms/article.html?&A=0527

Anyway, I'd agree that not enough info is available on intercoolers for these cars. However most of us aren't looking to squeeze every last ounce of power out. If we can make pretty good power and not break our banks then we are happy. This applies to many things honestly, I won't spend a mint to get a little - there's too much other low hanging fruit. The OEM intercoolers have poor flow and likely low efficiency so for me something with better tanks and cooling would work so long as it wasn't huge money. Make the most improvement for the dollars and not spend a ton more for that last few % of improvement is what I and I suspect many others are after....

P.S. lol lots of posts while I did mine. CJV, any issue with the CO2 getting into the intakes? I know guys who spray N2O on intercoolers have seen their engines pick up power and go leaner. I have heard some guys using CO2 have actually ingested enough to stall an engine lol. Just wondering how well you can separate the CO2 from entering the intakes... The 911 looks like it might be ideal for water spray as well.

[996TT_STEVO]

Personally I would like to see a shootout again like the exhausts that were done a few years back... rolling road, same day, same conditions = no bull****!