intercooler liquid

Just introduced a mate to wcing and we went down the scrappy and got 3 heater cores for £5 each or $8.18 not bad eh.

Anyway to the point he's a bit of a mechanic and was telling me some people use intercooler liquid instead of water to cool their engines. So i imagine it must be designed to cool better than water, and all bacterial growth risks should be eliminated since this stuff is for more performance.

All i want to know is if anyone has tried this or knows anymore about intercooler liquid or if it even exists as i know nothing about cars so my friend could be talking out of his a$$.

Later

Not that I know anything, but aren't intercoolers used for transmissions? If so, wouldn't that make "intercooler liquid" transmission fluid?

If so, I don't think I'd be using it for cooling a cpu...

There is nothing that cools better than pure water, period.

I'm a chemist by training, and I don't know anything that has a better heat capacity than water. I also don't believe it's even possible to have a liquid with better heat capacity than water. There are some products that have similar heat capacites, such as glycol or alcohol, that can be used as additives or under certain extreme conditions. (>100C, <0C) But these products have many undesirable characteristics in most situations, and can't match water's performance.

Possibly he means people use a combination of anti-freeze and water to prevent the coolant (water and anti-freeze mix) from freezing inside of the engine block but I doubt that is what he was talking about. People often use an intercooler system in turbocharger or supercharger forced induction situations where the intercooler is basicly used as mini-radiator to cool the incoming air before it's sucked into the engine. I have never heard of intercooler liquid before. My guess is your friend is doesn't know what he's talking about.

I'm seeing friend today so will ask about it, although i do think you guys are right.

Will keep you posted.

howlingyeti said:

Possibly he means people use a combination of anti-freeze and water to prevent the coolant (water and anti-freeze mix) from freezing inside of the engine block but I doubt that is what he was talking about. People often use an intercooler system in turbocharger or supercharger forced induction situations where the intercooler is basicly used as mini-radiator to cool the incoming air before it's sucked into the engine. I have never heard of intercooler liquid before. My guess is your friend is doesn't know what he's talking about.

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Thanks! You guys sure are a welcoming bunch. I really appriecate it. Most of time newbies like me get the RTFM treatment.

All this talk about intercoolers has given me an idea. Now I really don't know much about case cooling but one of major limiting factors in air cooling of case in the ambient temperature right? If the air your sucking into the case is colder than the ambient temperature you should recieve better cooling, correct? Well what if you used an intercooler to cool the air before it enters your case? I've seen mods where people hook up ductwork to route air from colder places like the basement into their case.

So if you live in a cold place like me you could hookup a fan to pull air through a radiator from outside and then use duct work to route this into your pc. If you already have a water cooling setup you could just add another loop in parallel as it wouldn't require too much water pressure. Now where this get interesting is that you could hookup the intercooling loop to something like an old minifridge. That way you could have air that is slightly above freezing being pumped into your case even in the middle of summer. Another advantage is you wouldn't get condensation like you would with a water cooling system around these temps either.

Anyways... I don't really know if this idea has any merit but it seems kinda of interesting.

howlingyeti said:

Thanks! You guys sure are a welcoming bunch. I really appriecate it. Most of time newbies like me get the RTFM treatment.

All this talk about intercoolers has given me an idea. Now I really don't know much about case cooling but one of major limiting factors in air cooling of case in the ambient temperature right? If the air your sucking into the case is colder than the ambient temperature you should recieve better cooling, correct? Well what if you used an intercooler to cool the air before it enters your case? I've seen mods where people hook up ductwork to route air from colder places like the basement into their case.

So if you live in a cold place like me you could hookup a fan to pull air through a radiator from outside and then use duct work to route this into your pc. If you already have a water cooling setup you could just add another loop in parallel as it wouldn't require too much water pressure. Now where this get interesting is that you could hookup the intercooling loop to something like an old minifridge. That way you could have air that is slightly above freezing being pumped into your case even in the middle of summer. Another advantage is you wouldn't get condensation like you would with a water cooling system around these temps either.

Anyways... I don't really know if this idea has any merit but it seems kinda of interesting.

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I left my rad outside the case for that reason. It sits infront of a A/C window unit about a foot from the case. Works very well, 30c load with Folding@Home.
I am new here also, great spot for info!

intercoolers

Intercoolers are usually used in a turbo charged application. Air from the turbo gets a little warm cause of the exhaust gas on the one side of the turbo heating up the turbo housing so after the air is compressed by the turbo it goes into and intercooler to cool it back down before entering the engine. Two reasons for this,1-colder air means more power cause more air will burn more fuel and 2-less chance of detonation ocurring from an overheated combustion chamber. Usually there are 2 types of intercoolers im aware of 1-air to air and 2-air to liquid. In most of the air to liquid types I have seen they use a mixture of water and alcohol to use as the cooling medium.

I find it hard to believe that water (pure) is the best cooling liquid... just to hark back to something Caffinehog said. The first thing that springs to mind in boing pasta - the disolved starch in the water produces far worse burns than plain boiling water because the starch holds more heat.
I know it's obviously not a pure liquid but it would be an additive - as we're taking here...
?

Re: intercoolers

AMDninjaboy said:

In most of the air to liquid types I have seen they use a mixture of water and alcohol to use as the cooling medium.

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I assume this means the water/alcohol is pumped through the intercooler? Now for my claification though... does the air actually become cold enough to change into a liquid? Or does the name imply something else? Thanks again.

Hmm... Carbohydrates. Well, the extra heat you mention comes from the gellation of starch... much like freezing releases energy.


Want some heat capacities?
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/24_151.html

liquid

The alcohol/water mixture is circulated through the intercooler, the air passing over it passes it heat into the liquid inside the tubes of the intercooler. It works basically like a backwards radiator, like a rad has hot liquid in it and dissipates it heat into that air well an intercooler is backwards and the liquid takes the heat from the air. Ive not come across may of these types of intercoolers, most i have seen are air to air type. Mostly because they are cheaper, less work to install and dont have any problems with liquid leaking, pump ect.