Water to air intercoolers.

[RotorDad]

My friends & I have run water to air set ups packed with ice in a number of drag cars here with success, they did their job. All of the street driven cars in our group use Air to Air coolers, unless the vehicle is supercharged & requires the need of a Water to Air. I wouldn't say that air to air coolers are best option in all situations, but in a street driven or anything other then drag racing they would be the better choice. Now I don't know what Rice was talking about when saying a shit load of plumbing & huge pressure drops. Most of the water to air systems I have seen have far fewer bends & piping. Two things to think about when looking at charge coolers, Heat transfer & Friction loss. The more piping & bends in the system can cause large pressure drop. Air to air systems are simple & effective, but packaging & routing can be an issue. Water to air systems have their place in motorsports, there is added componets, but they do not need to be in the engine compartment. Here is something I read a long time ago " Think about a hot frying pan. If you want it to cool quickly, do you dunk it in water or do you wave it around in the air? Which method cools faster?…" The idea would be to find the charge cooler system that best fits what you plan on doing with the car. On the idea of keeping the air to air & adding water/meth injection. Okay I will say that chemical cooling is a great idea, but it does take your simple FMIC system & make it more complex. So with guys like BDC out there relying on such systems without someone knowing what they are doing can prove to be a bad idea.