FACT: Copper absorbs heat faster than Aluminum. Aluminum releases it faster than Copper.

Based on that information, both have ideal and non-ideal uses.

 

minus the 50lbs of intercooler you would have to run that would be as far forward of hte car as possible. that would be idea for a pulling truck that weights the front end....lol

 

My original idea was to tear apart a mini fridge and let's say you ran a copper pipe from the ic on a powerlab st. Inside the copper charge pipe run a small copper coil about an inch apart from each coil and spiral it uo to the mainifold. Put the heat exchanging coils aka the part you find on the back of the fridge in frot of the radiator or ic. Build a custom freezer compressor that is constantly compressing the refridgerant through the whole system if you drop the whole charge pipe tempeture to idk off the top of my head say anywhere between 0-22 degrees Then in theory the dramatic difference I. The tempture is so great it drops the air temptue dramtically enough to giv off better cooling. That was my idea idk if it's even plausible or not

 

or with aobut 100lbs less you could just use a water to air intercooler packed with ice water like drag racers do in order to get below ambient temps. way simpler.

OR you can spend 400$ and put a meth injection on the car, get better octane and lower temps 50+ degrees and add like 10lbs to the car total.

hmmm.....

 

You obviously have all the answers - way to think outside the box. If the entire heat exchanger was changed from aluminum to copper, it would add no more than 20#, so quit exaggerating.

Here was a concept I worked on with a company many years ago after we had done rigorous intercooler efficiency testing, including runs made with spraying N2O on the intercooler as well as running the intake charge temp to 600F to see the temperature drop on the outlet side when the IC was wet with LN2.

 

Waste of time. Many people have tried to use their A/C with an intercooler and make the same concept you are describing. My research in the past has shown that the large issue is always condensation going into your motor from the huge delta in temperature.

 

I don't fully understand what you are trying to prove with the picture. What relevance does it have?

 

I was working with a company that was willing to design a copper-finned IC for my application. This was a concept demo that they did for me - it's copper. I understand the OP first said "copper turbo kit piping" but then part of the discussion turned to intercoolers with cores made out of copper. Aside from all the hand waving, I wanted to show an actual piece of hardware that has been produced, that's all.

 

with no data to back up a shiny picture.

comparison with aluminum when spraying n2o isn't comparing the same thing either. also, if it worked so great then why did you have to spray it?

so you're telling me that the intercooler only weighed 20lbs when my aluminum intercooler weighs in the teens?

just to add solid fact: Al has FW of 26.9 and Cu 63.5. If nothing about the intercooler is changed except material it would effectively double the weight.

 

Right, roughly double the weight. A higher IC efficiency means you could get away with less material, so it would likely come in at 2x the overall weight. So if yours is in the teens, 2 * teens equals teens of weight added. You were spouting off about 50 or a 100 pounds added.

I'm sorry my post was misleading - all the IC efficiency testing was performed on aluminum ICs. The N2O spray was performed on an aluminum FMIC, IC efficiency was done on SMIC and FMICs; the copper was never tested. The "shiny picture" was a sample that was made as a feasibility demonstration from the company I contacted. That's a good first step, don't you think? The first Cu one was going to cost about $1500, and I abandoned the thought and pursued another type of IC kit for the Z32 TT (which I have sold about 300, not alarming #s by any means, but it's just a side hobby, I don't live off of them).

 

ya, 50 was a little high but still not far off. 3x11x28 core is roughly 15lbs then add endcaps so even at 15 that owuld be a 30lb intercooler. a larger intercooler that weighed 20 would have a Cu weight of 40.

ic now on your testing with teh spray situation. that other issues is cost there. 1500$ for materials which means manufactured with price to make a profit would be one hell of a costly intercooler!

 

Precisely why it died on the drawing table.

 

Whether

 

To add to that thought.. doubt there'd be much advantage if any in making the end caps or reservoirs out of Cu. Technically you could save some # and $ by going back to Al or dare I say even plastic composite for those bits.

 

Can you post any results from the copper ic.
I know weight here is an issue but anyone consider running both a copper radiator and ic. I don't know slot about water meth injection but how does that work is like nos where it's just pumping continualy when your on the throttle?

 

I'm guessing you mean an air to water intercooler as that picture is just a radiator used in watercooling computers, cost about 100 bucks and fit two 120mm fans

 

Thermal properties aside which is heaveir, a pound of copper or a pound of aluminum?

 

 

6061 Aluminum has a density of 0.0975437 pounds per cubic inch and Copper has a density of 0.321533 pounds per cubic inch.

Copper is actually over three times heavier than aluminum.

 

could just clear coat the copper to prevent corrosion.

also to T_K you are dumb if you think a metal that absorbs heat faster will release it slower.

please take a gen chem 1 class before giving anymore of your "FACTS"

the fact that copper will absorb heat faster than aluminum has no bearing after idling for 5 minutes... either way the temps of the pipes will normalize no matter what metal it is. the good thing about copper is after driving your metal will be more affected by ambient temps and and cool down faster than the aluminum.

The cost of the Cu and the added weight makes it difficult to beat aluminum for this application, regardless of thermal dissipation.