Welcome to the official GReddy USA blog. -Think of this as our online weekly "GReddy Times," a venue for us to report what's going on or what just happened at GReddy USA this week (new products, new projects, racing news, even online store specials.) On our blog you can see what we are up to in the GReddy Sales floor, R&D garage, on the road or even from our Headquarters in Japan.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Intercooler Upgrades: Size, Cooling, and Pressure

One area that almost all factory turbocharged vehicles can be improved is, intercooling, especially if you decide to boost up. But even factory intercoolers at stock boost levels begin to easily get heat soaked. (when the core looses its cooling efficiency because it's volume is small and it starts retaining heat faster then it can cool off.) By reducing the engine's inlet temperatures, a denser air charge will enter the engine; this can make more horsepower at the same boost level and even more power at higher boost levels.

For example on the new Hyundai Genesis 2.0T Coupe. We offer our GReddy Intercooler Uprgade. First off, the kit uses a much larger Type-24 LS core which has about 60% more volume. This not only provides a bigger surface area for cooling, but also fights against heat-soak by having so much more capacity.

This can be specifically translated to more reliable cooling, (in warmer weather, and for longer periods of time.) In the case of the Genesis, the intercooler is already a front-mounted unit for good air flow, but the larger size of our LS core increase cooling efficiency from 79.6% to 88.8%. That's over 12 degrees F cooler!

And even though the GReddy Intercooler is so much larger, it has a smaller pressure drop. The smaller factory intercooler is actually pretty efficient 97.5% (or a 0.42psi drop), but due to our unique tube & fin design it is even better with a 99% efficiency (or a 0.14psi drop)