Caravan Intercooling
Stage I
I had this probe cooler all picked out to intercool the van with, it fit perfect in front of the radiator. I wanted to keep the a/c so whatever I obtained HAD to fit in front of the rad, the only downside was I had to do a lot of welding in the rad support to run the hoses to and from the cooler.. Well it was getting warm out and you know how well turbos like hot air. So I got to thinking... Suburus have intercoolers above the engine, lets see if this could work.
Two hours later it was installed. A few pieces of radiator hose, some steel pipe, a bit of scrap aluminum for a bracket and viola'! Over the top intercooler! One problem though.... It tended to get heat soaked from the engine bay and lack of airflow. I wasn't looking to run 20 pounds of boost here, just cool things off a bit. Outlet core temps after the unit had heat soaked were over 130F. Already I was thinking of ways to remedy this...
Stage II
So I trudge off to the boneyard looking for a fan to mount under the intercooler, and I find one ;-) I notice a Honda CRX with a mashed in nose that has a small diameter fan in front of the radiator. I start looking for another less damaged unit and 5 minutes later I'm out of there. Next stop is the hardware store to pick up 4 inch drier duct, an outlet or two and some sheet aluminum.
So I bolt the fan to the underside of the cooler, take the sheet aluminum and fabricate a shroud around the cooler & fan combo, cut up one of the drier outlets to make it a fan inlet and assemble the whole shooting match together with duct tape! After it was test fitted the whole unit was covered in reflective "bubble wrap" insulation stripped from my garage wall! (I forgot to buy some from home depot when I was gather supplies). While the cooler is out, the lower intercooler hose which runs directly behind the hot radiator is covered with thermal tech wrap.
The finishing touch is the second drier duct which routes air into unit. This works amazingly well at highway speeds! With the fan off, cooler core temps near the outlet connection are within 10 degrees of ambient temperature!!! On several occasions temperatures of 68-70F are noted. I don't intend to keep the van this way, I'm just trying to make it through the summer. Spark plug access is a bit hampered to say the least but the unit comes right off with a screwdriver and 7/16 wrench. In case you were wondering the fan is run off a switch on the dash, the amp draw is so low though I can run it all the time if desired. Maybe I'll try a water sprayer using the windshield washer tank & pump next week! hmm....