Honda Civic Type R Intercooler (The Numbers#) – Design Pt. 3
As we get so very close to the launch of our Performance Intercooler for the 2017+ Civic Type R we wanted to give the community one last blast of design details. Specifically, we want to share some of our test data with you.
There are many variables that go into designing a performance intercooler for your FK8. You can’t really even get started unless you can look at the data and make a conclusion. 27WON has partnered with AEM Electronics for our data acquisition and analysis; using our CD-5L dash and logger along with an assortment of pressure and temperature sensors we captured various performance aspects of both the OEM and the 27WON Intercooler.
There are two primary characteristics that people consider when evaluating the performance of an intercooler: pressure and temperature drop across the core. We are going to look at both and compare OEM vs 27WON.
In the graphs below the OEM intercooler data is shown with the orange lines. The 27WON intercooler data is shown with the white and yellow lines.
LOWER GRAPH: OEM core = orange line; 27WON core = white line
The pressure drop is the amount of “work” that is required to push the boosted air through the intercooler. How does this affect the power of your Type R? As the pressure drop gets smaller it requires less work to “push” the boosted air through the core. This means your turbocharger is able to function more efficiently and this directly affects potential power. You can see the white line is consistently below the orange in the lower graph.
The larger the pressure drop (higher number), the greater the amount of work required. Through testing of various core densities, we were able to reduce pressure drop from approximately 2.0psi to 1.3psi, thus improving performance considerably.
TOP GRAPH: OEM Core = orange line; 27WON core = yellow line
LOWER GRAPH: OEM Core = orange line; 27WON core = white line
The temperature drop is the amount of heat being removed from the boosted air as it passes through the intercooler core. The OEM intercooler performs decently for 1-2 dyno pulls, but quickly becomes saturated…meaning it can no longer remove heat. This is a major problem for any type of performance driving situation and one that robs power potential or may even cause engine damage.
Comparing the OEM and 27WON designs back to back in the same ambient conditions you can see a major difference in cooling efficiency. Looking at the lower graph, “Temp Delta”, we can see exactly how much heat is being removed from the boosted airflow while it passes through the intercooler…the larger the number the better here.
Note: In the graphs you see above each spike is a WOT pull on our in-house dyno. What we were doing is torture testing the cores by doing back to back to back WOT pulls to introduce large amounts of heat, much more then you will ever see on the street or track
The OEM intercooler is able to expel 150-155 degrees F from the boosted air while the 27WON design is able to expel 175-190 degrees F. This means lower IAT2 (boosted air temperature) for your engine and thus more power potential.
Pink Graph is our baseline Hondata Map.
Green Graph Drop-in testing with no tuning changes netted us +10whp/+15wtq.
Red Graph Drop-in testing with tuning optimization netted us a total of +26whp/+28wtq.
There we have it. The best performing intercooler for the CTR with dyno-proven bolt-on gains and the data to back the design up. Innovative design features like an integrated inlet pipe, external baffles to direct cooling air-flow through the core, and internal airfoils to make sure the hot charged air flows through the entire core for proper cooling make this the easiest decision you’ll ever make for your CTR.
As with all our products, the necessary hardware and mobile-friendly interactive installation instructions are included.
Stay tuned as this part is launching in the coming weeks.
I DARE You to REDEFINE the Aftermarket
-Barett