Intercooler... does it give you horsepower?

[Guy]

The subject says it all.

Most things I read say no. Changing the intercooler doesn't add any power. It helps you cool the incoming charge and is beneficial if you are running larger turbos with more boost... and that's about it.


Who has thoughts on this topic?

 

[ReefBlue]

Cooler air is denser air, more air requires more fuel=bigger bang, more power.

Now, it may only give you 5-10hp, but it will give you more.

Wait until someone comes up with an aftercooler for these trucks.

 

[SilverBolt]

Yes and no. Depends on how restrictive and efficient the stock IC is. If the replacement IC has less restriction and better cooling you will see some small gains. Most aftermarket IC's are done in conjunction with turbo upgrades.

 

[Bigoil]

I don't really see any benefit with stock turbos ... i think it's more cosmetic and looks bad ass for now !!!

 

[RUFdriver]

Totally depends on the difference between stock and aftermarket IC. For example, on a Porsche 930 the OEM IC is small and a big IC like a B&B makes big power especially with bigger turbo and headers. It's all very relative. I suspect the Raptor IC is pretty efficient and very little power to be had from that alone.

 

[8WOOD]

If you didn't have an intercooler a short initial pull on a cold day after letting the truck reach its operating temp would probably yield similar numbers to an intercooled truck on the same day. But as you hold continued boost and do multiple pulls everything gets hotter, with no intercooler to bring the compressed air temps down, the engine and intake air as whole would continue to get hotter and you'd start to see reduced power. As long as the stock intercooler can consistently bring the temps back down to 10-30 degrees above ambient your IC is doing its job. On super hot days, if your intercooler isn't efficient enough it can become heat soaked and you'll have a power drop.

When users increase boost on stock turbos the air gets much hotter, sometimes it exceeds the stock ic efficiency and you will loose power even though you see more boost. Bigger turbos help to give you more volume per psi of boost and this helps keeps temps down too. Aftermarket IC Essentially gives you better efficiency at bringing compressed air back to ambient temps. I'm betting that the stock ic is just fine for stock turbo and turbo boost, and that an aftermarket ic with not other tunning would net you no hp. It might on a 120 degree day in stop and go traffic give you a slight advantage

 

[nikhsub1]

Generally speaking OEM intercoolers aren't very good. Since ICs are passive, some people can't (or won't) say that they 'add power'. They will say that they cause the motor to 'lose less' power. I would imagine on a stock Raptor just swapping the IC won't be noticeable. If you dial the boost up though, well that is a different story. Since I've seen no testing of the stock IC unit it's hard to say how good or bad it is. In my current turbo car swapping the IC to a better bar & plate design yielded a very nice performance increase. Testing on my particular application saw a 40C lower temp than the stock IC on average. That is HUGE. Again, without knowing what the stock OEM unit is capable of it is hard to say.

The one thing I will say is that I think it is in a horrible spot - especially when a front license plate is mounted. IC's really need a lot of air flowing through them to be effective and the placement in the Raptor seems less than ideal.

For the tl;dr crowd - for a stock truck an upgraded IC will likely go unnoticed. For a tuned truck with more boost (more boost = more heat) an upgraded IC will most certainly make a differece.

 

[racerjb]

Anyone, have thoughts between the Full Race intercooler and the Whipple intercooler...

Whipple is less expensive and uses stock location...Full Race is more money and puts the intercooler up higher out of potential debris.

 

[jgree32]

If you didn't have an intercooler a short initial pull on a cold day after letting the truck reach its operating temp would probably yield similar numbers to an intercooled truck on the same day. But as you hold continued boost and do multiple pulls everything gets hotter, with no intercooler to bring the compressed air temps down, the engine and intake air as whole would continue to get hotter and you'd start to see reduced power. As long as the stock intercooler can consistently bring the temps back down to 10-30 degrees above ambient your IC is doing its job. On super hot days, if your intercooler isn't efficient enough it can become heat soaked and you'll have a power drop.

When users increase boost on stock turbos the air gets much hotter, sometimes it exceeds the stock ic efficiency and you will loose power even though you see more boost. Bigger turbos help to give you more volume per psi of boost and this helps keeps temps down too. Aftermarket IC Essentially gives you better efficiency at bringing compressed air back to ambient temps. I'm betting that the stock ic is just fine for stock turbo and turbo boost, and that an aftermarket ic with not other tunning would net you no hp. It might on a 120 degree day in stop and go traffic give you a slight advantage

This^^^
Coming from a heavily tuned BMW 335i the stock IC just couldn't keep up once boost was dialed up over 2x stock.
Stock IC had intake air temps soaring after multiple pulls which is all bad.
Ecu would have to compensate by decreasing timing to prevent knock thus lost power.
Upgraded intercooler made a world of difference in consistency for my car living in the desert especially.

Once tunes are more prevalent it would be a worthwhile upgrade. I need to get my contact from BMW land to fab one for the Raptor. Made Great quality intercoolers for ~$450

 

[dillard09]

This^^^
Coming from a heavily tuned BMW 335i the stock IC just couldn't keep up once boost was dialed up over 2x stock.
Stock IC had intake air temps soaring after multiple pulls which is all bad.
Ecu would have to compensate by decreasing timing to prevent knock thus lost power.
Upgraded intercooler made a world of difference in consistency for my car living in the desert especially.

Once tunes are more prevalent it would be a worthwhile upgrade. I need to get my contact from BMW land to fab one for the Raptor. Made Great quality intercoolers for ~$450

$450?! Really?