Club 80-90 Forums

Gas temp gauge, do you mean air inlet temp?

Yeah inlet temp gauge and exhaust temp gauge. Maybe on a £5000 engine, not on a Syncro. Its just something else to go wrong/cause trouble!

Exhaust gas...no gauge I agree but the temp is closely monitored on modern engines by the ecu...several sensors in fact!

Also the newest vw diesels have charge coolers stuck right on the inlet manifold because...it's more efficient at cooling the charge!

Also more to go wrong...but will a muddy intercooler work?.

yeah, mine measures the inlet whether i want it to or not

doesnt look like my golf one is going to work in that situation very easily.
does anyone know of any other vw group ones which are a better fit?
i have noticed that many have fabricated aluminium in/outlets and i think i can see why now.
i may have to go that route instead.

Latest thing I'm learning at college is pattern development for rectangular to round as I want to knock the plastic ends off intercoolers and make some ally ones, then convert them to charge coolers by adding a water jacket.

does a charge cooler have the same matrix inside as the intercoolers? i.e. the fussy thin aluminium?

hotpod wrote:does a charge cooler have the same matrix inside as the intercoolers? i.e. the fussy thin aluminium?

yep.

and considering we have the useful 'ears' , one of which is redundant on a watercooled syncro, what is the advantage of a chargecooler over an intercooler? they presumably both rely on the van to be moving to get cooling air?
could one be made which took up the entire ear?

Advantages.
Less restricted as to where you can put it.
No problems trying to get air to flow over it [so less chopping of the bodywork]
It won't get clogged with mud.

Disadvantages.
Costs more.
hmm.
er..
pfff..
Oh, you have to have a small radiator at the front and a small electric pump running coolant to and from it.
Plumbing up the radiator is the easy bit of the job, sorting plumbing to the charge cooler is the worst bit.

In fairness, you can do it on the cheap if you can TIG by welding a jacket over the normal intercooler, use an auxilliary water pump and find a heater matrix from another car that will fit the gap where you want it at the front, or even use an oil cooler as a radiator.

wicked. you know thats 'keeno' from here? i have seen his chargecoolers but never attempted to guess what was inside the fabrications. now i know and it looks very like the golf one i have here.
i shall give him a call right now to pick his brains.

fitting a charge cooler must be easy because its one of the few jobs I have managed to do successfully on my own.

legacy cooler..new bosch pump.....legacy rad....pipe and silicon bits. £200 ish

Why has no one made a similar design to the Oettinger T3 charge cooler that was available as an upgrade option? Is it because of it being rare or thought to not actually work that well?
I fitted one to my Westy and it seems to work really well. Fits in the factory engine bay layout as well.

Here is a pic of engine bay:

max and caddy wrote:Exhaust gas...no gauge I agree but the temp is closely monitored on modern engines by the ecu...several sensors in fact!

Also the newest vw diesels have charge coolers stuck right on the inlet manifold because...it's more efficient at cooling the charge!

Also more to go wrong...but will a muddy intercooler work?.

Yes indeed the ECU looks after all the trickery but my 'old fashioned' oil burner AAZ doesn't have one of those! As Im the proud owner of one of the newest VW diesels, I lifted the bonnet today to see the charge cooler ........



....... and took a pic! No I couldn't see it either but there is something up front that looks like an intercooler! Thats not to say that other VW models are the same though! Anyway both are of similar efficiencies (water is a better conductor of heat than air but you then have to use air to cool the water!!) and will give similar results but the main thing is the install and getting the cooled charge into the engine.
So whats with the 'muddy intercooler? How is mud going to get up into a sealed area behind the rear light when you're driving down the road?