I ran into this picture today, and have become inspired!

Since the Z already has dual hood louvers... why not make them a little bigger, and put dual top mount intercoolers there?

I'm already going to be doing body work to accomodate the wider wheels, so the louvers can be significantly oversized if necessary, but I'd rather keep them similar to the size they are now.

Most of the reasonably sized intercoolers that I've seen to do this with were kind of wimpy... And all of the OEM twin-intercoolers I could find were. I'd like to have my charge cooling prepared to handle about 500bhp

Any ideas or recomendations are welcome!! Or if there's no reasonable way to support 500hp with TMICs... just call me dumb

 

There really isn't any good reason to do a TMIC on a 280zxt... You will benefit much more from a big FMIC.

Cons about a TMIC on a Z:

-No space to work with
-A lot of heat sink

Pros about a FMIC:

-Lots of space
-Very little heat sink

There is a 280zxt on cardomain w/ a jimmy'd TMIC... but IMO it's just too much of a hassle for very little gain.


The Callaway C4 Vette had top mounts... but they are pretty small & I've heard many complants about heat sink... tho the C4 engine bay is packed enough to make it difficult to do a FM.

 

Of course there is a good reason to, but its got nothing to do with how it compares to an FMIC's performance.

I would most definetly make some sort of heat shield or ducting to help with the amount of heat in the engine bay.

 

So you think you can get the same or greater IC surface area from a top mount, than a front mount?

 

I just can't see how it'd fit between the intake manifold and the hood, unless you're talking about putting them in that narrow space between the engine and radiator.

 

Again... my desire to mount dual intercoolers to the hood has nothing to do with performance gain. I realise that top mounts are not as efficient as front mounts... good thing I can have 2 to make up for some of that loss.

 

I cannot find many pictures of a s130 with a vg in them, but it looks like it clears up alot of room towards the nose of the car on either side of the engine bay. They would most likely have to be shifted foreward, and outward some to fit. Such positioning would make it easier to duct air to them as well.

 

So... you're adding IC's... but not for a performance gain? I'm not trying to be a smart-***, but why ARE you doing it then?

 

I am adding IC's so that I will beable to run more than an insignificant amount of boost. But my decision to do TMIC vs FMIC is not for performance reasons... just for the cool factor of having hood vents that actually do something useful.

 

FMIC are far more cool. Make a custom front air dam with a super large opening and get the biggest freaking FMIC you can buy and shove it right up front there. you'll be cool then

 

Adding an inefficient or non working IC won't help you "run more boost." If the IC isn't going to be efficient, save your $ and just crank up the boost... at least then you won't be increasing the boost lag.

 

I thought smaller intercoolers generally have less boost lag than large ones of similar design quality

What makes you think they would be non-working or inefficient?

All intercoolers/intercooler setups have some level of inefficiency.

We don't call Rod's shiny 18's ineffecient just because he could have gotten better handeling gains by putting on a 15" wheel that only weighs 10lbs.

 

ditch the two vents and go for a couple of right sized turbo scoops.