BuddyClub Battery Grounding Condenser, Worth 5BHP

Lee, are you testing the temperatures of the pipes or the actual boost charge temps?. 70 degrees on boost (hot side)is very low, you should be seeing well over 100-140 degrees on boost.

On the pipes themselves ,I know the air temp will be higher but a percentage figure will do as the two pipes are similar ,so will absorb at the same rate .Will have to look into actual air temps later ,the present method will give a good indication as to whether any mods are working as far as intercooling or bay cooling .Ali is a pretty good heat conductor so the readings should be fairly accurate in terms of temp differentials .

So it does run cooler with the cover off

I wonder how the temerature might be effected if the glass cover were open by about an inch?

Would make it run sooooooooo much cooler .But how would you do it
Needs to be robust ,unobtrusive and simple to revert back to normal closed fit,yet be very reasonably priced

Could bonnet pins be made to work a mate has them on his comp/road car and as the bonnet up a couple of inches on the drag strip, black anodised wouldnt look to obstructive

Did you find the temps down with the lid off Lee, i was tempted a while ago, but was thinking Renault must have done there sums whith the lid.

Temps are down with the lid off .The lid is necessary for many good reasons if you're Renault and selling them, safety,cleanliness ,cosmetics ,but it does trap the heat and the ducting is there to solve that problem ,it's just not that effective .

Would make it run sooooooooo much cooler .But how would you do it
Needs to be robust ,unobtrusive and simple to revert back to normal closed fit,yet be very reasonably priced

Well the good thing about the bottom brackets on the glass, is they are just on a threaded rod. Take of the bracket, thread one (thin) nut on first, then put the bracket back on and then fix it together with a wing nut to make it easy to operate. Then when you want to change the height, you just unwind the wingnut and top nut and the bracket will move downwards which will alter the height of the glass when it is locked down.

You could do this with the top edge of the glass too. This is just a threaded rod and nut too. Just put a nut on the other side of the bracket, and you can adjust the height of the glass again.

Cant get much cheaper than that

I tried this on my red car before I broke it up..just dont go to high on the back edge...

The standard intercooler seems to be giving a 35/40 % decrease in charge temps .The chargecooler should be far more effective 50 % at least but the pressure drop will increase if you then put it thro the intercooler .If you put it place of the hot plenum you could link it straight to the throttle side with a U bend .I think you would need heat shielding for the charge unit in this position. You could leave the intercooler in place and plumb it in or not to see if this is true .
Would/could the rad fit in intercooler pocket

The chargecooler will be around 70-80% efficient..

Decent front mounted intercoolers on front engined cars are normally around 75%...

The chargecooler unit is mirror polished, and shouldnt absorb much ambient heat naturally. If you think about it, alot of heat is emmitted by the original turbo hot pipe, which radiates across to the cool pipe next to it. Because the chargecooler is water cooled and cooler to the touch, this shouldnt happen.

I wouldnt put the pre-rad in the intercooler position, as you have shown the location is innefficient. It needs to me mounted up front, or at least in some natural cool air flow..

Where are you triggering the fan from Is there a temp switch built in with the kit
What happens to the DV ,can it be removed altogether

You normally run the fan full time. A thermal switch could be put into the coolant line, but because there isnt an optimal 'hot' water temp (like there is in a running engine) you always want the water as cool as possible.

If the rad was mounted at the front of the car or in optimal airflow, there isnt much need for the fan (though on an Alpine this probably isnt the case). The fan is good for short motorsport or drifting tracks where lots of boost is used but the actual speeds reached arent that high..

Dumpvalve wise, you can still retain it if required. You would need the short peice of silicone pipe that connects the turbo to the 'turbo' pipe, then a 3" aluminium T piece which has a dumpvalve take off on it, and then another silicon joiner to connect it to the chargecooler.

Van Aaken Developments tested mine by putting a temp probe into the hose between the intercooler outlet and the plenum that goes into the inlet manifold. My chargecooler reduced the temp in that pipe from the low 80's to the low 40's (centigrade). This was under extreme conditions - hot day, high boost, hard use - engine cover etc all as standard. My prerad is mounted in the front spoiler which is vented and runs with a header tank and is filled with high performance coolant with a lower boiling point than water so cools more efficiently. Chargecoolers are good for safety as they give a very small range of charge temp compared to an intercooler. intercoolers if of the correct size and in a good position will be more efficient in high speed running - track, motorway etc as they can alter temperature far quicker than a chargecooler - this becomes a big disadvantage in stop start conditions where they become quickly affected by heat soak and ambient air temperature on a hot day.

I've seen another system (think Demon Tweaks offer it) that has a liquid nitrogen filled bulb that fits into the air flow so the inlet charge flows around it cooling it in the process - seemed a good idea.

Got a similar kit going on the Alpine in the New Year (To cold to fit it now ) Mines NOS with purge valves

What sort of system would you be using. I'd be wary of the injection of NOS straight into the plenum as unless the inlet manifold is a very good design you may get different amounts of NOS going into each cylinder (3 litre Capris for instance were extremely bad for this) which makes it hard to set up safely. Would definitely look at a direct port system, don't now how feasible this is though. Nos gives fantastic power increases on turbo cars (especially ones with marginal intercooling like the GTA) because it supercools the inlet charge when it changes into a gas from its liquid state.

NOS can be very difficult to balance. I remember a couple of articles in Perfomance Car where the Nissan 300ZX guys reckoned their tuned cars would have much quicker acceleration than most of the 'supercars' tested.

It was all a bit embarressing as the really high powered cars overfuelled and had massive problems with getting the boost and NOS correct. From memory the mildest tuned car (non-NOS) set the best time and most of the really high powered versions were about the same as a standard GTA.

Remember that nitrous is an oxidizing agent not a fuel so you've got to inject the correct levels of petrol to go with it.