Why Turbocharged Cars Need Intercoolers

Car enthusiasts and those who like speed often opt for installing a turbo charger on their vehicles. The main reason why they do it is to get a faster and more efficient car. Turbo charged cars have a number of specifics and peculiarities that differ them from non-turbo cars. We will discuss one of the specifics here. The notion of turbo is closely connected with the notion of intercooler. Even if you entrust maintenance of your turbo car to a professional mechanic it is important to know what an intercooler is and how it functions. We will discuss the basics of turbo car intercoolers here.

An intercooler is a part characteristic of turbocharged and supercharged vehicles. It is similar to a radiator in non-turbo cars. As turbo charged engines are subdued to high temperatures, the main task of an intercooler is to reduce the heat so the engine is not damaged.

An intercooler lowers the temperature of the air that reaches the engine. It has special vanes where the heated air cools down by external air that passes through these vanes. Thus, it uses cold air from outside to reduce the temperature of the air inside. This is pure physics: hot air inside looses its temperature by heating up the cold air from outside. This is enough to reduce the temperature of the internal air so it can add horsepower to your vehicle. To have access to cool external air intercoolers are installed behind the front bumper. This is a perfect spot for getting cool air circulated in intercoolers’ valves.

As we have already mentioned turbocharged cars are exposed to very high temperatures and that is the main reason why intercooler is needed. Here are some more details. Turbochargers compress the air that consequently goes to the engine. And again physics: the temperature of compressed air is much higher than that of normal air. The more compressed the air is the higher its temperature is. Moreover, the more the pressure is the less oxygen this air contains. Oxygen is needed for the engine to burn the fuel. Turbochargers use much more compressed air, which means that the temperatures are higher, the pressure is greater, and thus, it is clear how important it is to install an intercooler as well. Otherwise, the consequences will be opposite to what you expected: no additional horsepower for sure!

There is also such a parameter as the effectiveness of the intercooler. Talking about intercooler effectiveness we refer to its core task of cooling the air. The effectiveness is measured by detecting to what extend the intercooler lowers the temperature of the air compressed by turbochargers.

These are the main aspects of intercoolers. I guess it is clear that turbocharged cars cannot go without intercoolers which are one of the main parts that influence the performance of your turbo car.

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