Hokay, first off some facts; I am a noob. Now that we all know that, I have a question.

I am leaning towards SCing for my forced induction needs based on reliability. However, I love the look of a big front mounted intercooler like the turbo kits have. The supercharger kits I've seen have something that appears to be about a quarter the size and is called an aftercooler. What's the deal with this? I've seen kits like the Stillen supercharger for the 350z that have a big FMIC. Is this an option for our SCers? Please enlighten me

 

Tech 2 makes a front mount replacement.....

 

Thanks! That is the heat.

Are there any added performance gains proven over the tiny aftercooler?

Do you have a link to that vendor?

 

Didn't get the dyno with it on.... but I got if for the looks anyway..

Here's the link..

http://www.tech2motorsports.com/

 

Many threads on this already. Lots of skepticism that it gives any gains.

To clarify, however, this is not an intercooler, it is not cooling the air after compression. As such, it doesn't have the huge piping at each end like you're probably expecting. It is a radiator for the water/fluid in the aftercooler. The aftercooler is in your engine compartment next to the compressor.

I've resisted getting one of these for this reason: With the little Comptech radiator my car looks like a stock S2000 that should trap at 100mph but traps at 108. With a 'fake' FMIC it looks like a turbo setup that should trap much faster but only traps at 108 (I'm exaggerating, but you get the idea)

 

I have just installed the Tech2 rad. I can tell you that it does not hold any more water than the stock Vortech rad, even though it's much, much bigger looking. So far, taking note of the intake air temp via my APEX I-moni, there appears to be no difference. It may be possible that the intake temps could be kept lower when the car is being driven hard with the bigger looking rad, but this is yet to be determined.
I got it mostly for the bling and was hoping that it would help keep the intake temps lower as a bonus. So far, it's only been for the bling.

 

There are also some SC users with proper FMICs. But as the SCs are low boost as standard this is almost definitely a negative. With low boost your cooling requirements are lower (so the air-water aftercooler is more than adequate) and a short charge path is beneficial (which the A-W provides). Making the path 10 times as long in return for unnecessary additional cooling capability is not a good idea.

Of course if you are using a smaller pulley and supporting mods then this may not be applicable.

 

That was my mentality too.... I guess you can never get too old for some "Bling" every now and then..

 

[QUOTE=xviper,Oct 25 2005, 01:55 AM] I have just installed the Tech2 rad.

 

Thanks XViper for the update. I've suspected that Comptech and Vortech did some R&D on these kits before slapping together the parts.