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Has anybody ever messed around with an aftermarket intercooler for their turbocharged engine?

My engines are not intercooled and I was thinking if I added intercoolers they may produce a few more horsepower without any further modifications.

I have cummins 4BT's and it seems that intercooling can help significantly. I searched the net and came up with little information on marine intercooling and aftermarket availability.

I did find a few air to liquid intercoolers but they were not "marine" and they are made of aluminum cores and components.

I know they would work but I doubt they would last more than a season or two being made of aluminum, I could be wrong on that.

A failure would be catastrophic so I was hoping for some input.

Thanks guys in advance!

I did it to my Perkens 165. That made them 185 at the time. I got 1 knot sometimes. Russ might know more since he has had the for 4 years in his boat.

What brand did you use?

I do not remember.

Would the intercooler be cooled by seawater or could it be cooled by the freshwater side of the system.

Raw water would obviously be much better temperature wise for cooling. The freshwater side a typical boat would be about 180F degrees give or take. I dont know if 180F defeats the purpose of cooling the air. That may not cool the charged air enough.

As I understand it (I might be wrong), The Cummins 210's are Turbocharged but not aftercooled. The 250 is turbocharged and aftercooled, but not salt water aftercooled. The higher hp 6bta's are salt water aftercooled. The sallt water aftercoolers need a lot more maintenance in order to keep doing what they are supposed to do. I am sure someone will chime in soon and tell you more. Your theory though, is correct.

Not an engine guy for sure but charge cooling will only cool the inbound air.to get more power you will also need more fuel-pump/injector mods also.could be pretty involved.

I don't know if they make them, but I would check with Lenco first as they did a first class, and reasonable price, on my replacement gear coolers -- maybe they make intercoolers and aftercoolers too?

For purely experimentation I think you could take an oil cooler (thats good) and kind of reverse engineer it.

Lets say a 3inch diameter cooler, you could cut the 1-1/4" fittings off each end making it 3" now.

Instead of raw water flowing through the oil cooler you would have air instead. A 3 inch diameter cooler would probably allow plenty of charged air to flow thru it from the small Holset H1C that I have. I am not sure of how much air pressure that is being created by the turbo, but for now lets worry about that later.

The oil fittings would then be used to now allow RAW water to flow through them for cooling instead of oil runinng through.

We are talking about air here and the raw water traveling thru the oil veins, in theory should be enough to keep that air under 150F and possibly much more.

A standard oil cooler is obviously marine grade and may work as an aftercooler possibly.

Its been real cold up here in Long Island and I have lots of time to think up stuff, no idea if its feasible but I do have a couple of old coolers laying around.....

Walter is correct. I have the 6BTA 250s (CPL 1247s) and the aftercooler is heat exchanger cooled (anti-freeze) and requires no maintanice vs. the salt water cooled ones on the 6BTAs over 270 hp. Since the sea water is a lot cooler than the 185 degree anti-freeze they are more efficient.

BUT - as someone pointed out, you can't just add an aftercooler and expect to get the same hp increase the factory gets from their turbo/aftercooled motors because the fuel/air ratio has to be maintained by adding more fuel to the cooler intake air to get proper combustion. Sure, an aftercooler without any other changes would probably do some good, but not much. I'd suggest before you spend time and money on such a project you talk to Tony Athens at Seaboard Marine in Oxnard, CA...he's the Cummins expert and a straight shooter.

And those block heaters.....it was bone-chilling cold here in coonassland this weekend and my motors cranked on the first turn and ran without much smoke vs. almost impossilbe to start and a floating smudge pot without them.

UV

Walter and Vic are correct. Anything over 270hp have saltwater cooled aftercoolers. I have the 270 remans and they are fresh water cooled. Couldn't justify in my mind the cost and maintence to get 3 extra knots at cruise to go up in engine size and have saltwater aftercoolers.

I knob Bob Lilco goes for the spead but ask JP how many times he can run 28 knots to and from the Canyon. Great for cutting across the bay but after that, not happening too often up here in the North East.

how many times he can run 28 knots to and from the Canyon. Maybe 5 time a year.

I am just wondering if adding the coolers would increase fuel efficiency and not necessarily expect leaps and bounds on power increases.

Cooler air in the combustion chamber regardless of adding more fuel has to be a good thing to some extent.

You can get an intercooler very inexpensive, an aluminum one that is. I see them listed for under $150. To experiment thats not too expensive. I could set up a gate valve on it to flush with fresh water after each use which should prolong its life from the raw water flowing thru it.

I just may have to do this.

Check with Tony Athens just to make sure you will not be hurting your engines in any way by doing that. 1-800-200-2628 Three hour time difference. I'm sure we'd all be interested in what he'd have to say.

no not to the canyon to often but offshore fall bass season every damm day. ok lets start all over, every know diesel engine that ever went into a 28/31 bertram had to have a heat exchanger right! definitly no keel cooled bertrams out there . the normal operation of a heat exchager is to circulate sea water around a bundle of 1/4" copper tubes that have glycol moving thru them circulated by the engine water pump.you got me so far! so what the hell makes you think there is any more maintenance circulating the same sea water to cool air!!!! every 4 years take both of them apart and clean bundle . now lets find out who started this vicious rumor about 31 bertrams being wet! only if you don`t want to address the problem------------------------------

Spent 4years on the Saratoga and at about 1000 ft long we took green water over the bow.(talk about corrosion on aluminum airplanes.) It was a wet boat.

Scenario

I think what some of us are saying is, will you increase fuel economy enough to make it worth it to go through the conversion. It might be like those magic gas and oil additives that are supposed to increase fuel mileage in your car.

Be interesting to see how you make out if you do it. If it works, you will have hit on something simple enough more will do it.

Bob

I realize that the heat exchanger needs to be cleaned every couple of years but the question is, how many things do you want to rip off the engine every 4 years to clean. For 3 knots less at cruise and $5,000 per side, the 270's work just fine and I only need to worry about the heat exchanger giving me fits and not the heat exchanger and after cooler.

ok i agree tony my situation is slightly differant . whereby if i wasn`t down at the marina in a great atmosphere with friends i would be puting some fancy limestone tile in the guest bathroom. totaly useless large bathroom nobody has used since my son married 10 years ago along with 4 more bedrooms my wife loves to rip apart and redecorate with my labor!! two people in house ridiculous redecorating but thats my leverage to work on boat.tony differant stokes for differant folks and the after cooler is a no-brainer!

Bob

That's why not everyone owns a 31 Bert, different strokes for different folks. I wish I had the access to the tools and the time of course to take on what you take on. I love your ideas, so keep them coming.

I spoke to Tony Athens and he assured me that I would see no increase in performance or economy.

Thats good enough for me. My intention was to get an innexpensive unit and just experiment to see what the results were.

I had found a few aluminum units on ebay that are like $125 each and I had figured I would also need to plumb them in and weld up a custom bracket and that would have cost me another $25 per side.

I was thinking of doing a seatrial one weekend and if the results were good, I would have then spent the money on a marine grade cooler. If the results had sucked I would have taken them off and threw them out.

$300 investment/experiment was worth it to me but since Tony gave the thumbs down I dont think I will bother.
You can waste $300 worth of fuel with a dinged prop and not even realize it until you haul the boat (wondering all season why your fuel economy is off....LOL)