Intercooler Water Sprayer – Do you NEED one?

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Intercooler water sprayers work. End of conversation. BUT they only work under some specific circumstances/conditions.

The Condition

An intercooler is too small when it is getting heat soaked because it is being overwhelmed by the heat and/or volume of the pressurised air passing through it.

I’d say a correctly sized intercooler will be able to keep intake air temps within 30 degree Celsius of ambient under the conditions you want it to work at.

What do I mean “under the conditions you want it to work at”?

Example 1 – If you use your car on road, it is irrelevant to you if the intake temps are high on track if you never use the car on track.

Example 2 – Weather is particularly hot and you have a once in a lifetime drive where you have pushed the car really hard and you can see your intake temps going more than 30 degrees above ambient. Arguably, if you have only seen the temps exceed thirty C once in 5 years, the intercooler you have is probably enough for what you need.

Which To Choose – Intercooler or Water Spray?

So you’re seeing high intake temps more often than you would like, we’ll assume your intercooler is too small (and not the turbo being driven too hard), should you fit a bigger intercooler or a water sprayer?

Without a doubt, a bigger intercooler (air to air) will be more reliable and will need less maintenance than intercooler water sprayer setup.

By the time you factor in the cost and complication of buying, installing and maintaining an intercooler water sprayer, the cost of fitting a bigger intercooler with its associated piping and hoses is probably going to be comparable to the water sprayer. In short, if it’s one or the other, I’d choose the air to air intercooler every day of the week.

You’ve Installed a Bigger Intercooler Will Adding a Sprayer Help?

When you see your intake temps are within 30 degree C of ambient, spraying water on the intercooler is probably not going to give a noticeable improvement to intake temps.

In other words, if you have a properly sized intercooler, for the way in which you use your car, a water sprayer is probably not the way to go.

When Is A Sprayer Suitable?

Your intercooler is not big enough and fitting a larger intercooler is not feasible eg not enough space

Perhaps you have a drag car making all the power and it’s simply impossible to fit a big enough intercooler. Or perhaps you have small car which is highly tuned & the engine bay does not have enough space for an intercooler to chill 500bhp of hot air.

In these cases, spraying water on the intercooler will help. Assuming intake temps are 50C or more higher than ambient.

And this is the only real time I think a water sprayer is the right choice.

You are space limited not money limited.

Don’t think a water sprayer is cheaper than an intercooler. A properly set up sprayer, with good components eg high pressure pump, reliable connections, quality spray nozzles, controlled intelligently eg with a spray controller, is going to cost in the ball park of an intercooler. Except the spray system will need more maintenance.

Don’t Expect…..

Don’t expect that fitting an intercooler sprayer to your daily driver (which has a suitable sized intercooler) is going to cause intake temps to be even lower in normal driving.

In our experience, as I mentioned above, if the intake temps are within 30C of ambient, we do not see a lowering of intake temps with the water spray (Autospeed tests have shown the same results). Only when the intake temps get to 50C above ambient for extended periods of time do we see a sprayer helping temps.

In short

A water sprayer, in our experience, only gives a benefit to extremely powerful cars and/or powerful cars which are driven hard for extended periods of time, where in both cases, an intercooler only solution would be huge. In short, a water sprayer is more suited for motorsport (where even a slight lowering of intake temps can mean tenths of second) and not cars driven on the road (because a larger intercooler would be the preferable solution).

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