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Anyone use heater core to chill water in IC ?

13K views 84 replies 11 participants last post by  Ondatrack 
#1 ·
Been really wanting one of those chillers and have done a lot of searching. Came across this on another forum. Running your HE hose to your heater core. I Dont need a heater here for a good 8 months of the year. Could be pretty easy to just swap back anyway it seems.


I dont quite understand it myself. Would love to know how well it could work even if just for the track.

Turn the AC on and put the temp on full high and it will cool the air really cold and then blow it though the trucks heater core cooling the water in it to BELOW ambient. You just need to put a catch can on the HVAC drain to catch the drips from running the AC if your at the track.
It works quite well. I've had it on my truck for a few years now and I'll be rocking it again soon since its warming up again. You do lose the heater, so in the winter I run a convential A2W setup. But with meth and the chilled water my IAT's are consistently below ambient. Without meth IAT's are about ambient under boost at the end of a run. I'm really surprised this isn't more popular. It's probably the best mod for the money. If you have an A2W setup already (Radix, TVS etc) its just the price of heater hose.
Thread http://www.performancetrucks.net/forums/forced-induction-159/heater-core-heat-exchanger-459454/
 
#53 ·
IMHO the best routing for the coolant depends on where the tank is. My tank is going to the trunk.

Stock Maggie coolant routing= tank->pump->heat exchanger->supercharger->back to tank.

Using heater core=tank->pump->heat exchanger->heater core->supercharger->back to tank.

Using heater core and tank in trunk=tank->pump-> supercharger->heat exchanger->heater core->back to tank.

As I understand it, if the tank is under the hood the coolant in it is going to get hot from the radiant engine heat. Magnuson knew this and is why they routed the coolant to get as cool as possible before going to the supercharger. People have found ways to delay this by adding ice to the resivoir but the supercharger dumps right into the tank with heated water. Ice in this case just delays it and provides some temporary lower temps.

If the tank is away from the engine in the trunk the trick is to keep it from getting hot. With the heater core mod working I believe that you can. The coolant going into the tank will be coming from the heater core and if you wanted to ad ice to the tank you could do that too.
 
#54 · (Edited)
Ideally my choice would be Bridges third choice above since With choice two at Wide open throttle when you really need the cooling the AC compressor would be shut off. While the entire system should be somewhat cooler there would be no reserve of chilled coolant to supply the inter cooler during a 1/4 mile pass or extended wide open run. You would still have the benefit of faster temperature recovery after the pass but not during. If everything were able to be insulated between the heater core and the inter cooler including the tank with an under hood stock tank I would still like the cooled coolant to go into the tank before the inter cooler so that reserve would be there when needed. I just don't know if the heat sink of the under hood black plastic tank would cancel the cooling effect too much. In any event with this mod as mentioned earlier in the thread you definitely want the front mounted heat exchanger to get the hottest fluid from the supercharger first so you get most of the heat out there. On a hot summer day if it went to the heat exchanger last the temp could actually be raised to ambient if the heater core mod had dropped it lower. It would be nice to measure the temps both ways to what actually would provide the best results.
 
#55 · (Edited)
there would be no reserve of chilled coolant to supply the inter cooler during a 1/4 mile pass or extended wide open run.
If he routes the lines to go

Pump --> Heat Exchanger --> Heater Core --> Trunk mounted reservoir --> Maggie

there's a greater chance of efficiency for the cooling systems working together to cool down the big tank in the trunk, so when he runs the system for a proper amount of time before a run or while he's cruising it will cool the liquid in the tank giving that entire volume of liquid the job of cooling the blower instead of what's held inside the tank on top of the battery. As far as heat soaking under the hood, insulate the supply lines and maybe use some reflective metal tape
 
#57 ·
Good point, I had not thought of that as an issue. If you were doing a trunk mount set up it would be fairly easy to put the pump between the tank and supercharger inter cooler to avoid this. I can see that the plumbing would get more involved if you tried to do this with the stock tank location. My front end is apart on my car now so I am having a hard time visualizing how difficult it would be to route the coolant lines this way.
 
#59 ·
Good stuff, thank you. I dont think that is how I routed mine. Mine goes Pump --- heat exchanger-----maggie-------heater core I think. Not sure if I connected it wrong or not. I did it the way someone else mentioned to do it. Ubend for the water pump. One heater hose to the maggie one to the reservoir. I connected to the upper reservoir hose not the one on the bottom.

I have two hose coming from the heater core. One I connected to the maggie (not sure if it matters which hose on the maggie) the other goes to the top of my little maggie coolant tank.

I tried it out today but not very much. Water was 65 degrees before I started car. It went pretty quickly to 55 with it on like this but that was it. Was already pretty cool, maybe that is why I dont know. Then went out on a pretty hard run with the unit off. Temp went up to about 75 degrees. turned the unit on and repeated that same run. Water then only dropped to maybe 65. It didnt get hotter though but instead got a little cooler. Wont know how much it is really doing without letting her really heat up then turning it on. Water temps have been up to 110 before.
 
#62 ·
Only had time for a quick spin and was checking the water temps to get a clear idea what it was doing to the water. Will have lots more info after tomarrow/ raceday :turbonaug Still supposed to be 55 degrees and no wind :)
 
#61 ·
took a better look and referred to Maggie instructions. Here is what I have

Reservoir ---- pump ----- Front mount heat exchanger -----maggie ------heater core ------topside of reservoir

so mine is going right from the maggie to the heater core then back into the maggie reservoir. Sound right ?
 
#64 ·
With that routing you may still have a working heater in the winter. I would still put the heater core between the heat exchanger and the Maggie. Just my 2¢
 
#63 ·
Glad that you were able to get it all hooked up. Did you end up bypassing the valve the was on the heater lines? Good luck at the races.

Tony O
 
#65 ·
no I just used the long end of the hoses. Got a PB 11.85@118 with a 1.85 60 foot. 7.6@95 MPH 8th got a 11.86 on the next run. :turbonaug Has more in her for sure.
 
#67 · (Edited)
Well no solid results yet.

I didnt get much of a drop at all in IATs when cruising with it on or off. At the track though I never got over 120 IAT even when I did 4 hot laps within 15 minutes of each other. Water stayed pretty cool at about 70 degrees even after beating on it like that. It was cool out though (55 degrees) so I dont really know.

I can say for $30 in parts and 20 minutes to swap out it is certainly worth it in the summer to switch your car over.

Another thing is my cars AC has never worked really well. Not sure if it is low on gas or what. I would imagine that could really effect performance on something like this. I'll get my gas level checked ASAP to rule that out.
 
#68 ·
It's the heat soak, unless you run the full system like that video I posted you'll see a minuscule amount of performance increase but where the heater core mod shines is the part where it lets you reduce the heatsoak. Good job like i said on your other thread man!!!!
 
#69 · (Edited)
I am envious of you getting out to the track to be able to do some actual testing. All of the 1/4 mile tracks I used to run on years ago are all closed.
70 degrees compared to 110 is not bad even though as you stated ambient temperatures were quite a bit lower also. I am assuming that you are taking the reading in the tank after it has gone through the other parts of the system and was heated by the inter cooler then cooled by the heat exchanger. I am curious as to what the temperature would be after the coolant left the heater core although if your AC is not running at peak efficiency it that could definately be holding this back a bit. Even if IATs are not that much lower the ability to keep them consistant would really be a plus for bracket racing. I guess I really want to see this work successfully since as you mentioned $30 and 20 minutes would be a nice alternative or addition to $300 plus alot more time and effort for a new dual pass front heat exchanger that still faces the challenge of trying to drop temps in the summer with my 100 -110 degree ambient temps. Thanks again for sharing your results.
 
#72 ·
There are guys that don't run a tank at all. If you don't run a tank you just wouldn't have a reserve of cool water, but if the tank is hot from under hood temps you didn't have that anyway. Really if the coolant flow is anything other than option 2, I don't see getting anything worth while out of this. The object is to get the coolest water possible to the supercharger. Between the the tank, heat exchanger, and heater core the heater core has the best chance at cooling so it should be the last thing the water goes thru before the supercharger. The second best chance at cooling and this will never get it below ambient is the heat exchanger so it goes before the heater core. Ice in the tank works but it is going to be heated by the heat exchanger, but not enough to worry about. Now that we have that worked out, forget about the heater valve and bypass that thing all together. Put the loop hose on the water pump, and connect the heater core into the Maggie system at the firewall or use adapters to connect to the hoses coming out of the firewall. Now get your a/c fixed cause mine feels like I'm in Siberia.
 
#74 ·
So you are saying go from the heater core directly to the maggie, this does make sense for coolest water I guess. The idea behind having it go to your reservoir is you have a nice reserve of cold water but its all still be circulated into the system anyway. Seems like if you have it go to the Maggie first you wont build up as much cool water :dunno: Still trying to wrap my head around how to route this the way you have described.

Heater core needs to have water being pushed in one side and exit the other side. So what you are saying I assume is have the water go right from the reservoir to the pump and straight to the heater core then to the maggie then to the heat exchanger and back to the reservoir again ?

Well I'd say it ws worth the mod after seeing my track results. I hot lapped it four times in 15 minutes. Last run was within 2 minutes of previous run. My IATs still never got over 120. Water still stayed pretty cool at around 70 degrees in the reservoir. Was cool out but not cold. 55 degrees and under the hood was nice and hot. On hot days I used to see 100-110 in my res. Wont know for sure unless I run it on hotter days I suppose. Oh and my final run two minutes after previous I actually trapped almost 1 MPH faster. Was my fastest trap of the night.
 
#73 ·
I'm going to do this once I get moved.
 
#76 ·
My next configuration is going to be connecting the water pump back up so I can get some freaking heat ! Its cold out now ! :)
 
#77 ·
I am going to be trying this out tomorrow. Going to route the fluid coming out of the front mount heat exchanger into the heater core, then from the heater core into the blower. From the blower it will go into the stock Maggie tank. Also going to go to a dual nozzle setup on my AIS meth kit as my single is not flowing enough to cool the blower, running 50/50 meth/H2O now.

Only bad thing is it is so cold now, it will be harder to see how much this all helps.

Anyone know what exact sizes the two hoses are that you need to loop to take the heater core out of the stock coolant loop. Anyone find a reducer fitting anywhere to easily loop the different size hoses?
 
#78 · (Edited)
The hose ends would be 3/4 and 5/8. The u bend hose you need is Dayco #87629, Autozone #B87629 or Kelly Springfield #s-4354. You need to trim 1 inch from the 5/8 side to make it even. It should be under $10. Good luck tomorrow and let us know the results.

Tony O.
 
#79 ·
This ^^

You can just check the water temp once it heats up and you do some runs with the system off. Then turn it on and see what the temps do. With a good AC this should work pretty well.
 
#84 ·
When the temperature is set to cold the water valve between the water pump and heater core blocks the majority of the flow from going to the heater core and redirects it through the valve back to the other side of the water pump.
If you put this valve in the flow path of your maggie coolant it would flow through the heater core when the temperature switch is set to hot and it would bypass the heater core but still circulate through the intercooler when the switch is set to cold. I have not looked inside the valve to see how small the diameter is but it would probably be no larger than 5/8 inch at the most.

Tony
 
#85 ·
Bringing this back up since it's summer now. Has anyone else tried this now that it would make sense to run the A/C and not having a working heater isn't a negative. I would really like to see some documented results.

My Maggied car is at the body shop now and hopefully will be on the road within a month and I may give it a try but I will be putting WRP's old trunk mounted tank and dual pass heat exchanger with fans on it at the same time. This will make comparisons to the stock configuration difficult. I cannot help but think that there should be some benefit to this.

Tony O.
 
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