Frozen Boost water/air IC Install

[JLR11]

I wanted to try out a water to air ic setup so I could maintain a stock appearing vehicle yet handle the power I'm beginning to make. The stock sidemount was killing my power up top with 200* F intake temps along with some major heatsoak between pulls and just plain hot iat's during regular driving or stop/go traffic.
I purchased the Frozen Boost kit rated for up to 600hp in basically new condition from the classifieds and simply needed to move the inlet pipe to the side of the ic, pretty easy if you can tig or get somebody to tig aluminum. I believe you can order one in same location as I located mine if you buy the kit new from FrozenBoost as they have several different configurations. I must say I'm extremely happy with the results, my iat's stay at ambient during regular driving. I can make pull after pull and the iat's hit around 120*F maximum with temp recovery back to ambient in about 15 seconds. One of the biggest advantages I noticed was that there is basically zero pressure drop with this setup, initially I thought it was around a 6psi difference but upon doing a boost leak check I found a coupler that was leaking badly due to a clamp I forgot to tighten. After tightening up the clamp I had to lower the boost another 4psi to get back down to 20psi again so I would estimate a solid 10psi in over-all pressure drop difference over a stock intercooler system. The spool-up time was also reduced approx 400rpm, I'm now hitting full boost at 2800 rpm with a EvoIII 16G.
I have around 50 hours in doing this setup but it has been the funnest modification I've done to the car :D It certainly is not for the faint of heart yet is very do-able with patience, fortunately I have another car to drive around while I worked on this one. I also like cruise control and AC so I was able to retain my creature comforts as well, enjoy..........

Relocated battery to trunk & added my own 6 panel fuse-block which will help with the install.



Made a bracket to relocate the cruise/throttle cable box.



Built a custom cold-air intake to make some room for the IC as well as a better location for pulling in ambient air. Piping is mandrel bent 3" stainless that I scored from an exhaust shop that pulled it from a newer diesel truck, I only paid $25 for 8 feet. Required a little cleaning, welding & polishing but well worth the effort.




This pic shows a T-bolt clamp around the pipe that actually has a bracket to allow you to mount it on a flush surface so the intake is securely mounted to the car. You can order these from FrozenBoost as I used one for the water pump mounting too.



Mounted the water pump.


Installed the heat exchanger & it's own dedicated electric fan.I made some mounting brackets from 90* aluminum stock for the heat exchanger & electric fan then cut out the center section of the radiator support as well as notch the lower radiator support. Look closely at the first pic and you can see where I cut out.





Hooked up a couple relays for the water pump & electric fan, this is where having the fuse block came in handy. I simply wired in a couple switches using the accessory 12v switched wire for the radio to activate the water pump & fan relays, the nice thing about using that wire is you can leave the switches in the ON position all the time and when you actually "crank" the engine over it shuts power off to the accessory circuits until the engine starts then powers up those circuits again. When you turn the key off obviously it shuts off the power, I like that I can shut off the electric fan when it's cooler outside and don't need it then kick it on in stop & go traffic or hotter weather or even leave the water pump off to help the engine warm up quicker in cold weather.


Some pics of the stainless turbo & throttle body flanges I made, the turbo flange has a 1-1/2" to 2" cone welded on then as you will see I purchased a 2" to 2-1/2" 90 degree coupler for directing it into the IC inlet.



Mounted the blow-off valve to the IC along with the IAT sensor which is located on the bottom side 1-1/2" from the outlet pipe.


And everything together, I made a couple brackets for mounting the IC solid to the car. One actually attaches to the thermostat housing then goes down to a transmission bolt location.


Complete sleeper setup, no huge FMIC to advertise to everyone that you have some modifications done to the car. No!!! you cannot purchase those grill pieces from anywhere, I made them from expanded aluminum that I cut out and riveted into the bumper cover. The heat-exchanger flows air very well passed it and I only had a 5*F increase in engine coolant temps.

[ForceFed86]

That is a sweet install I must say. What are you using for fluid? Plain distilled water? Just filling up the IC and using that as a tank and cooling it off with the oil cooler looking thing right? Does the pump run all the time? Or does it have a temperature switch of some sort? What is up with pump life span? Do you have the ability to drop in some ICE/Dry ice at the track? Still on pump fuel? plans for more boost?

[JLR11]

That is a sweet install I must say. What are you using for fluid? Plain distilled water? Just filling up the IC and using that as a tank and cooling it off with the oil cooler looking thing right? Does the pump run all the time? Or does it have a temperature switch of some sort? What is up with pump life span? Do you have the ability to drop in some ICE/Dry ice at the track? Still on pump fuel? plans for more boost?

Thanks for the compliment of the install.
I'm running distilled water with Royal Purple's "Purple Ice" additive mainly for corrosion purposes.
I don't have a reservoir, the system holds around 2.5 gallons of water between the IC, heat exchanger (oil cooler looking thing) and I used large 3/4" water hose for added capacity as well. I may add a 2 gallon reservoir in the future for adding ice water although I can simply open the drain cock on the heat exchanger and pump out the warm water & add ice water (to lower air temps below ambient) when at the track if I wanted too.
The water pump & electric fan are on individual toggle switchs so when the car is cold I leave it off than switch it on once I start going, I've thought about a temp switch but quickly realized it's not needed, you basically want to keep the water circulating constantly. The Rule brand pump life is something like 2500 hours but I will be changing to the Ford Cobra pump in the near future which is designed for a car that puts on 100,000 miles.
Yes I'm on 92 octane pump gas and without the meth injection it really helped eliminate knock at 20psi of boost with back to back pulls or long pulls into 5th gear. I haven't really turned up the boost to 25psi yet, I've really been focusing on dialing in the tune up to 20psi and it truly is running amazingly well. The biggest change is throttle response & turbo spool with this type of IC system, pressure drop is basically zero, 20psi @ 2800-2900 rpm is no joke.
It's very effective in stop and go traffic where a fmic doesn't get the air flow across it, with this setup you don't rely on air flow to the same extent since I have a dedicated electric fan to pull air across the heat exchanger (which I only turn on in hot weather or stop and go traffic).
Over-all I'm very pleased with this system and glad I put forth the effort to install it properly.

[1990talonfast]

 Can you use a VRSF short rout and combine it with a bullet style water/air intercooler on the uicp?

[1990talonfast]

You can get serious piwer out of water/air setups, I plan on custom making mine using two 1200 gph pumps, one for upstream and one for down stream, two 10inch fans mounted to the same heat extractor you have, the biggest water/air intercooler I can fit inder my hood and a water resivour in the trunk. The good thing about a set up like this is you can fill the resivour up with ice at the track and you would be able to achieve below ambient intake temps, so much power can be made with just a $1.00 icebag.

I hope to make the above set up but the price is about $700.00, this is because I have two buy a battery relocation kit, non cruise control cable, 13 feet of 3/4 hoses, that alon is $200.

[JLR11]

You can get serious piwer out of water/air setups, I plan on custom making mine using two 1200 gph pumps, one for upstream and one for down stream, two 10inch fans mounted to the same heat extractor you have, the biggest water/air intercooler I can fit inder my hood and a water resivour in the trunk. The good thing about a set up like this is you can fill the resivour up with ice at the track and you would be able to achieve below ambient intake temps, so much power can be made with just a $1.00 icebag.

I hope to make the above set up but the price is about $700.00, this is because I have two buy a battery relocation kit, non cruise control cable, 13 feet of 3/4 hoses, that alon is $200.

I highly doubt you need two 1200gph pumps, the cost of a single water pump with that flow rate is very expensive. The Ford Cobra water pump is more than adequate for $125.
Running two 10" fans is a good idea, I actually plan on adding another 10" fan.
If you plan on setting up a reservoir in the trunk I would highly suggest you build a "box within a box" type of reservoir, one will hold the water and the other you want to insulate than you can pack it full of dry ice on track days and not have to worry about draining and adding ice.