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S13 Intercoolers and Upgrades

Home: S13 Intercoolers and Upgrades

Intercoolers are a device similar to a car raditator and are used to cool the compressed air from the turbo on its way to the intake manifold. The difference between a radiator and an intercooler is an intercooler is designed to allow air to flow much faster through it in order to reduce the likelihood of the dreaded turbo lag.

Why are intercoolers necessary you ask? Simple. As you compress air (or any gas) it gains in temperature proportionally to the amount you compress it. Therefore it would be very beneficial to your car's performance to cool down the compressed air before it goes into the engine's intake. The colder the air gets, the closer the oxygen molecules are together, so the colder you can make the air entering your engine, the more oxygen you can cram into the cylinders (and we remember the old "burning things in concentrated oxygen" experiment in high school chemistry, don't we?)

All S13 turbos are fitted with a intercooler mounted in the front bumper under the air filter box. The size of the intercooler does differ between CA18 and SR20 models, however the difference in size is very small. The picture above right is an image of a SR20DET (i think) stock intercooler.

Intercooler upgrades are a great way to boost power and are usually a definite requirement if you are planning other mods to increase power. There are a number of options in upgrading your intercooler as you need to consider whether your new intercooler is still going to be side mounted or front mounted, custom or another factory intercooler.

Custom intercoolers tend to be better in terms of cooling and effiecency, however they are usually on the expensive side. Grabbing a stock intercooler off another car is usually the best value for money. High performance cars like GT-R's, Cosmo's, RX7's etc usually have very good intercoolers as they are tuned to be the high performance flag ship for their manufacturers. However, finding a intercooler can sometimes be a challenge due to their rarity (and occasionally cost like in the case of $1000 GTR coolers).

One cheap, effective and common intercooler upgrade often done by S13 owners involves using Mk3 Supra intercoolers. For those looking for information on which Supra IC to choose, the following should help clear a few things up:

1GGTE (GA70 Supra)
Shown in the photo to the right as the smaller intercooler with the inlet and outlet on the opposite sides...

POSITIVES:

Being smallest supra IC it should produce the smallest amount of a lag from all the Mk3 intercoolers.

Cheap and readily available from most wreckers

NEGATIVES:

Inlet and outlet are on opposite ends. This is good because it cuts out about 70mm of piping however it is slightly harder and more expensive to plumb (due to custom pipework needed).

COST: Expect about ~$220

7MGTE (MA70 Supra)
Shown in the photo to the right as the bigger intercooler with the inlet and outlet on the same side...

POSITIVES:

Shear size of the IC at almost 50cm wide means it is a good cooler (of air).

NEGATIVES:

Not all that effiecent - has a 3psi drop in running a stock boost of 6.8psi on 7MGTE engines.

COST: Around $350.

1JZGTE (JZA70 Supra)
No photo yet sorry

>>> I've only just seen a photo of a 1JZGTE intercooler in the November 2000 edition of High Performance Imports - from all accounts it looks very similar to the 2JZGTE...

COST: Around $350.

2JZGTE (JZA80 Supra)
Shown by the two side by side pictures to the right
Special thanks to Kevin Boyd from NZ for the pictures...

POSITIVES:

Just got pictures of the stock MK4 unit. It is a very small but very thick (width wise) bastard. Despite its short length these intercoolers are meant to be a relatively effiecent unit with a much faster air flow rate than the 7MGTE intercooler.

NEGATIVES:

These IC's are supposively not all that more expensive than 7MGTE coolers but in all honesty whats the chance you are going to find one? I had a hard enough time locating a 7MGTE intercooler for the CA18 let alone a 2JZGTE one! Mind you if you could find one it would make a great side mounted intercooler!

COST: No idea - possibly same as the 1JZ intercooler ($350)