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Custom Aux Intercooler Upgrade
#1
By: Richard
Tomlinson
Compiled By: Rob Ochsner
Advantages
A homemade Aux Intercooler instead of
paying $100's for a company specific kit.
Disadvantages
None
Parts Required:
- Cooler 1/2 inch bore and a thickness of 3/4 inch (
maximum size allowable is 24" x 12" )
- 5 ft. Hose ( 5/8 inch )
- (4) Hose clamps
- Hacksaw blade or mini hacksaw ( handgrip type )
- 15 mm Brass pipe coupler ( the presoldered ones for
water pipes are ideal )
Procedure:
First do all the dry stuff:
- Unfasten the wing nut holding on the airbox.
- Unfasten the hose clamp at the *turbo* end of the
long induction pipe that runs across the radiator and remove the whole
assembly (Makes access a lot easier).
- Remove the Torx screws holding the front grille to
the radiator. Be careful with the metal mounts that they screw into as
age makes them brittle and prone to bending. There's two in the center
and one at each side.
- Remove the bolts (One each side) that holds the
bottom of the grille to the fender. You need a 1/2" socket on a
long extension to reach up the inside corner of the fender/bumper to the
bolt.
- Once the bolts are out remove the grill - A sort of
pull forward from the top maneuver to ease the lipped bottom around the
bumper. (You might have to squeeze the bumper a little to get it out,
depending how close the bumper is fixed to the front of the truck.)
Unclip the indicator wiring as it becomes accessible.
- Unclip the hood release cable from the hood latch
support.
- Remove the two nuts from the top and the one from
the bottom of the hood latch support. The support should come off
easily.
- Now comes the 'cut metal' chore. The pressed sheet
metal that extends from top to bottom of the radiator is not needed (It
provides no hood support, etc.). Sawing it off you have to be *very*
careful not to damage the fins on the radiator. Take it slowly and
patiently, especially when the cut is nearly through. A standard hacksaw
has too much protruding past the blade but one of those flat metal saws
(Looks like a wood saw but with a hacksaw blade clamped on it) or
something similar is ideal. A blade clamped in one of those blade
holders is acceptable but tricky to use. File down the metal and apply
some Hammerite or other paint to protect the exposed metal from the
cutting.
- Now mount your new intercooler to the radiator. The
standard rubber stand-offs that come with some cooler kits are usually
too thick and require cutting back to about 1/4" thickness. Mount
the intercooler and lift the hood latch
support back to where it normally sits to check that the clearance is
sufficient.
Now the wet stuff:
- Take the cap off the charge cooler and undo the tap
at the bottom of the charge cooler radiator to drain the coolant out.
Once empty tighten the tap back.
- Look at the right side of the engine bay where the
two CAC coolant pipes meet and the rubber hoses fasten. The rear pipe is
the coolant return to the intercooler, the front pipe is the one that
goes to the pump. Unfasten the pipe on the coolant return and remove the
hose clamp.
- Re-route the hose so that its just reaching the
bottom right corner of the fender where it meets the bumper. There's a
large hole below the right side of the headlight, above the indicator,
and the pipe just reaches to it.
- Take about a 2' length of new hose to go from the
bottom pipe of the new intercooler to the existing hose at the corner.
Join them with the brass coupler. (The new hose side will clamp with no
problem but the existing larger 3/4" hose will need a bit of tape
wrapping around its half of the couple to pad it out - Clamp firmly.)
- Route the rest of the new hose from the top of the
new intercooler to the metal coolant return pipe where the existing hose
was removed from. The pipe goes through a circular hole, just big enough
to take it, where the air intake is. If you're worried about losing
space for the air being sucked in, pop out the flat plastic blanker that
is shown on the photo between the pipe and the head light.
- Fit the new pipe to the metal coolant return pipe
and clamp it. The 5/8" hose is a tight fit but once its on it'll
stay on.
- CHECK all hose connections and routings.
- Refill the Intercooler slowly with coolant.
- If you've got a manual IC switch then put the
engine on ignition and get the pump going, otherwise stick a paperclip
into the A-B pins of the ALDL and switch the ignition on (This energizes
all solenoids and starts the pump). Keep filling the intercooler until
its full. With a better pump you should see the coolant moving. With the
stock pump its barely visible.
- If everything is OK then start to reassemble by
reversing the removal procedure for the hood latch support, the grille,
and the air box.
- Check after a while to see if the coolant level
needs topping up.
Reverting Back (Additional Information)
If you leave the hose from the intercooler to the
brass coupler long enough then you should be able to remove the air box,
undo the clamp and re-route it back to the stock position quickly without
removing the grill. (But don't forget to drain the coolant).
Custom Aux Intercooler Upgrade
#2
By: Steve Calbert
Compiled By: Rob Ochsner
Looking at the plumbing of the system,
you can tell GM didn't put much thought into the IC system. They have metal
lines strapped to the block.
As you know how well metal conducts,
this is no way to try and cool or keep cool the IC coolant. So I replumbed
the system with heater hose and routed it as close to the fenders as
possible. In the process found that the Metal lines were rusting inside sop
I guess it was a good time for the plumbing job.
Next came the aux. IC. I too have seen
ATR's unit and noticed that it was a transcooler. After thinking about this,
there is not the higher pressure in the IC system as would there be in a
trans line or even a engine cooling system. Hence the more durable
construction of a trans cooler or a radiator is needed.
So I went to the local part store and
went through their catalog and found a heater core from a mid-seventies Ford
truck. I took two because they would fit on either side of the rad support.
Plus they were only $20.00 each. Plumbed them in series and had some custom
brackets fashioned at the local welders and I was done. All in one day.
It looked pretty nice also. Having a
forest green Ty the gold color of the cores looked nice right behind the
grill. The high heat transfer capability of the heater cores definitely
helped. On 90+ degree days it was dramatically less affected.
In the end it cost me less than
$100.00 which also included the heater hose plumbing.
There is any number of coolers that
would work well for this job. Perma-Cool has one in the Summit catalog that
is almost a dead ringer for the ATR cooler for $135.99. Looks like it has a
couple of legs welded on it for mounting but that's the only difference I
can find (without having them in my hands). As this cooler goes fully across
the front of the radiator, some hood latch support mods would be necessary.
Steve Gavic also said that Spearco sells the same cooler as ATR. | 
