Quote:
Originally Posted by WIKDF80
I may be misunderstanding the whole "charge cooler being cold" thing. Anything under the hood is bound to be hot after driving correct? Is that thing supposed to magically be cool to the touch after driving?? What am I missing here?
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It is thermodynamics (specifically heat transfer) at work and why a water/air intercooler system (also called a charge cooler system) is the method of choice over air/air intercooler systems - water is more efficeint at removing heat. The supercharger on my E46 M3 track car uses a water/air system and is also cool to the touch as well even when driving hard on the track in 90+ deg F heat. The only down side to air/water systems compared to air/air systems is that air/water systems are more complex and therfore have more components that can break - which is what we are apparently seeing some of right now with this charge cooler leakage issue. If an air/air heat exchanger had a leak in the core, it probably wouldn't even be noticed.
It does seem weird that anything under the hood would be "cool to the touch" after driving hard - but it is just physics doing its thing to help us go faster (and keep the engine from blowing up)
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