If you have a Supercharger on your car does it need an intercooler. Or does an intercooler help? Or are intercoolers only for turbos?

Turbo's need an intercooler because they compress the intake air resulting in an increase in temperature. The turbo itself will tend to heat the air as well. Superchargers also compress the intake air, so, it should increase the temps. Thus an intercooler could help. (I may be completely wrong with the above...)<p>But, how would you do it? Usually a supercharger sits on top of the intake manifold so there isn't a lot of room to add piping to an intercooler. If you could move the supercharger some place else then it would be possible....<p>Like I said, interresting idea.<p>Mike<br>98.5 1.8tm

<br>You want an intercooler if you run a lot of boost or if you live in a hot area. A positive dispacement supercharger (screw type) does not heat the air much and rarely uses an intercooler. A centrifugal supercharger is very similar to a turbo, but doesn't have the heat soak from the exhaust. It does not need an intercooler at low boost levels, i.e. putting a 7psi system on a NA motor, but you probably want one at higher boost levels.<p>Any intercooler isn't always better than no intercooler. In fact, my stock intercooler on the 5KTQ is worse than nothing at all at 12 psi. However, I keep it because I usually don't drive that car at full boost.<p>Todd W

Superchargers generally are not set up to produce the same(large) amounts of boost that an average turbo does. The more boost, the hotter the air temps. With larger pulleys, a supercharger CAN make a lot of boost and generate a lot of heat similar to a turbo. Most factory supercharged vehicles usually make low boost numbers and therefore the manufacturer doesn't include intercoolers because of the cost of the intercooler vs. value in extra protection for such low boost.

It depends on the room you have. With OEM applications, it is easy. With aftermarket applications, it isn't so easy. The 2.8 PES kit for example is such a space-limited application that there simply isn't room for intercooler plumbing without cutting into metal, etc. <p>With the PES 1.8T kit, they utilize the factory intercooler along with the Eaton blower.<p>Mike

It is all about temperature and pressure. While a properly designed supercharger doesn't have to have an intercooler in a nominal application (as others have accurately stated), if you have high compression (like us) or want to run high boost you should have one.<p>The mustang supercharge crowd loves to argue this point. You get substatially more power from an optimized supercharger with a decent intercooler. It will allow you to run more advance, or lower octane, or more boost that the same setup without an intercooler. You are trying to run to the edge of detonation to maximise power, cooler air is almost always an advantage.

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