Intercooler for Supercharged Mustangs

A common problem with Supercharged Mustangs is that they intake too much hot air. It’s a problem known as “heat soak”. To solve that issue, Lek Import Cars developed an intercooler (heat exchanger behind the bumper) that takes full advantage of the draft. It’s the only way to get the most power out of your Supercharged Mustang.

Power loss from heat soak

The problem we see is that as soon as the car is loaded or driven with a boost, the intake temperature rises rapidly, and the difference between the outside air and the intercooled air grows significantly. And it won’t cool back down until we slow down or reduce the engine load. This problem is called “heat soak”.

The problem with heat soak is twofold: First, hot air has more volume, so there’s less oxygen in a given volume. This means less gas can be added. Obviously, that isn’t the ideal for generating a lot of power because we want as much oxygen and fuel available as possible.

The second problem is that the engine management is taught in the tuning that at certain intake/intercooler temperatures, timing should be “pulled” to prevent engine damage. You can feel it right away, as a loss in engine power, and worse, it can cause engine damage from knocking.

Lek Import Cars intercooler heat exchanger

To address that issue, we developed a heat exchanger that we install in a series in the existing system to take full advantage of the draft. Installing it behind the top grill lets us take full advantage of that. So instead of an increasing intake temperature, we’ll now see temperatures drop. The engine is now getting cooler air instead of warmer air at higher load and high speed. That’s what we want! More oxygen, more gas, more timing ultimately means more available power and a much lower risk of knocking and engine damage.

AFCO heat exchanger

AFCO fan-assisted heat exchangers are very effective compared to standard heat exchangers. They have the advantage of also cooling in slow city traffic because the fans pull a significant amount of air through the radiators. Because the heat exchanger is primarily behind the bumper, it’s not as effective in terms of draft. The fans only work up to about 35 km/h, above that speed, the draft is stronger.

Intercooler Results

The sheet above clearly shows how the temperature rises as the RPMs increase. The black line is the RPM, the red line is the outside air temperature as measured in the air filter, and the yellow line is the temperature as measured after the intercooler. What you see is a difference of 48 degrees Fahrenheit between the outside air temperature and the intercooler temperature under full load, and even worse, it keeps getting warmer under a load.

The other sheet shows that instead of rising, the temperature is dropping. Again, the black line is the RPM, the red line is the outside air temperature as measured in the air filter, and the yellow line is the temperature as measured after the intercooler. Here we see a difference of just 23 degrees Fahrenheit between the outside air temperature and the intercooler temperature under full load, but more importantly, it actually gets cooler rather than warmer under load. And that’s exactly what we want to see.

And that’s exactly what we want to see.

So as the screenshots prove, the Lek Import Cars Intercooler is extremely effective exactly when you need it: When you need your Mustang to be running at full power!

Order the Lek Import Cars Intercooler Heat Exchanger [LINK NAAR PRODUCT] directly from our online store or contact us with questions.

Special thanks to Dris for the idea, for brainstorming with us, and for letting us use his car for the initial metrics. And thanks to Douglas for letting us use his car for testing and for creating the data logs above.