VX220 Turbo Charge Cooler System

1 x 7 Core Heat Exchanger (Water to Air)
1 x Extra Large Water Pre-Rad - Same size as the main water radiator and mounts under main water radiator.
Twin High Flow Spal Cooling Fans (replace the single OE unit)
1 x 3.5L Header Tank
9m x Rubber Water Pipe
1 x Bosch Water Pump
Hose Clips, 2 x Grommets and Fixings

Fitting from £1500.00

Fitting Information - VX220 Turbo Chargecooler

Proudly made in England by Pro Alloy Motorsport

Developed with Pro-Alloy Motorsport. Mid engined turbocharged cars have to be the worst case scenario when it comes to cooling. Due to poor air flow in the engine bay temperatures soar as the power levels are raised, affecting both under bonnet and of course inlet air temperatures.

On a standard VX220 Turbo (200 BHP) the tiny air to air intercooler already struggles - we saw temperatures in the region of 57 degrees C and climbing - you can feel this in the nature of the power delivery as the ECU struggles to protect the engine from imminent detonation by retarding the ignition and in some cases closing the throttle down!

If this were a front engined saloon car the solution would be simple - we would simply add a front mount intercooler with a large surface area just as we do for the Astra VXR, but this simply cannot be done with the VX220 as the side scoop receives minimal amounts of air flow at the best of times, and situating the cooler at the front of the car in the high pressure area is not feasible due to the length of the pipe runs which would be required. This would make the system ‘laggy’ because of the added volume to the system.

Therefore the only solution is a charge cooler system. This is a water cooled system which has its own private water circuit with a separate cooling radiator, pump and header tank.

The cooling is done at the front of the car in the high pressure area via our huge ‘pre rad’, this is the same frontal size as the standard engine cooling radiator and is bolted directly to the under side of the 'OE' radiator via some alloy channels. We also supply a pair of high performance cooling fans which are fitted to the pre rad. These cool both the charge cooler radiator and engine cooling system.

The water is pumped via a BOSCH electronic water pump through 23mm pipework hidden in the offside sill into our multi core charge cooler which has five alloy water radiator cores configured in series. The air from the turbo passes over the ‘zig zag’ fins of the cores whilst the water is passed through the tubes (this is not just an intercooler with a water jacket!) Chargecoolers by their nature offer HUGE flow rates compared to intercoolers of their equivalent size.

By removing the standard intercooler from the system we are both eliminating a restriction from the system and removing a heat source due to the fact that ALL the heat rejected by the standard intercooler is then fed straight into the engine bay! The charge cooler itself does not need a cool air flow therefore the air from the side scoop enters the engine bay and cools it. The water is stored in a 3.5 litre alloy tank which is conveniently situated in the rear of the engine bay.

Testing.......
We ran this system on a 300BHP VXT for some time with superb results.

The standard car (200 BHP) on the road often makes 57 degrees C inlet temperatures..... quite high when you consider that most engine mappers will look for sub 40 degrees c.

The same car fitted with our Stage 4 conversion (VXR (Z20LEH) turbo and VXR injectors, Full milltek exhaust, Software upgrade) and then subsequently extensively run on the rolling road showed .....

The highest temperature we saw (all day) was 36 degrees C. Under fast road use we have seen maximum temperatures in the mid 20's

We have seen other set-ups in similar states of tune and other aftermarket cooling systems fitted, where we have seen temperatures in the region of 75 degrees C.