Thread: Intercooler upgrade

Welcome John, I think you're in the wrong section. No bigger, a mod will move it to the Discovery 1 section, I'm sure.

I can't (yet) justify spending the kind of $'s that Allisport are asking for their products on a car that costs less than a single radiator!
Nice stuff, and yeah, it may be worth it, but I can't justify it personally.

So .. I went with a generic 115mm thick intercooler.
I dunno who ASI is, but I'm guessing that it's similar to the one I recently got myself(off ebay) from a local(melb) ebayer.
My guess is that he's source are the same as the cheapish Chinese stuff also seen on ebay.

Anyhow!
From what I've 'experienced' so far:
Quality of the intercooler is good. Cost was a bit over $300 from memory.
Quality of welding is good. Not perfect, but I've seen worse from companies that should do better.

Problem: I have had the time to install it yet, so as for performance experience, can't help(yet).
There's a long convoluted story as to why I have yet to fit it, (in short) I've made it a far larger job that it should otherwise be.
I'm doing a full aluminium rad at the same time, AND also doing it in a aluminium rad/intercooler frame too.
So, the entire rad/IC/frame is coming out and getting replaced with all aluminium stuff.

At the time it seemed like a good idea, but as all things Chinese and ebay .. they tend to go balls up fairly regularly.
The aluminium frame was built by three blind mice, or three unwise monkeys .. or three drunk wise(cracking) men!
The horizontal lengths are fine, line up perfectly, but the vertical lengths are 5mm out at their folds.
Bottom line is: I can't get new IC and rad in safely. So I need to locate a shop that can either rebend what I have for them to fit properly, or more likely get them to make me up two properly fitting uprights.

As Maxwell Smart would say .. "missed it by that much!"

I'm blaming myself, for all this delay, as I usually 'know better' .. but I also expected this kind'a thing to go south so easily.

Plus!! .. I've given myself all this extra work to do, with a new project(a D2) which has massively eroded what little free time I've had to get this D1 rad/IC/Al frame sorted.

ps. apologies for the long reply too, I'm just trying to give you as much info as I can which will become pertinent very soon for 'ya.

Reason I haven't sorted my D1 rad/IC/Al frame out in a hurry(been over a month now since I got all the stuff I needed) is two fold.
1/. at the moment my D1 goes well. I'd like lower EGTs when climbing hills in 40 degree temps, but the easier thing to do is back off a little more till they drop to more acceptable (but still high-ish) levels.
2/. I'm trying to get more stuff done at the same time, full set of silicone(coolant) hoses and of course full coolant flush.
3/. I'd like to get this D2 going, as a backup plan if I balls something up with this D1 rad change.

What will go wrong:
If you look carefully at the differences between the Allisport and ASI 115mm intercoolers, you should note that the Allisport cooler has a double chamfered top and bottom tank shape.
That is, there is a straight chamfered corner cut out on the ASI(a small 45 degree chamfered shape to the top and bottom Al tank).
This is almost, but not 100% spot on.
Obviously I don't have an Allisport cooler to compare with, but if you try to get the ASI cooler into your frame, it simply won't fit without a bit of cutting of your existing radiator frame.
You could heat it up and bend it as an alternative tho.

Me (personally), I try to minimise heating stuff up to mangle it to fit .. and so I thought aluminium is fairly easy to bash into shape .. and I didn't want to mangle my current radiator frame .. so I'll try a different frame, and aluminium sounded nice(and easy to bend).

So I made the conscious choice to waste a teeny bit of $s on a sacrificial Al frame to house the Al rad and 115mm IC.

It took about 10 mins to bash the bejeezuz out of the Al frame in a few selected spots to allow the larger IC to fit.
Seriously! .. easier than easy peasy. No grinder, no blow torch, no fire hazard .. etc. Just a concrete floor a 3kg sledge and 10 mins.

This is where I then found that the three blind, drunk, wisecracking Chinese stooges(referred too above) came to ruin my day.
The IC is only larger in the front to rear dimension, not lateral(or side to side) compared to the std IC.
If I place the IC and (new rad) in the aluminium frame, there is no room for the foam side protecting padding to stop the two rads from rubbing.
They (only just) don't fit, but I can squeeze them in.
Obviously I wouldn't fit them as they are as they'd only last all of a few mins rubbing together as they would.
So I need to get the aluminium frame modded to fit.

I have the assembly sitting in my back room ATM, waiting for a chance to get it to a local fab shop to get them to mod it.

Then I'll have to locate some durable foamy stuff to pad between the two rads, as LR do in the current setup.

Back onto the topic of the chamferred tanks:
Have another look at the Allisport IC again and take note of the chamfered top/bottom tanks, and then notice again that tanks front/rear walls are chamferred too.
The ASI type has vertical front/rear tank walls, and this is where it doesn't fit into the std rad frame.
With the ASI type shape of thicker IC tank, you will have to mod your radiator frame .. no questions about it. The fold down areas just wont' fit the thicker tanks.
(I reckon) that the Allisport tank design looks like it will fit into the std LR steel frame, as the tanks seem to have the right sized surface mounting shape for it.

One thing I really do like about this new set up though is the half the weight feeling compared to the copper radiator and steel radiator frame.
I'm normally hopeless with estimating weights, but I'd say about half the weight with this all aluminium setup. Maybe about 10kg weight saving.

And if your into aesthetics, it looks quite awesome .. all polished aluminium .. frame rad, and IC!

Reason for not chopping or mangling up the original steel frame is quite simple.
I'm not 100 % sure how well the aluminium rad will handle the cooling requirements of the 300 TDi .. yet.
I'm thinking(more like hoping) it should be fine.
BUT! If it doesn't, or can't .. going back to my current known(but not 100% satisfactory!) factory setup is a simple unbolt of the frame and replace with the original frame setup.

pps. I'm not an engineer by trade(or education) but I should have followed through with it at uni like I was supposed too.
I've been around engineering all my life(through family and family friends).
I can't say for sure, but from my above life experiences .. the Allisport's quality looks like it's 10/10 in terms of the look of the qualityof the tig welding they've effected.
but my far cheaper whatever branded similar thickness IC is about an 8/10 I reckon.
fins look good, feel sturdy, welding is of a good looking quality.
Being Chinese, I did expect not so good quality welds tho.
But, as I've yet to get it up and running, I can't comment on actual usage, if it leaks or holds pressure, etc.
Only that the welding looks well done.

I'm hoping that I will find the time(and place to mode my Al frame) before the end of Feb, that was my plan early Jan ... but a D2 V8 found it's way to my place a few weeks ago!

pppps. once again sorry for the long tedious reply.

I fitted an Allisport intercooler a few years ago. Along with fitting a straight through muffler (original muffler in a Disco is baffled despite how it looks to be straight through), this work allowed the engine to work a bit more freely - seemed easier all around to provide a bit more power when needed, turbo definitely spooled quicker.

About the intercooler, definitely a very nicely made piece. Initially no apparent fitting issues, however, I recently bought their matching radiator - (also very nice, which I can report also works as adverised, would highly recommend, such stable temps). When I got the radiator I pulled out the Allisport IC to give it a clean - at the base I found a neatly machined looking groove (nearly through) caused by rubbing on to the unused LHD mounting of the steering box mounting on top the left hand side of the chassis, just behind the radiator mount channel. Allisport has maximised the size of the IC, but did not take into account of this mounting - perhaps they are not there on UK units? This (my) unit did a lot of km (100K+) like that and did not fail, but may have soon. I have reported this back to them. Was an easy fix with a grinder to take off the sharp/high bits of the mounting, now the IC fits nicely onto the rubber grommets at the bottom mount with no metal touching. I'm annoyed I didn't find this earlier, but apart from this I can't fault the efficiency of the Allisport IC and Radiator.