Freelander 1 Inlet Air Cooler, do we really need it?

I’m aware the Intercooler on a 2005 Freelander 1, Td4, cools the air from the Turbo, making it denser and better for combustion (?), but what might happen if I bypassed the Intercooler in its entirety? To put into place a suitable hose between the inlet and outlet pipes, thereby making the cooler redundant.

Might someone have tried this before?

It’s an interesting idea, I think.
And one less thing to go wrong too.
Also, I once had an Alpha Romeo that heated the air-inlet pipe to aid combustion. And as far as i'm aware, if the air is heated the subsequent combustion is better, as is performance, etc.

Why would any car manufacturer fit an inter cooler if it was to have a negative effect on performance?

From Hanyes site....
When air is drawn into the turbocharger, boosted, and then forced into the engine, it gets very hot. And hot air isn’t as good for an engine as cool air. Therefore many turbocharged engines make use of an intercooler.

An intercooler is basically an air-to-air radiator. The hot air from the turbo enters at one end, and as cooled as it passes through the intercooler (much like the water in a car’s radiator) before entering the engine at a much lower temperature.

This allows the engine to make full use of a simple principal of physics; cooler air is more dense than hotter air.

This basically means that for a given volume (of our engine’s cylinder for example) we can get more oxygen into the same space when the air is denser – and more oxygen means better performance.

You'll end up with a car churning out black smoke with very high EGTs. It is not a good idea.

Hard Drive said:

I’m aware the Intercooler on a 2005 Freelander 1, Td4, cools the air from the Turbo, making it denser and better for combustion (?), but what might happen if I bypassed the Intercooler in its entirety? To put into place a suitable hose between the inlet and outlet pipes, thereby making the cooler redundant.

Might someone have tried this before?

It’s an interesting idea, I think.
And one less thing to go wrong too.
Also, I once had an Alpha Romeo that heated the air-inlet pipe to aid combustion. And as far as i'm aware, if the air is heated the subsequent combustion is better, as is performance, etc.

Click to expand...

The intercooler makes quite a big difference to a turbo engine's efficiency. The intake heater on your old Alfa Romeo was to prevent carb icing.

It is widely accepted that upgrading an intercooler will yield a measureable increase in throttle response, fuel economy, and performance. It will do all this while lowering charge temperatures allowing more aggressive ECU mapping and or better longetivy of the engine as there will be lower inlet temperatures, resulting in lower outlet temps, less heat into turbocharger and less heat into the oil.

So for anyone to remove the standard ecu, they would get the exact opposite of those benefits. IE:

• reduced BHP / Torque
• increased fuel consumption
• increased engine temperatures - particularly oil temp
• increased proclivity towards pinking resulting in limp mode

And thats not to mention that it is a plastic inlet manifold, which I'm not sure if it would withstand inlet air straight from the turbo without being cooled down first. One of my numerous little scars was from burning my hand on a turbo to intercooler pipe on a diesel HPU setup, that should give you an idea of inlet temps pre intercooler.

However, if you are willing to risk melting things, I'd be really interested to see the results of your efforts. There is a metal pipe runs around the back of the block and comes over the top of the gearbox befoe joining to a short hose that goes to the intercooler. This pipe ends more or less directly under the EGR valve, it wouldn't be a monumental, or wise, undertaking to join the end of this 1 & 1/2" pipe to the EGR valve on the end of the inlet manifold.