Freev Guides on Type of Audio System

Getting the right sound system for your car is an important step if you are going to be spending a lot of time in your car and want to listen to music while there. Many of us put a lot of importance on sound quality when it comes to listening to music, and as can be seen by the increasing technical quality in home entertainment systems, people will pay a premium for the best systems. The deciding factor can be any one of a number of things. As important as any other factor is the kind of music you like listening to. There are many and various genres of music which are all highly popular, and a system that suits one may be entirely inappropriate for another.

Equally, the sound system needs to be one that suits your vehicle. It is not advisable to take a tip from a friend who has the same taste in music that you do, should their vehicle happen to be set up differently. Acoustics are very important, and spending a lot of money on a system is no guarantee of getting the right one – if the set up of the system is inefficient for the music to which you want to listen or the specifications of your car, then you are throwing money down the drain.

The system that is provided with your car is generally a “one size fits all” system that is not set up one way or the other – something that will be equally beneficial to all people, but not especially useful for you or another person with greatly differing tastes. These systems will be perfectly adequate for listening to the radio – particularly to news and chat shows as they allow the spoken word to be heard clearly – but if you are listening to music which is bass-heavy, or conversely to classical music which is dependent on subtlety and high notes, they will never give you excellent quality. It is in these latter cases that you will be best served by a bespoke sound system.

The inefficiency of a standard in-car sound system for specific can be easily demonstrated. If you are someone who enjoys bass-heavy music, playing one of your CDs on an in-car sound system and turning the volume up as loud as it can go will result in a distorted, tinny sound that will ruin the overall quality of the track. For such preferences, to adequately serve your needs you will require a set-up that favors this kind of music. For this you will be depending on a set of speakers that carry bass frequencies well – ideally with two large woofers and some sub-woofers, depending on the set-up of your car.

The sound delivery should be driven by an amplifier stronger than the one provided with the car – which usually only delivers a power output of comparatively low wattage. You should be looking for a wattage level of around 45 watts. Equally, if you listen to classical music, you can generally accept lower wattage, but will benefit from a sound system that favors tweeters rather than woofers, as these give a clearer, cleaner sound at high frequencies.

Advantages of adding a intercooler

The problem with a Turbo is the close proximity of the cold intake charge with the hot exhaust temperatures within the turbo.

Don't forget that a big air intake heat rise comes from the actual compression of air so even supercharged engine will benefit from an intercooler.

If you have ever felt the nozzle on a tyre pump you will realise that when air is compressed it gains heat.

We know from our chemistry and physics lessons that the colder air is the more oxygen it carries.

Why is this important? To burn fuel you need oxygen and, the more oxygen you have, the more fuel you can burn, which increases the power output of the car. See the article on air intakes for more information.

An intercooler is effectively a radiator which allows the intake air charge to be cooled before it gets into the engine. You would ideally mount an intercooler in front of the radiator so that it gets all that nice cold air hitting it. It would sit after the air intake filter and after the turbo or supercharger.

Most cars have front mounted intercoolers which sit in front of the radiator and as a result they tend to offer superior air cooling over top mounted intercoolers. You need to take into account the fact that the air reaching the radiator is reduced so you may in extreme cases need to uprate your cars radiator to maintain low on track temperatures.

Some cars have top mounted intercoolers which suck air in through the bonnet, this may mean that when the car is stationary it is actually being hit by warm air coming from the engine bay.

This can actually improve economy as you are able to burn less fuel because the air is warmer and you certainly don't want to be pulling big power figures whilst ticking over in traffic. The Subaru Impreza springs to mind as a car with a top mounted intercooler. A top mounted intercooler offers a substantially shorter air flow route into the engine.

All turbo cars will benefit from an intercooler and improvements can be made on the standard factory fit intercoolers. You need to remember that you want to suck as much air into the engine as possible, so if the intercooler internal core hinders airflow you will actually lose some power.

The 2 factors which make an intercooler work are the internal flow characteristics and the cooling fins. Ideally the fins will have the largest surface area and the internal core will benefit from a low number of tapered bends and no internal welds to cause turbulence.

Some argue that all intercoolers restrict the airflow, but considering the benefits gained by having a good quality one fitted and the minimal loss of airflow inherent in a well designed intercooler the argument does not stack up. In reality using an intercooler which is too large can hinder airflow so there is an important case of getting the correct size for the application (this is something which can be discussed in more detail in our forum.) Bigger is not always better!

For a boost level of 15PSi, we at TorqueCars would expect a pressure drop of .5 to .9 psi with some applications losing 1.3psi in the worst case scenario. (Just as increasing pressure increases temperature so decreasing pressure results from lowering the air temperature so don't blame the intercooler design for the entire loss of pressure.

Weight is always an issue in performance cars and many after market intercoolers are both lighter than their factory equivalents and offer substantially better performance gains. As a general rule of thumb a slightly bigger intercooler will have better cooling properties although it usually creates more drag. This extra drag needs be carefully weighed up against the cooling offered. The longer the air is inside the intercooler the better the cooling effect will be.

Some cars have a spray nozzle to spray the intercooler with water therefore reducing the intake temperature further as the water evaporates using heat from the air flowing through the intercooler.

The actual power gain from an efficient intercooler design is between 5% and 10% with a temperature drop of 35C-40C and this will obviously depend on the ambient temperature - the bigger the difference between intake temp and ambient temp the better the cooling effect.