Intercooler Core Design
The APR Intercooler core is a large bar-and-plate design featuring densely packed staggered and louvered fins. This design offers exceptional cooling while balancing pressure loss across the core, and maintaining critical airflow to the components behind the intercooler system. The core size was appropriately matched to the platform, minimizing pressure drop while leaving adequate space for appropriately designed end tanks. To APR’s mechanical engineering experts, the design represented the ultimate in performance, far exceeding the capabilities of the factory intercooler. To the driver, the result is simple: Repeatable performance, even in the most demanding of situations!
Testing
APR’s engineers tested each intercooler in a multitude of tests to show the impact the APR intercooler has on intake air temperature. The following tests were conducted with a 2017 S4 using the stock ECU calibration on 93 octane fuel and no other modifications. Ambient conditions during the stock intercooler tests were 72.8°F and 98.4 kPa with 78.7% relative humidity. Conditions were similar later in the day during during the APR Intercooler testing with 78.4°F and 98.5 KPa with 62.8% relative humidity. This gave the APR Intercooler no added advantage over the stock system during the tests. First, six back-to-back dyno pulls were conducted with each intercooler. Each run was conducted in 4th gear, from idle to redline, with a cool down between runs. The stock intercooler failed to combat rising IAT’s and quickly exhibited power-robbing heat soak. IAT’s started at 35°C and quickly rose to 60°C by the end of the first dyno pull. This trend continued with the final dyno pull reaching a staggering 67°C! In contrast, the APR Intercooler only reached 34°C by the end of the first dyno pull. It was then able to continue rejecting heat, only reaching 36°C by the end of the final dyno pull. The APR Intercooler performed better after 6 back-to-back dyno pulls than the factory intercooler did on it’s very first dyno pull. Next we tested a 10-135 second sprint through the gears. With the factory intercooler, IAT quickly rose from a starting temperature of 32°C to a blistering 81°C! It was so bad, we had to abort the test as we felt it was too dangerous to continue further. However, as expected, the APR intercooler handled IAT’s extremely well. With a starting temperature of 29°C, IAT slightly climbed above the starting temperature to 42°C by the end of the sprint. A difference of 39°C was exhibited between the two units after only a single top speed. This directly translates to faster acceleration, and better performance in all conditions.
Only use fuel equal to or higher than specified. Never use a lower octane fuel. Always follow our fuel guide, especially with race fuel and Ethanol, where available. Dynos are for reference only. Results will vary. Contributing factors include the vehicle condition, vehicle setup, dyno type, dyno setup, environmental factors, fuel quality, and more. When describing fuels, the North American Region (NAR) uses the Anti-Knock Index (AKI), (RON+MON)/2, or (R+M)/2. The Rest of the World (ROW) uses RON. RON is Research Octane Number and MON is Motor Octane Number.
This part is legal for sale or use on Racing Use Only Vehicles
The following vehicles are considered Racing Use Only Vehicles:
- Racing Use Only Vehicles are vehicles that are used exclusively for competition that are not registered and that may never be used on the street.