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Intercooler/Radiator Protection

3532 Views 16 Replies 10 Participants Last post by  phxSS
I have one small problem. It has not escalated to physical damage. The bottom part of the front spoiler does not have a mesh protector for the radiator/intercooler. I feel that a direct hit from a rock may seriously damage the radiator/intercooler (don't know exactly which one it is). Are there any aftermarket mesh components that will offer protection?
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You can get a screen but the charged air cooler can take a shot where it is located but it is a one in a million. Many after market but just more weight. Horsepower verses Weight. Pick your battles Luke ! :rolleyes:
The thing you see through the front bumper would be your radiator, and yes any aftermarket mesh would probably help out just fine...
Yeah i would add i mesh in front just to hide the radiator and keep it safe i have had my fair share of rock's hitting my car i got like four nice size chips in my window and a good bit of rock damage on the front of my car.
Yeah I noticed the same thing after my highway trip.....bugs splattered all over the radiator. So being as I work in a machine shop, Im gonna have the CNC depatrment make me a custom grill/mesh to help out incase of something nasty slipping thru and making me very angry! :)
Just for reference, SS's do not have an intercooler. Its a heat exchanger for the coolant that runs through the IC in your intake manifold, a radiator if you will. Just please people stop calling it an intercooler, because thats not what it is. If it was, you could also call your radiator an intercooler.
MY GTP 8 U said:
Just for reference, SS's do not have an intercooler. Its a heat exchanger for the coolant that runs through the IC in your intake manifold, a radiator if you will. Just please people stop calling it an intercooler, because thats not what it is. If it was, you could also call your radiator an intercooler.
Ok thanks i was just saying that it needs to be protected form the roads in PA they suck a$$ and have alot of stones and i just don't want it get to many stones to it and possably have one freak stone take out my ratiator. But thanks for the info. :)
MY GTP 8 U said:
Just for reference, SS's do not have an intercooler. Its a heat exchanger for the coolant that runs through the IC in your intake manifold, a radiator if you will. Just please people stop calling it an intercooler, because thats not what it is. If it was, you could also call your radiator an intercooler.
they do have a intercooler, it is air to water i think, do some research for it
Sorry I meant they do not have a front mount intercooler. I forgot those 2 important words in that one :eek: :p But if you read more closely youll see I mentioned the IC in the intake manifold ;) And yes it is air to water.
Wow so much misinformation.
If a rock were to damage the silver radiator looking thing it would leave you without A/C as this part is called the "Air Conditioning Condenser" and is mounted directly in front of the radiator.
If you install any form of protection make certain that is does not restrict the airflow at all or the car may overheat on hot days when you are running the A/C.
This car is equipped with an Inter-Cooler just not these parts in the front so we will probably continue to call it an "Inter-Cooler" even though some guy thinks that we shouldn't.
I was just saying people shouldnt be calling the heat exchanger thats mounted up front an intercooler, because its not, its a heat exchanger for the coolant used by the intercooler. People who call their heat exchangers intercoolers will more than likely be mocked by the people that know better, so I'm just trying to prevent that. Dont need Cobalt guys being labeled as ricers by guys like me now do we?!?!
Cmon now

MY GTP 8 U said:
I was just saying people shouldnt be calling the heat exchanger thats mounted up front an intercooler,
What the hell are you talking about?
The 2.0 Ecotec Supercharged has an integrated (air to coolant) intercooler built into the intake manifold, the "radiator" cools the coolant, there is no "heat exchanger" anywhere on this vehicle.
I was under the belief that there is a seperate heat exchanger, or radiator, for the intercooler coolant. Is this not true???
I recenlty purchased the cobalt ss and was disappointed that there was no protection for the radiator. So i placed a call into GM and they told me basically they were going to look into it. I feel that if more of the SS owners placed calls into GM that they would recompensate us for the grills that we HAD to purchase. I am definately going to submit my bill for the grill into GM and the Better Business Beauru.
MY GTP 8 U said:
I was under the belief that there is a seperate heat exchanger, or radiator, for the intercooler coolant. Is this not true???
Just a simple air to coolant intercooler no seperate radiator, you may think that this unit is a heat exchanger but it does not exactly meet the requirements.
A heat exchanger is a device that transfers hot air or fluid into another system to heat up its air or fluid, an example is many aircraft jet engines use a Fuel to Oil heat exchanger to cool the oil and to heat the fuel, you know why you want to cool oil, fuel is heated for better atomization to aid in more complete burning.
A system that is designed to remove heat by dissipating it thru coolant or ambient air is just a cooler not an exchanger.


Chris,
You may want to go easy there on contacting the BBB over an item that so far is only a problem in our imagination; the condenser can take some punishment.
ZX1100F1 said:
Just a simple air to coolant intercooler no seperate radiator, you may think that this unit is a heat exchanger but it does not exactly meet the requirements.
A heat exchanger is a device that transfers hot air or fluid into another system to heat up its air or fluid, an example is many aircraft jet engines use a Fuel to Oil heat exchanger to cool the oil and to heat the fuel, you know why you want to cool oil, fuel is heated for better atomization to aid in more complete burning.
A system that is designed to remove heat by dissipating it thru coolant or ambient air is just a cooler not an exchanger.


Chris,
You may want to go easy there on contacting the BBB over an item that so far is only a problem in our imagination; the condenser can take some punishment.
Gotcha. I dont know why I was using the term heat exchanger. I saw someone else on this board use it to describe the radiator for the IC coolant and I kinda stuck with it not thinking that it didnt make sense. My bad.
But either way, my main point was that there is no intercooler mounted in the front of the car, and that the radiator, condenser, and IC coolant radiator should not be called an intercooler.
So where is the IC located? I tried to find thr bastard, but it's eaither very small, and it's hidden behind the blower itself. Ifit is, where does the IC get it's water from? The radiaitor? Or does it have it's own remote tank?
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