Air to Air Setup

What is A2A Cooling?

"Air-to-air intercooling is the simplest and most common method of cooling charge air. This method utilizes a heat exchanger mounted in between the turbo or supercharger, and uses ambient air to cool your engine's charged air. The intercooler in this system is mounted directly in the path of fresh air, typically at the front of the vehicle, or under an application-specific vent or scoop. The air-to-air intercooler typically has first dibs on the fresh air stream and employs a piping system to channel the charged air from the turbo through the intercooler and into the intake manifold."

-Mishimoto

Pro's

"The upside to an air-to-air system is its simplicity. It's a tried-and-true system that's plenty effective at maintaining charge air temperatures on economy and performance vehicles alike. The simplicity of this system lends itself to the enthusiast community as well since it makes for a more straightforward upgrade. Most OEM intercoolers use tube-and-fin cores with restrictive piping that are good enough for daily driving but become a choke point for tuned and big turbo vehicles. With intercooler construction and design updates, along with larger intercooler piping, air-to-air systems are more than capable of handling high-horsepower vehicles."

-Mishimoto

Con's

"While air-to-air systems have plenty of pros, there are drawbacks. The most notable of those drawbacks is heat soak. Since this intercooler style relies on a flow of fresh air, anytime the vehicle is idling or moving at slow speeds, the intercooler's efficiency is significantly reduced, especially when it comes to OEM and tube-and-fin style cores. Heavy-duty bar-and-plate cores mitigate this issue, but in some cases, these larger intercoolers can impede airflow to other critical systems like the primary radiator. Getting the vehicle rolling is ideal for reducing heat soak with either tube-and-fin or bar-and-plate intercoolers. In addition, the air-to-air intercooling system's reliance on longer sections of piping and larger cores can result in increased turbo lag as there's now more volume in the system for the compressor to fill."

-Mishimoto

Mid-Engine

As you can see, Air-to-air systems can be cheaper and easier to put together. However, all of this information is based around cars with Engines in the Front. Mid-Engine cars can only utilize cool air from side scoops, roof scoops (like Lotus Exige), or air dams under the car. Running a proper Air-to-air system in a mid-engine vehicle would require extremely long piping, which reduces Turbo Response, takes up more space, and simply isn't as efficient as a proper Air-to-water system for our cars. Or a well engineering solution utilizing air pockets and proper venting.

Don't get us wrong! With Proper design, you can build a very nice Air-to-air setup on a mid-engine car - but for the average guy; Please see How to-Air to Water Setup!

Our Recommendation

Since we do not recommend Air-to-air on our Mid-Engine cars, we will not be providing a parts list or budget. Instead, we recommend you read about our Budget Air-to-water setup and decide if its right for you!