4x4ord wrote:
ShinerBock wrote:
There is a reason why water-to-air intercooler are mainly popular in drag racing applications and air-to-air are more popular in longer duration track applications.
There is also a reason why Ford chose to put a more expensive and complicated charge air cooling system on the Super Duty. I don't know much about it, so anything I could come up with would just be a guess, it obviously wasn't to cut costs or because they didn't care about cooling.
My personal guess is that they went with the more complicated design because of the reverse flow head set up would not allow for additional piping needed to fit an air to air system in the engine bay. You can fit a water to air intercooler anywhere you want and have smaller water piping to and from the heat exchanger. With an air to air, it has to go in the front and requires larger diameter piping to move the air. Fitment is one of the main reasons why most car makers go to a water to air cooler.