Prodigy Performance 3.6 Turbo DIY Install

[UselessPickles]

Air to Air systems work great at high speeds due to the volume of air flow you get. They tend to really drop of the performance charts when you get off road with slow moving air-speeds. Couple this with the close proximity of the everything under the hood and you start to see performance from your intercooler drop off.

This is why I painted my intercooler with radiator paint. It radiates heat more efficiently than bare metal. If I had been thinking clearly at the time, I would have left the back side unpainted, because the black color also ABSORBS heat radiation more efficiently! Oh well.

I did have some problems with excessive intake temps on a hot summer day driving hard on sand dunes, but that was with stage 1 (no intercooler) AND an install error that was producing excess boost. I also only had those problems when repeatedly racing up sand dunes at high RPM (5000+ rpm) with boost. I've never seen any signs of excessive heat problems while driving slowly or idling.

Keep in mind that this is an add-on turbo kit that is sized to provide its big gains in the mid and upper rpm range under significant engine load. When crawling around off road at low speed, especially in 4LO, there's just not enough engine load to really spool the turbo up. The engine along with proper gearing is plenty for most non-extreme off road driving. Since the turbo isn't working hard in these situations, it's not generating extra heat. It's essentially just part of the exhaust system. Yes, there is extra exhaust routed through the engine compartment, but that's at least partially balanced by the removal of the stock catalytic converters (which hang directly off the heads of the engine, one on each side). Ceramic coating or heat wrap on the exhaust could reduce heat if that's a concern.

I would like to eventually build some kind of heat shield around the air filter to see if that has any significant effect on intake temps. It should be pretty easy to test with some back-to-back data logging with and without a heat shield. I expect it will have no significant impact at street driving speeds where there's good air flow, and it will probably only slow down the heat soak a bit at low speeds, rather than permanently reduce inlet temps.

Also, does Prodigy offer an oil-cooler kit? That would be a great addition to the system.

Haven't heard of any plans for this. The Pentastar already has an oil-coolant heat exchanger, so I'd guess that oil temps would not be an issue unless maybe you're really beating on it, like continuous high load, high boost operation, desert racing type stuff.

Do you think itll be worth selling my ripp kit in my 2013 for a prodigy turbo kit

I have not driven a RIPP, so can't really comment on how different the performance is, and therefore whether it would be worth switching. Jessee and Ross might be able to provide some insight, but I also think the upcoming update to Prodigy's tune needs to be taken into account before making a comparison.