The Revo Intercooler utilises unique design features to lower intake air temperatures, minimise pressure drop and allows the engine to produce impressive power and torque with Revo Software. The custom end tank profile promotes internal laminar flow, decreases turbulence, and increases charge air speed to utilise the larger bar and plate core more efficiently. This enhances the Revo intercooler charge air cooling capability, giving you access to more power throughout the rev range.
The limitations of the stock intercooler were apparent at early stages of testing and development. The stock part consistently struggled to manage charge air temperatures in extreme scenarios without any vehicle modifications. Testing showed this issue becomes vastly amplified on tuned vehicles, with power losses observed under daily driving conditions. The Revo Intercooler has been designed to improve on every thermal management aspect of the stock part, lowering intake air temperatures by up to 33°C (vs. the stock intercooler) and allowing you to drive harder, for longer.
KEY FEATURES
- Balanced Bar & Plate Core Design
- Fully Cast End Tanks
- CNC-machined, adjustable mounting bracket system
- 53.85% increase in external core volume
- 26.96% increase in frontal surface area
- Up to 32.81°C reduction in Intake Air Temperatures (IATs)
- Up to 14.74 axle HP, 25.24 axle Torque (Nm) gain
- +0.03psi average increase in pressure drop throughout 6 consecutive dyno runs
INCREASED CORE VOLUME
The Revo Intercooler was built around a simple principle; create a cooler that can keep up with your demand for power. To do this, the Revo Intercooler has a 54% larger external core volume than the stock intercooler, while retaining OE-level fitment. Revo’s unique bar and plate, stacked core design fills every cubic millimeter of available space around the intercooler cavity, while Revo engineers’ 3D scanning and 3D printing technologies ensure the Revo part fits perfectly within all the stock shrouds, core supports and miscellaneous engine bay components without trimming or modifications.
INCREASED FRONTAL AREA
More frontal surface area allows an intercooler to utilise more of the cold ambient air entering the engine bay. All else being equal; a taller, thinner intercooler will perform better than a shorter, deeper intercooler with the same core volume. For peak thermal performance, maximizing core frontal surface area is almost as important as core volume and type, so the Revo intercooler offers the largest frontal surface area available with a 27% increase in area over the stock part.
END TANK DESIGN
End tanks dictate how the core interacts with the charge air; effective end tanks are the differentiator between good and great intercoolers. Smaller, tighter end tanks will have reduced cross-sectional flow areas and typically restrict charge air from reaching the edges of the core, even with airflow fins integrated into the tanks. This increases pressure drop and leaves parts of the core underutilised – hampering the performance of even the largest, highest quality cores. Conversely, properly designed tanks work in harmony with a specific core type and size to maximize cross-sectional flow area and distribute charge air evenly over the entire core; for maximum thermal performance with minimal pressure drop. The Revo intercooler is no exception, with end tanks designed concurrently to the stacked core geometry to provide the largest internal tank volumes and cross-sectional flow areas possible in the avaliable space. This allows the Revo stacked bar and plate core to operate at its full cooling potential, lowering Intake Air Temperatures (IATs) up to 33°C over stock while only increasing pressure drop an average of 0.03 PSI over the stock part.
BAR & PLATE
In terms of thermal performance, bar and plate core constructions almost always outperform a similarly specified and sized tube and fin counterpart. However, not all bar and plate cores are created equal, and this has given rise to many misconceptions about pressure drop and cooling performance of each core type. Each aspect of a bar and plate core’s design, on both the cold and hot side, significantly affect its performance; from passage size and fin type/density down to smaller details like material and bar/plate thicknesses. Each of these details must also be balanced with the others to create a core that maximises cooling capacity without significantly increasing pressure drop. Revo engineers have spent years developing a set of balanced bar and plate core parameters, painstakingly scrutinising every core characteristic with different suppliers, to create intercooler cores that offer some of the best thermal performance characteristics in the industry while maintaining OE drivability by keeping pressure drop values equal to or lower than stock.
DETAILS
The subtle design features of the intercooler kit make it a Revo product. The Revo intercooler’s mounting system features CNC-machined billet brackets with adjustability in three axis, to maintain the highest quality and fitment standards on every kit, in every (AW) Polo GTI engine bay. Each intercooler also features stainless-steel thread inserts to prevent any thread damage during installation and adjustment. Both hose connections feature anti-release ribs to securely hold the OE hoses, while the entire kit is coated with an anti-corrosion, heat-conducting powder coating to ensure natural corrosion, oil and other adverse engine bay environmental factors have no effect on the performance of the Revo kit over the life of the vehicle.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
All Revo products are designed in-house, using the latest 3D printing, 3D scanning, CAD and CFD technologies. Every product is rigorously tested utilising an in-house hub dynamometer and Revo data acquisition software. Extensive testing was conducted to confirm that the Revo Intercooler Kit provides significantly better charge air cooling and heat soak resistance than the OE part without adversely affecting vehicle drivability through increased pressure drop values.
The Revo Intercooler Kit was tested on an in-house VW Polo GTI (AW) development vehicle, fitted with Revo software and a Revo Open Cone Intake System. The OE intercooler was tested through six consecutive dynamometer runs within a controlled testing cell. The Revo part was then installed, the vehicle allowed to cool, and six more runs completed in the same conditions within the testing cell, to quantify the performance benefits of the Revo kit.
PERFORMANCE DATA
The dynamometer graph shows both power and torque (at the hubs) from the beginning and end of each consecutive testing run, while also highlighting the effectiveness of the Revo kit over the OE intercooler. From the first dynamometer run at normal operating temperatures, the Revo intercooler offers power gains at the higher end of the engine speed range due to decreased intake air temperatures (data shown in the section below). By the last dynamometer run of the testing series, the OE intercooler has been wholly overwhelmed by the charge air and engine bay temperatures, losing a maximum of 27.6 horsepower and 35.7 Nm of torque (both at the hubs) and an average of 14.7 horsepower and 25.2 Nm of torque (also both at the hubs) across the entire engine speed range. Notably, the Revo intercooler loses no power or torque from the first to last testing run under the same test conditions as the OE part, analytically demonstrating how the Revo Intercooler Kit can provide maximum performance in the most demanding driving scenarios.
INLET TEMPERATURE
The intercooler inlet air temperature data authenticates the power and outlet temperature data, to confirm that the temperature differentials and power gains shown are purely down to the differences between the Revo and OE intercoolers. As shown in the inlet air data graph, both intercoolers were supplied with charge air at similar temperatures throughout the consecutive dynamometer testing sets, with the Revo part logging significant power and temperature differentials despite being supplied with progressively warmer charge air throughout its testing set.
OUTLET TEMPERATURE
The intercooler outlet air temperature data illustrates how effective the Revo Intercooler is at managing charge air temperatures over the OE unit. Throughout the testing, the Revo part maintains at least 20°C cooler peak temperatures in each dynamometer run (with a maximum 33°C delta on the second-to-last run), averaging 13°C colder air temperatures throughout the entire torture test. This data clearly demonstrates both the peak performance and robust heat soak resistance of the Revo part, given that it quickly shed any absorbed engine bay heat at the start of each dynamometer run. With Revo air temperatures rising only 11°C peak-to-peak from the start to the end of the test and never breaching 50°C, the Revo Intercooler could easily allow another six or more consecutive testing runs to be performed before any engine management intervention occurred.
INTERCOOLER PRESSURE DROP GRAPH
Pressure drop is an important factor when considering an intercooler upgrade, as intercoolers with higher-than-OE pressure drop values will increase the feeling of “turbo lag” and dramatically change the drivability of the vehicle. The Revo Intercooler maintains essentially the same pressure drop values as the OE intercooler and takes nothing away from the driving experience for all of its performance benefits, with an average increase of just 0.03PSI over the six consecutive dynamometer testing runs.
FITMENT
VEHICLE APPLICATIONS
| Manufacturer | Model | Engine | Engine code | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VW | Polo GTI (AW) | 2.0TSI | CZPC | 2017 – 2019 |
| VW | Polo GTI (AW) | 2.0TSI | DKZC | 2019 – 2022 |
