Strange GTA racer...

Hmm, don't think that rear spoiler is going to catch on....

(..well it might catch on to the car behind, but you know what I mean. ?

Its exactly what I was planning to do to mine over the winter for next season!!!

Seems a bit ugly. Maybe it was sourced from a "1 size fits all" motor factor.

Its massive intercooling though, must be a good 1.8m wide by about 0.6m deep. I don't know if its twin core. You can see from the pic that its a Z7X engine and it may be twin turbo'd so it may be an intercooler core for each blower.

If it's an intercooler (and I think you are right in saying it is) then looks like he used a couple of normal water rads instead.

That can't be efficient having something that size. Firstly the drag of the thing and secondly limitations of what you can do with the air anyway - the closer you try to get to ambient temps the exponentially bigger you have to make it. Totally pointless as its the law of diminishing returns.

You also end up with 'intercooler lag' where the turbo has too much of a void to fill before the air reaches the engine. Surely water chargecooling or just a better fin design etc would've been the way to go.

If it's an intercooler (and I think you are right in saying it is) then looks like he used a couple of normal water rads instead.

That can't be efficient having something that size. Firstly the drag of the thing and secondly limitations of what you can do with the air anyway - the closer you try to get to ambient temps the exponentially bigger you have to make it. Totally pointless as its the law of diminishing returns.

You also end up with 'intercooler lag' where the turbo has too much of a void to fill before the air reaches the engine. Surely water chargecooling or just a better fin design etc would've been the way to go.

Maybe, but water rads don't have the same internal capacity as intercoolers do and cant cope with the same pressures either.

Being an old Renault V6, and he's competing with the likes of 993 Porsche Turbos, M3 GTR's etc, I assume he is running silly boost levels (could be 25-30psi), and therefore feels the need for such large intercooling. When you think the Texaco RS500 next to him is around 550bhp, he probably needs it. The intercooler on the RS500 is half the size of what he has, but on the Sierra it has the benefit of being at the front. The guy with the Alpines' logic is right, its just so ungainly!

The large capacity intercooler will cause lag and a pressure drop, though when racing and constantly in the revs he probably doesnt get this problem, and any defficiencies in pressure drop are probably compensated by the huge drops in charge temps.

In the bottom picture, I don't think the nose is lifting because of acceleration squat - it's the weight of the intercooler!

Just struck me that the RS500 in the picture probably isn't one.

It's missing the additional rear spoiler and the extra chin spoiler - so it's probably 'just' a 3 door Cossie that's just been dressed up with paint and stickers to look like one of the old Eggenberger Texaco RS500s (Either that or he's had an accident and forgot to replace the extra bodykit)
Hence no trick suspension pick-ups, no second fuel injector rail, smaller turbo, thinner walls on the engine block and a lot less likely to be running 500+ bhp.

Still stiff competition, but looks like our boy in the GTA may stand more of a chance.

Well spotted!

Maybe it's not even a Cosworth but a rare three door bodyshell dressed up to look like one!

lol, look up Divinol cup, and see what cars he's upagainst!

As for the RS500, do you know how much genuine replacement front splitters are...!

Cheers David, just looked it up - it is a normal Cossie not a real RS500

However the Kuhn copy of the TEXACO Cosworth is unfortunately no original RS500, but a "normal" Sierra Cosworth. Team Toenisvorst explains the difference: "the RS500 at that time had in contrast to our normal Cosworth substantially more power - we avail ourselves of only approx. 300 HP, the RS500 at that time over nearly 500 HP.

Yep he goes on to talk about how stiff the competition is, being made up mostly of GT2 and GT3 Porsches. Hats off to the Cosworth and Alpine teams, they must have close to a 200bhp and 20 year technology gap and corresponding budgets .
Must make for an amazing race series even if they can't hope to actually win. Have you managed to find any references to the actual race results David?