I’ve been looking at the range of one-ton bakkies and discovered that the Hilux 2,5 D-4D is the only diesel that doesn’t have an intercooler.
Doesn’t this negatively affect durability with regard to exhaust gas temperatures?
HERMAN LOURENS – By e-mail
We suspect you got the strange idea that a diesel-powered vehicle without an intercooler runs dangerously hot by reading the wrong advertising material.
This is simply not true, because engine manufacturers do not fit intercoolers to decrease the exhaust gas temperature but to increase an engine’s output. An intercooler will seldom reduce the intake air temperature by more than 60 degrees C.
This is enough to make the intake air more dense and so increase the power output significantly, but will only reduce the exhaust gas temperature by the same amount.
This is certainly not enough of a drop in temperature to reduce the likelihood of damage if the engine was running close to its upper heat limit in the first place.
An engine designer can deal with high exhaust gas temperatures in a number of other ways without having to add an intercooler.