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question on volvo inter coolers...

Air gets hot when it is compressed by a super or turbo charger. The intercooler cools the air that has just been compressed. The easiest way to tell if you have an intercooler is by looking under the hood. Is there a hose going from the throttle body to something up front that looks like a radiator? If so, then yes.
 
You have an intercooler. It looks like a mini powerstroke kinda. IT has fairly large inlets in teh center, it is kinda wide and doea not look much like a 740IC at all, with top inlets. It cools the air that the turbo compressor heats by both friction and compression. The smaller your compressor is the faster it has to spin, if it spins fast enough as to be out if its effiency range it will frictionally heat the air a ton.
An intercooler has 3 basic functions:
1. Heat exchange at any given time. It is percieved that ICs with large frontal surface area do this best. the volvo is probably quite good at this provided that you don't want to move a ton of air through it.
2. Heat absorption: Having a large or massive IC is sometimes good so that when you puch it, it is going to soak up the huge heat from your boost spike. Spearco makes heavy ICs in a variety of sizes, if your IC is mounted behind the AC and you are driving slowly aroundd in teh suburbs your car might be sluggish as hell because the IC is actually soaking up alot of external heat.
3. Flow restriction or pressure drop: Ideally you want your IC to have as little pressure drop as a pipe, but that is not possible. Things like internal fins which the Volvo ICs lack could be a helpful compromise to make good flow and heat exchange. Good endtank design is helpful, somewhat large inlets, somewhat less surface area or shorter tubes etc.
People upgrade for more modern things like internal fins and better endtank design, though the 940IC is not as lacking there.
I am going to yank the AC in a bit and clean out the IC, I would guess they get fairly full of gunk.
 
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