Wow, great compliment to both of you sfedek + antiferret! You, gentleman start thinking!
It is the right way of improvement.
I'm working on it right at the moment.
Let me tell you what happened so far.
I had the same thoughts like you:
An intercooler decreases intake temperatures. Every degree less intake temperature it degrades in the same amount exhaust temperature.
So: 1 degree less intake equals 1 degree less exhaust temp.
I ordered a custom Intercooler for the radiator front. Worked fine with one exception:
In that moment I increased speed above 90Km/h the coolant temperatures exploded. I blocked the radiator!
VM rule no1: Do not block the radiator!!!
1100€ wasted for a useless intercooler.
It has areason why the intercooler is located below(behind) the
bumper.
If you look closer you find out that the intercooler is vented by the visco fan.
That means during offroad use the visco draws the heat out of the intercooler.
For that reason make sure the fan shroud is sealed( But I mentioned that way earlier in this thread, do you remember?
So there are ways to improve flow:
Just have a look:
This is how the front cross member looks stock
And this is how the cross member looks after increasing air flow about 1/3
It is an early try - so it is not perfect.
Do not remove the complete front- you influence the front cross member stability.
Also the front bumper has to be modified to increase flow. The factory unit is a double staged unit and has good heat absorbent abilities if air flow is enough.
Clean it from the outside- mine was almost closed with mud in the beginning. So it acted as a useless device( maybe possible head failure cause???)
An air water cooler is great- but where do you want to place the heat exchanger? If never recognized so much space problems as in the Jeep.
You have to make a decision- An offroader with no compromises- or a daily usable vehicle? I choose the DD with offroad abilities.
Carvesdodo mentioned it already!
You can't transform your Jeep into an offroadmachine without keeping elementary parts of the engine on the same level!
As I remember Carves said the Jeep is designed as an "as is" on a stock level. So keeping it reliable means to have at least original performance.
Now you start to throw bigger tires on it which give the engine a bigger load too. So you have to keep up the same level!