Water to air Intake.

[Adydas]

Has anyone ever thought about the idea of a water to air intercooler but where the water cools intake pipes / filter / cold air box in some manner.

More importantly would it work IRL ? No use to me and perhaps the gains would be out weighed by the weight but the idea intrestes me non the less.

[fangsport]

yip.

make an alloy box with the inlet pipe running through it.
fill it full of ice, and have primo cold air induction

[CozmoNz]

there is a co2 kit you can buy, and comes with a intake adapter, which has a teardrop in the center of it, (with 2 pipes running to it), minor restriction, however aerodynaic shape.

anyway, the co2 is sprayed through the teardrop (so you dont loose any gas either), cooling the teardrop, and cooling any air that passes the drop / pipe, whatever.

also can get bits for intercooler cooler spray, and fuel line cooler too i think.

seemed a pretty cool idea.

[Chickenman]

yip.

make an alloy box with the inlet pipe running through it.
fill it full of ice, and have primo cold air induction

Dry ice FTW.. that shit is cold.

[Adydas]

Yeah dry ice is a little differnt im talking soley cold water been pumped around a metal intake pipe keeping it colder than it would normally be.

Would it make a difference? clearly does with pressureized air but would it with it not been.

[sergei]

it would not make difference at all. The air entering is close to outside temperature (that is with proper intake), water would be very close to same temp. so in effect you would not get any cooling.
It workes on forced inducted engines becuase the compressed air is arroung 70-120'C - which is quiet hot.

[bluemaumau]

unless you re-iced it every hour or so

[RomanV]

Yes but sucking in ambient air, which might be say ~20 degrees, it's going to make a negligable difference cooling it an extra degree or two.

But taking intake temps from 100 degrees down to 30 for example, can make a fair bit of difference.

[no_8wire]

However if you did this after the intercooler, depending on your piping length, it may have a noticeable effect...

[Stealer Of Souls]

Dual IC systems has always interested me... Always wondered if it would be a good drag car idea...


Dry ice intake cooler might be worth it. But if you got the intake too cold you'd need to retune everything to suit. And you'd need to keep topping up the dry ice...


The old school racers rule of thumb was something like 10 deg F for 1% power. So to be of much use you'd need to drop the intake by at least 5 deg C for any measurable gains, and then by 15-25 deg C for real results.
I think it could be done, as long as you had a method of constantly cooling the charge water. Or perhaps designing it as a periodic use system. Cool some charge water, then use it when needed, then re-cool the water. Ford was working on a similar concept for a water to air IC system for a supercharged ute some years ago. Never saw anything come from it.
Practically I see no reason it couldn't be done, and wouldn't have some uses.

[ST205 GT4 NZ New Group A]

You would need a big big custom pre rad, just like the one i have for sale !!

(insert cheeky self promotion here)

Check out listing on trademe 79172989 pictures there

You could insert a ice cooler into the system

[Adamal]

I've often wondered of incorperating an A/C system as a.... Ermm.... A/C to air (?) intercooler?

Now Sergei, tell me why this wouldn't work

[Alex B]

Probly would but its extra load on the engine to run the AC.

[sergei]

Because of the inneficiency of the heat pump (A/C) that will negate any gains made from colder air intake.

[Stealer Of Souls]

I reckon an A/C system wouldn't work if you tried to run it full time. But if you designed it right and set it up to only cool during certain conditions you might make it work.

[Crampy]

You could put Peltier devices (Thermoelectric) on your intake manifold or intake pipe and turn them on before going down the strip at the drags, or after wards to reduce heatsoaking. You wouldn't want to run with them on though, as they draw a poo load of current.

It could help to minimise heat soak in the manifold/intake after doing a burnout.

Expensive though.

[Stealer Of Souls]

Also, currently peltiers aren't very effective...
You need one mother of a heat transfer surface, and they don't have a large cooling capacity. Biggest ones I've seen (retail) is 72W... Which is about 250W short of being half way useful...

[Crampy]

Yep, so you would need to put a heap of them on and you need to heat sink the hot side of them or else they burn out.

Once that's all done, the car would weigh twice as much (due to the heat sinks) and need multiple alternators (to handle the currnet drawn by them)

Aside from that, still not a bad idea hehehe

[Si]

i thought that there were more gains to be had by cooling fuel than cooling air (NA..)

Fuel has to come (normally) from the rear of the car, and has to pass through pumps etc, where as air just well, goes in!

[Crampy]

True, but I also thought you don't want to cool things down too much, otherwise you don't get proper atomisation of the fuel into the air and thus have poorer combustion.