Custom Airbox

[NZVengeance]

i had this idea last night about a custom airbox design.


So now an explanation.

there is a tube which had the pod filter in it, just big enough to fit the pod in so the air cant pass along side it.
That tube is housed inside a box (Stainless or aluminum) filled with water and antifreeze (not a huge amount mabey a couple of litres.
Attached to the outside of that housing is some peltiers*
perltier cool the water to a very cold temp whcih keep that cylinder that houses the pod very cold which means all the air that comes in there is cooled



*Peltiers are a small square device that get very very cold on one side and very very hot on the other. they are used in samll fridges and the like.

[LEV_101]

sounds very interesting.

what car is this going on to ?

[NZVengeance]

ST205 WRC

[NZVengeance]

im thinking the only problem will be stopping the outside of the airbox icing up. i am sure there must be something i could put in the outside of it that would stop it.

like the opposite of heat wrap lol

[soven]

You reckon the air will have enough time to get cold?

[Sancho]

Airbox or modern sex toy? You decide.

[NZVengeance]

Airbox or modern sex toy? You decide.

wtf?

[NZVengeance]

You reckon the air will have enough time to get cold?

yea because the air will have to come into contact with the surface of the metal. and if you have one of those stainless pod filters the metal on that will get very cold. and then the cold will transfer down the pipe.

i will have to mock-up some kind of concept at some point and run a test

[sergei]

peltiers are very inefficient, for amount of air coming in you will need to use kilowatts of electricity will would be more than what you gain from colder air.
Also you would have to cool those peltiers, as they will cook themselves in no time, and to cool kilowatts you will need massive heat sink/water cooler system which also leads to added weight, and you cannot use engine radiator as it is very hot for peltiers, and if you use water to air cooling system all the effects of the peltiers will be negated, so you will have to use separate cooler. Cooling below ambient temperature is very inefficient.

[Mr.Phreak]

peltiers are very inefficient, for amount of air coming in you will need to use kilowatts of electricity will would be more than what you gain from colder air.

I'm with sergei, the extra load on the electrical system wouldn't be nice....and how were you planning on cooling the hot side of the peltiers?

[Crampy]

I've asked about using peltiers to cool car intakes and intercoolers before.

They use a LOT of current and to get a decent surface area, you'll need a lot of them. They are not cheap either.

[NZVengeance]

was going to duct air from outside the vehicle to pass over them
and remember the peltier are not cooling the air they are cooling the water that surrounds the metal.

so the metal gets very cold. pertiers are very efficient at cooling water which is why they get used in water cooling in PCs

[molex]

Interesting idea.. You should probably look into increasing the chilled surface area the air flows past with heatsinks/fins. It would allow direct heat transfer from the air to the exterior of a smaller/more simple box without the added weight penalty of a few litres of liquid.

Another thing to consider is clamping pressure. It has an enormous impact on peltier element efficiency. Here's a pic of what I'm thinking.



Grey stuff is insulation btw.


Sub ambient temperatures create condensation by the bucket load, you sure you want to be sucking that into your engine? Sadly you can't get energy from nowhere, those peltiers are going to have to pull a LOT of current to be effective.

[molex]

so the metal gets very cold. pertiers are very efficient at cooling water which is why they get used in water cooling in PCs

Technically.. no. The usual implementation in computer extreme cooling examples would be a lot like what I just described, a peltier clamped between two plates, which is then clamped directly to the CPU. The cold plate removes heat from the chip, the hot plate is cooled by a water loop. Not the other way around.

Peltier cooling has all but been abandoned by the extreme cooling crowd as despite being relatively simple, it's very inefficient compared to a phase change loop.

Speaking of phase change, a lot of cars already have a very well designed one of those inbuilt.. Your air conditioning is made specifically for chilling air, if not for you, then why not for the engine? Would be much more efficient, yet still unlikely to give net gain in power, since the compressor sucks quite a bit when running.

[NZVengeance]

hmmm yea.

what way then would be efficient and cool the incoming air allowing for greater compression

what about this.



there is a small tank of liquid nitrogen which pump the liquid nitrogen along small tubing which is run p and down the length of the intake pipe.

i know thats kinda hard core but is the theory sound?
would tht drop the ambient air temperature of that pipe?

[molex]

Evaporative cooling is the only 'free' way I can think of. Think of the intercooler sprayers on rally cars/WRX STI's. They spray water on the 'hot' intercooler, the water evaporates rapidly due to the airflow and 'heat' removing a goodly amount of energy from the intercooler in the process. It's almost like water to air, only cools more + you lose the water. Quite funny watching people fill up their sprayer tanks on track days, they go through quite a bit over time.

If I were you I would be thinking more about cooling the hot side of the turbo more than your intake charge. I assume we are talking about a turbo car here?

[NZVengeance]

well yea the concept is based on a turbo car.
im not making any changes to my car as of yet jsut tossing up the concept

[barryogen]

what way then would be efficient and cool the incoming air allowing for greater compression

better intercooling, wind up the boost, and fix fueling and engine management

I've been looking at phasechange intercoolers, but they cost too much.

have a google for parafin intercoolers, interesting, and I'd like to try it but don't have a suitable car to try it on at the moment.

[NZVengeance]

cant really find much lol keep getting things about people cleaning their intercooler with parafin.

[Crampy]

Try parafin wax intercoolers.

Here's a good one:
http://autospeed.com/cms/A_1815/article ... larArticle

Quite an interesting read.