Okay talked to a few mustang guys awhile back about a new intercooler they were designing for under the stock charger that was powered by the vehicles A/C system

My question is would this work to plumb it into an air to water intercooler for a stupid low temp intake charge

I know the hole paracitic draw thing takes power to make power though could this design possibly be worth it

Any thoughts or ideas would be great

Thanks

 

WTF! Hell no it wouldn't work.

The compressor takes low temperature refrigerant - comrpesses it - and turns it into hot refrigerant gas. Then it travels to the condenser(the radiator looking thing) where it is turned into a liquid through heat transfer - then it moves to your dryer(which ever one you have) and the pressure is reduced - but its still a liquid........then it goes to your evaporator where it removes the heat from your interior. Heat transfers from Hot to Cold - so the heat you have in the air in the passenger compartment moves to the cool air in the evaporator (thus making it hot air).

In other words, No.

Not saying air to water wouldn't work - just saying, the Ac system is out of the question...unless you want to spray suva on your intercooler systsem

 

actually it has been used before and there is no reason it wouldn't work. I worked for 2 years at an AC shop and cant see why it wouldnt work. In place of an evaporator A-coil you plumb the liquid line into the water-to-air IC and let that act as the evaporator coil. The hot intake charge would be cooled by the evaporating refrigerant. After it is heated, it would travel back to the compressor to be compressed into a liquid, then cooled and then it would start the process over again........I believe there was a system in use already in a production car, but i don't recall offhand which one it is.......

It is a fairly simple process....all that happens is that the refrigerant basically changes state from a liquid to a gas and that requires a lot of enery (heat)....therefore the heat is removed from the surrounding air. There is one problem, you'd have to have a fairly large evaporating A-coil in order for it to be efficient. You have to spread out the refrigerant into tiny little lines so that there is the max amount of surface area, but at the same time you have to lower the pressure so that liquid has room to expand into a gas.


I'll tell you right now, it could be debatable whether or not it is feasable, but it can be done.....

 

correct me if im wrong(im not) but, dont the new FORD lightning trucks and the mustang cobra's use a liquid/air intercooler which somehow exchanges heat with the ac system???????????????????????????????????????

 

My thought exactly I am not running A/C in the car now it is a Del Sol if it gets hot I will take off the top

Though I have all the parts leftover I fully understand the workings of an A/C system though I just wanted to see if anyone had seen this setup

It CAN be done!

All I am not sure of is the sizing of the intercooler I have thought everything else through just cant determine what size to run and what the efficiency would be as far a hp level capacity

I am looking for something different and hidden all comments welcome

Thanks

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> correct me if im wrong(im not) but, dont the new FORD lightning trucks and the mustang cobra's use a liquid/air intercooler which somehow exchanges heat with the ac system??????????????????????????????????????? </TD></TR></TABLE>

that's what it was....the Lightning!! Thank you!! That was going to bother me all day if i didn't know that. I hope my post answered your question!!

 

Yea your post atleast backed up the fact it would work any ideas as for cooler sizing or where I could find more info on this

 

once i'm done w/ class today i can look into it a little more. Most A-coils are fairly large, but AC units on homes are a lot bigger than on cars!! Just figure out the size of your AC condensor in your car and that would be about the perfect size for your IC....the best and cheapest way to do this would be to buy a condensor out of a dead car, then attach the IC end tanks and piping to that...it already is the right size and has the right size lines already attached to it. I'll look into it and see if i can't get deals through my work for ya....if you decide to do this!!

 

Thats a great idea have an old dash in the barn (Yes I said Barn) I will take it apart and see what I cant mock up

I need to see if this is even worth wasting my time on though

 

My bad - I thought he was wondering if he could implement the AC system and still keep AC.

Anyway, why do you figure this will be more efficient than a standard air-to-air FMIC?

 

Just air moving only cools so far with the A/C system you are cooling it a lot farther

Say its 110 outside would you rather have a fan or A/C?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by troubledsol03 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Just air moving only cools so far with the A/C system you are cooling it a lot farther

Say its 110 outside would you rather have a fan or A/C? </TD></TR></TABLE>

Well, if its 110 degrees outside, that air isn't being sucked in..............
You have to think about wind chill - when you're driving - especially at highway speeds, that air gets MUCH cooler. But i see what you're saying. Now that I think about it, that AC intercooler thing would be pretty decent. But how effective? It would have to be a huge ac system wouldn't it? - and wouldn't that add a lot more weight to the vehicle? I don't think our ac systems are large enough to support much at all.

 

Actually that is the same thing I am trying to figure out thought maybe some of the brains here on H-T could give some technical input

The idea is sound though not sure what it will take to make it work

Thanks

 

an AC system would work better than a liquid to air, but when it comes to air to air, it kind of depends on the conditions. I dont recall the temp change from refrigerant, but i know it is better than using air only. The only way i see air-to-air being more efficient is if it was cold outside and you were moving down the freeway or something like that because the aluminum IC would be freezing cold. The same results can be duplicated w/ the AC system. I honestly think the best way to do it would be to have an air to air and have the AC to reduce heat soak or just in addition to the standard air to air.....i wish i had more time to think about this and write, but i have class........

 

Not a bad idea run both I could just have a switch activate the pump

I sure could use some more input you guys are helping a lot though could use more peoples insight on this

Thanks loads guys

 

it sounds great, but with the amount of drag the condenser puts on the engine, would it still be beneficial?
cool idea though, somebodies gotta try it...

 

I want to try it though have many factors I am looking at before I jump head over heels into it

 

we need someone with good thermodynamic skills to do the calculation.
as a start, does anyone has the flow rate of typical GSR engine? from idle to redline?
then we can calculate the amount of btu we need to the heat exchange system

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by delspool &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">it sounds great, but with the amount of drag the condenser puts on the engine, would it still be beneficial?
cool idea though, somebodies gotta try it... </TD></TR></TABLE>

you mean compressor. and yeah the drag would be bad IF it were on all the time. if there were some way to do a hybrid A/C intercooler as well as an air-to-air.

 

here's a link to a how to that i started and didn't finish...if you go part way down the page it tells you how to calculate flow rates for engines at certain RPMs and it factors power based on intake temps and pressure....

http://www.automotiveforums.co...90574

 

here it is, but this is a long mess........

Figuring out your Needs!

first you need to know how much air it will need to flow to reach your target horsepower. to figure that, you would use the following formula:
(CID x RPM) / 3456 = CFM

here's an example of a B16:
(97Ci x 8000) / 3456 = 225CFM

of course, if your engine is bored or stroked, you will have to compensate the CID.

the engine will flow 225CFM at 100% volumetric effeciency (VE). great, in a perfect world. actually VE is about 80-90%. so you'll need to adjust to the VE. 85% is a good number to work with. so addjust your CFM to 191CFM

next up is the pressure ratio. the pressure ratio is basically the pressure of the air going into the turbo in comparison to the pressure coming out. unless you are running sequential turbos, the inlet pressure will be the atmospheric pressure, which is an average of 14.7. so if you want 12psi, here's the formula:
(12 + 14.7) / 14.7 = 1.82:1

now you need the temperature rise. as the compressor compresses the air, it will raise the temperature. there is a formula to figure that rise! there is an ideal temperature rise to where the rise is equivelant to the amount of work it takes to compress the air. here's the formula!
T2 = T1 (P2 ÷ P1)0.283

confused yet? of course not! but lets break it down with some back spins and stuff.

T2 = Outlet Temperature in °R
T1 = Inlet Temperature in °R
°R = °F + 460
P1 = Inlet Pressure Absolute
P2 = Outlet Pressure Absolute

easier now huh?

assuming it's 80º outside and we're shooting for 12psi, your inlet temperature (T1) = 80º + 460 = 540ºR

the P1 inlet pressure will be atmospheric in our case and the P2 outlet pressure will be 12psi. atmospheric pressure is about 14.7 psi (as mentioned earlier), so the inlet pressure will be 14.7 psi, to figure the outlet pressure add the boost pressure to the inlet pressure.
P2 = 14.7 + 12 = 26.7 psi

we now have everything we need to figure out the ideal outlet temperature. now take this info into our original formula ( T2 = T1 (P2 ÷ P1)0.283 ) to figure out T2:
T2 = 540ºR(26.7 ÷ 14.7)0.283 = 676ºR

676ºR = 216ºF = ideal oulet temperature. that's a 136º temperature rise.

once again, in a perfect world, these formulas work grear. unfortunately, there's our old friend adiabetic effeciency (AE). a 136ºF temperature rise is at 100% AE. AE of the compressor is usually 65-75%. so you would use 70% for average. so to figure out the actual temperature rise from the ideal temperature rise, you can use this:
Ideal Outlet Temperature Rise ÷ AE = Actual Outlet Temperature Rise

so, 136º ÷ .7 = 194º

then you add the actual temperature rise to the intake temperature (80º) = 274º

now you can figure out your density ratio! as the air is heated, it expands and increases the volume and flow. to compare the inlet and outlet flow, you must know the density ratio. the formula for that is:
(Inlet °R ÷ Outlet °R) × (Outlet Pressure ÷ Inlet Pressure) = Density Ratio

ok, so our example formula would be:
(540ºR ÷ 676ºR) × (26.7 ÷ 14.7) = 1.46 Density Ratio

with all this crap, you can figure out what the actual inlet flow is in CFM. to do this, use this:

Outlet CFM × Density Ratio = Actual Inlet CFM

so!

225CFM × 1.46 = 328.5CFM

that's a 31% increase in CFM, which is a potential for 31% increase in power. ei, 160hp = 209.6hp. of course, that number is directly effected by intercooler, downpipe, exhaust, fuel flow, etc.

so now you know you need about 328.5CFM to reach your target of 12psi, you now can find compressor maps for different turbos to select the compressor that would best suit your needs. some maps are in CFM, and some maps are in lbs/min. to convert CFM to lbs/min, you would multiply CFM x .069.

when looking at a compressor map, you match the corrected air flow (22.7lbs/min in our case) to the pressure ratio (1.82:1 in our case). what you are looking to do is plot your graph where it would be most efficient for the turbo. anywhere below 60%, your turbo will spin entirely too fast of a shaft speed rpm and burn itself up.

A special thanks to Club Si for that bit of info. See the original article at http://forums.clubsi.com/showf...47585

 

sorry about the mess, but if someone w/ some patience would like to figure that all out w/ a set of controls on a GSR engine, that would be sweet! I did it once and it wasn't fun, but i have ADD so i'm not going to endure that again!

We need someone to just try this and see if its practical for a street application! If someone wants to help w/ costs, i'll do it to my turbo GSR.......

 

I have almost everything though I am building a ls vtec with a holset unsure of size yet some decent head work and other stuff looking in 20psi or so

My brain is in overload reading all that so if someone with a brain larger than my little pea can help me out that would be great

 

Bump

 

Like stated before Ford is incorporating a Supercooler for the supercharger's intercooler. It's a switch operated system that the driver can turn on or off or when WOT and It uses the freon from the AC to supercool the air in the intercooler. They said it can only be used for 1&1/2 - 2 minutes max and that it adds an extra 50hp to the proposed 400hp already on tap.