Right. so, Turbos use things such as intercoolers and superchargers use aftercoolers (duh). These item combat the problem of heat from compressed air causeing wear and tear on the engine. Well and intercooler adds weight, and aftercooler adds weight.

Well give this some thought, say you get a supercharger for a 00 itr uh vortech or jackson either one. You don't want to add extra weight and spend money on a water cooled after cooler but you ARE keeping your a/c because it's the car you take to work. (sorry If I'm boring you)

Ok, here's the theory, what about using Your air conditioning to cool the air for the supercharger, Maybe modify or design a small unite that produced SUPER cold air for the S/C using the already existing AC unit. This way you would lose about 5-9 hp from the running ac but gain god knows how much by having supercharged compressed COLD air entering the engine.

To me this seems like a feasible idea but, I do not have an extensive understanding of AC systems, therefore I cannot think exactly how this might be accomplished but like I said.. it's theory.

 

hmmm.... that is an intriguing idea! I imagine you could run some flex pipe (maybe the kind for your dryer's exhaust) from the blower so when you select AC it dumps the air into the new flex pipe rather than the car. THat is a very interesting idea and i dont know why no one has done it!!!

 

Heh heh.. My father's the one with the 00 itr and he and I have been tossing this idea around for quite some time because he really wants forced induction but he doesn't want to spend extra $ for extra weight i.e. aftercooler. But he also wants his engine to outlast his kids
Anyway, this goes out to anyone with A/C experience because All I know about AC is pushing the a/c button or replacing the belt.
But if this is a possibility I would sure love it if someone could market it and make it widely available i.e. bolt on kit or easy mod.
What can I say, big dreams!

 

Well for starters, the purpose of intercooling is normally mainly for power reasons. Cooling the air before it enters the engine helps reduce detonation, thus allowing higher boost levels then on an otherwise identical non-intercooled engine. Also, as is the case with cold-air intakes, the cooler the intake charge, the more power the engine will produce. If the setup is detonating badly, then intercooling will obviously signifcantly increase the life of the motor. However, maintaining proper oil temps and engine coolant temps plays a much larger role in prolonging the life of the engine. Good fuel and ignition tuning is also key to making any F/I engine last. Now, the problem that comes to mind with the A/C idea is that the blower motor wouldn't be able to supply nearly enough cold air at high engine speeds. At redline, the engine is taking in a huge volume of air compared to what an AC fan could produce. Blowing higher volumes of air through the AC system would also decrease the cooling effect because the air would have less time to cool as it passed through the system. It would also be difficult if not impossible to keep such a system pressurized. Its true that conventional intercoolers aren't perfect, but the better ones do their jobs pretty well. They don't add a whole lot of weight in exchange for what they offer, and whatever weight they do add could be lost elsewhere on the car pretty easily. HTH a little.

 

good idea....i have tossed around the idea of a hair dryer turbo or one that runs off the battery....no it wouldn't have quite the same effect as a supercharger or a normal turbo but feasible i thinks!

 

If you don't want to spend the money on a IC, think about water injection as an alternative. Keep in mind that you'll be paying $200-400 for the system (unless you hack one together yourself) and water isn't exactly light.

 

Yep........


Cool it cheap = NOS 25HP shot at WOT. That'll cool it down, and doesn't hurt the engine.

 

There are actually several U.S. patents that describe systems similar to this. Most are for use on stationary or heavy equipment turbo-diesel engines.

 

An intercooler weighs all of about 5lbs. The ability to boost a few psi higher safely far outweighs (no pun intended) the cons.

 

it wont work because the air is pressurized ... you need to have some sort of intercooler enbottled in some box which is fully surrounded by the a/c cold air. The cold a/c air will chill the intercooler and thats the power you'll get. You cant use freon cold air intot he combustion chamber for two reasons, 1) because the air volume varies by load/rpm and the amt of freon from the compressor is static, 2) the wieght of freon will blown your motor when it gets intoy our combustion chamber. So work on chilling the intercooler and that will make you power. You need an intercooler becuase the dense air needs a conductive material to grab onto so it can cool off each molecule charged by compressing... the only way to do that (efficiently) is by using "fins" hence the intercooler. The liquid coolers are also more efficient than the air/air coolers but less practical, hence you see full racecars only using that. Water injection is dangerous period ... thats too much mass to fit in the combustion chamber if the water does not get melded with the dense air before entering the chambers.


Greg

 

Hmmmm anyone up for a freon/air intercooler? Can we say COLD?

I wonder how the pressure lines for the a/c would work if they were plumbed through an intercooler?

 

Hey Chad, I like your Idea! I thought of the same thing, actually trying to use a Rajay turbo modified to use an electic motor instead of exhaust. Hook up a manual speed control to the throttle or proportional to RPM.
No, turbo lag and no parasitic loss. The technology is out there, just the first person to do it will be RICH!!!!$$$$$$!!!!!!!

 

I've seen people spray nitrous oxide on their intercoolers. Not by hookin up squirters in front of the intercooler, but by spraying it straight from the bottle itself. However, I think this is mostly done at the track only. If colder air is all you are looking for then this doesn't seem so hard to do.

 

Two BIG problems:

1) A/C systems disengage at WOT - the purpose of the a/c clutch. Spinning the compressor at 7K+ RPM = premature death. Hence, upon rigging up the a/c, it wouldn't even operate when most in demand - at WOT.

2) The "theory" only acknowledges air temperature of the cooling medium, whether ambient air or "conditioned" air. At speed, the surface area of the intercooler in conjunction with the volume of air passing through it, cool the intake charge FAR more efficiently than a ghetto "air conditioned" set-up.

Even if the a/c remained engaged at WOT, the miniscule air volume - although potentially cooler than ambient air - would not provide sufficient cooling and the compressor would fry VERY quickly when subject to extreme RPM.

As mentioned, intercooler and associated piping weight a minimal amount. Suppose an intercooler set up adds 20 lbs. of weight, which saps roughly 2 HP. Consequently, unless an intercooler is so inefficient that it does not prevent a 2HP loss, all this babbling is frivilous


[Modified by Jim S. '95 Z28, 7:32 PM 1/3/2002]

 

In other words just get water squirters shooting onto the front of the intercooler if you feel that an intercooler will not suffice. Or if you want to be that weird person with a odd way of cooling figure out a way to use TWO intercoolers.

 

just do what the WRX did...
hook up some cold water sprayers to the intercooler.. and shoot it onto that... for quick cool down..
....maybe even just reroute the windshield wiper fluid squiters...

 

This has really got me thinking and doing some research. It lead me to Spearco's info about their air-to-water intercoolers for drag racing.
http://www.spearcointercoolers.com/dragrace.htm

Assuming their info is correct, their 450 CFM cooler using ice water can reduce the 400 deg. intake charge caused by 30 psi of boost to 60 deg. Of course this is good only for a couple of minutes until the water soaks up the heat, hence drag racing only.

What if instead of ice water running through the cooler's core you had a properly sized core designed to use Freon, just like an a/c core (see SiR Kid's post above); With a compressor sized to provide optimum cooling in the power band (5000-9000 rpm?), based on a reasonable compressor speed created by pulley ratios? Especially if you were running less boost, like 6-8 psi. From other info I've found, this lesser boost would only increase the intake charge 50-80 deg. over ambient. Would an intake charge at 8 psi boost and, say, 40 deg. produce enough extra hp over a charge at 140 deg. to be worth it?

BTW, I figure a NA ITR at max revs requires less than 300 cfm intake flow.

Damn, I wish I had a bucket of money and some sheet metal and a/c fabrication skills. Maybe with a bit more browsing I can find the computations that would tell me if it would be worthwhile.




[Modified by Geezer, 3:23 PM 1/7/2002]

 

I had a similiar theory for any application...NA or FI. My theory is to make the induction tube to the TB out of metal. ( no big deal... most of the induction kits are metal). Next instead of redirecting air to cool the induction tube, route the condenser coils around the induction tube. Because we all know that the gas running throught those tubes is much colder than any air we could run across or through the tube due to elevated engine bay temps. With the coils wound closely together and directly around the induction tube... BAM!!!! Constant cold that can cool even air inside the engine bay not to mention air within the induction tube.

Or just get a NOS nozzle to spray either NOS or Compressed CO2 ( fire extinguisher) to spray directly on the metal induction tube. But if spraying NOS... Just spray in directly into the motor

 

The idea wasn't for increasing power from the cool air.. not at all! The idea was creating economical power on a daily driver. Now using NOS is a good idea for cooling things down but who wants to be throwing NOS switches all day while driving to work or around town?. By having a supercharger on yur car (especially a high revver like itr) that's a daily driver you are now limiting it's lifespan from compressed hot air. Therefore the a/c theory was first conceived from thoughts of extended engine life. So if by crafting such a design you could supercharge your engine and still get 200k+ miles out of it that I would say YES, it would be worth it!

 

>>Hey Chad, I like your Idea! I thought of the same thing, actually trying to use a Rajay turbo modified to use an electic motor instead of exhaust. Hook up a manual speed control to the throttle or proportional to RPM.
No, turbo lag and no parasitic loss. The technology is out there, just the first person to do it will be RICH!!!!$$$$$$!!!!!!!<<

You mean like these guys? http://www.electricsupercharger.com/
If they're still around... Last I heard, they had a few law suits pending, brought by dissatisfied customers.

I don't think it worked out too well. The problem is, people tend to underestimate how much air a SC or turbo actually moves. You'd probably need a 5HP gas leaf blower motor to get just a few lbs of boost. Nothing driven by a 12 volt system will ever come close.

Engines have an incredible appetite for air at high rpm's and WOT. Even with our puny motors, intake speeds can reach speeds far in excess of 100 mph. That's a LOT of air to move across something the width of a throttle body. The leaf blowers you see on the market have tapered tips to achieve their "claimed" 200mph. They're also running on a 110V system...

 

Exactly. I could babble about Brake Specific Air Consumption for a given HP level, but no one seems to care. The preference seems to be for unsubstantiated, close to down-right ludicrous theories instead of bona-fide, venerable facts.


[Modified by Jim S. '95 Z28, 11:35 PM 1/4/2002]

 

Nod........damn, cannot think of anything smartassed to say.....

 

ICs weigh next to nothing... Even the BIG ones for RX-7s and Supras and such weigh less than what a gallon of gas in your tank would weigh.

I really don't think it's worth the effort.

 

The thought may be ludicrous but it IS just a theory. Something to be discussed! This is a forum that we discuss engines, suspension theory, and what not. This is a theory that sits somewhere WAY beyond left field but nonetheless it still interesting to see what can come from it!
Like yur mom says, If you can't say anything nice, keep yur damn mouth shut!

 

The only prob with that system is it is using a small motor similar to what you can find in a home computer. That little fan isn't enough to do anything! I am talking about using a compressor from a Rajay or T3 with an electric motor geared up. What that web site is selling is a scam. They only advertise 1 psi anyways, what kind of gains would anyone expect from that. By the way please don't mind my spelling if anything is wrong, it is late. Thanks.

Oh yeah, you can use more that a twelve volt system with a transformer , but I don't think that much power would be needed.


[Modified by gns30, 5:38 AM 1/6/2002]