i had a crazy idea of how to cool my intake air but i was wondering where the best place to cool it is. if i could, say, come up with a way to keep my intake manifold cold, would that produce the same effect as an intercooler? obviously an intercooler works so well since the air is separated into so many fins exposing the most surface area. but in my experiment it would be easiest for me to cool the intake mani. also, wouldnt i benefit from this since if i cooled the air by intercooler and it travels all the way through my hot intake piping, the air would be re-heated? maybe this post doesnt make any sense but i got this crazy idea for cooling and i think it might work decent. i just dont know where the best part is to cool.
thanks for any intelligent replies,
kevin

 

the answer is cool as much as possible.

you cant use an intercooler on a NA car (obviously)

so try and keep the intake tract away from heat and use phenolic spacers on the IM and you can wrap hte intake in header tape etc...

what exactly is your crazy idea?

t..

 

Dont forget that you can also cool your gas.

I know of people that used to take hard fuel line and bend it into a coil (tight continuous) and piping it through a folgers can or similar. Then they would fill it with dry ice.

dont know what effect it had on power though.

 

What about propane induction?

 

well i was just asking about the intake mani because i often see people putting ice packs on their manifold before racing so i was wondering how effective that is, since ice is similar to my idea...

 

Keep in mind that you only get something like a 1% power gain from an 11 degree drop, so it's probably not worth it trying to cool an NA car.

I have heard propane induction can result in a couple % increase in power. In Europe they use propane in cars all over the place. Most of them lose power because propane is less energy dense than gasoline, but I heard if you directly inject liquid propane using an MPFI setup you'll get some horses out of it. The cars I've been in were not MPFI and for some reason you can't inject liquid propane on those

 

What about alcohol? Just throwing around some thing I have heard people discuss.


[Modified by NUISANCE, 1:34 PM 10/12/2002]

 

Send me a video of you car blowing up if you use propane. Propane doesn't require spark to ignite just heat and pressure so you thought detonation sounded bad before with gas add a little propane to the mix. Unless you drastically retard your ignition, then what's the point? If your that worried about coling your intake and the such use a true CAI and alcohol injection it works remember keep it simple that's why honda's are so reliable, they start simple and kept taking it farther. Don't expect too much gain though not being FI though. Always rember these engines are designed to run at around 160*F that's kinda toasty if you do drop the intake temperature it won't run as hot and your oil won't flow as well.

 

May I respectfully suggest a little research on Propane injection? You might be surprised at what you find and may have to revise the above post.

Regards,
BigMoose

 

I think that you're thinking of Diesel. Propane requires spark.

 

maybe i should have mentioned i was planning ahead for FI. i was just asking this so that i know my options before going FI as far as cooling is concerned.

 

let me geuss N20 or freeon AC cooling your intake charge?

how bout water injection? sounds crazy eh?

http://www.homemadeturbo.com/dxturbo.html

the bottom pics.

 

dude if you are going FI and ask about this is, i expect you know about the intercooler (sorry if you know what that is, i just want to make sure). ANd you are planning for water spray on the intercooler ( i've seen this a lot and is worth it, we were working on a 450 HP Impreza that had this, and it works really good, it cooled down the intake temp like 5-10 degree celsious, and one time just trying we put ice on it, lots of it, and it cooled down the intake like 20C, off course, the temps around here is pretty high as we are 80 F all year round).

 

no....its not anything you guys have mentioned...its more of an electrical form of cooling...thanks for the replies. the way i see it, i'll scrap the TB idea and just apply the cooling method to the intercooler since i think the increase of surface volume would prove to be more effective. thanks again.

 

are you going to tell us what it is? i'm kinda curious now

 

and give up the patent opportunities? lol yeah right i wish. no, i doubt it will be effective anyways but i might just try it. i'll let you guys know if its any good.