Alrighty! I need to know if anyone can tell me by how many degrees some of the better intercoolers lower the air temp by before it gets to the intake plenum. Also, how much this drop in temperature boosts the horsepower as compared to running with no intercooler. I'm working on an idea for a super-cooled short ram intake, as well as a super-cooled intercooler. Has anyone heard anything about getting air too cold? And if so, how cold is that? Anyone think there would be any condensation problems? I'm talking about lowering the temperature of the air by 20-50 degrees before it enters the intake plenum on the engine, dependent on airspeed in the intake. Any ideas anyone? Lemme know please! I will be making prototypes if this is promising enough!

 

How?

 

Freon. Or R134A, whichever you happen to have. You've seen a remote oil cooler right? Why not use the A/C coolant in kind of the same way? To help your engine instead of just robbing horsepower when you run the A/C?

 

Interesting. But I think you would barely break even with the power loss from running a compressor and the extra weight of the system.

 

those would be the same thing

i think you mean R-12 or R-134a

and i think the velocity of the air entering the intake would be too high for the A/C system to cool it down.

 

Peltier junctions would be more efficient and easier to work with, but I have my doubts as to how big of a difference it would make. The cheapest I can find them is $17 each, and I bet it would take at least two or more. The intake air flows pretty fast, so it would be hard to pull the heat out in time. I would be interested to see the results, but it could turn out to be an expensive experiment.

 

Its not a bad idea but your going about it all wrong. Let me say first that if there is a leak anywhere in your system, and your engine happens to burn it. It will create nerve gas. So be careful.

What you need to do is use it on a turbo application, that way the power draw will not outway the power enhancing part. Get an evaporator, put end tanks on it. Get T valves on the A/c lines behind the headlight, both of those need a solenoid as a safety backup. Run both of those lines to an H block on the side of the "supercooler". H blocks are adjustable even though the factory says no. That means you can change the cooling to less than 32 without fear icing over. The greater the difference in tempurature, the greater the cooling efficency of the "supercooler". Put a pressure switch on it so if there is a leak it can close the solenoids so the whole a/c system doesnt drain into the engine.

I thought of it already, just like a bunch of other people have, Im sure. Smoke more POT and maybe you'll be one of us.

 

Well, to lay out my whole idea: A typical intake is 3" OD, so 2.5" OD pipe and wrap the sucker with aluminum tubing, like what's used on the normal A/C system. Really tight coils, keeping contact with the 2.5" tube the entire way. With a normal intake of around 2' -2.5', you could could concievably get what? 6 to 10 feet of coil wrapped around it. Put insulation on the outside of the coils, so that there's not as much temperature loss from that direction, cut the normal intake in half, weld some flanges on it, and bolt it on over the entire setup. I'm figuring with an aluminum inner pipe, the aluminum coil, and the hook-ups to the A/C system it wouldn't break 15-20 pounds. The up side is, I think I could keep the inner pipe nice and frosty, the downside is the horsepower loss from running the A/C system all the time. It would be greatly exaggerated with a real intercooler, I'd be able to route the A/C tubing thru a lot more efficiently, and probly get a better temperature out of it, plus with the turbo system it'd probly really give you an edge.