Boost tuner question...........

[WESTCOAST JASON]

I have had an idea for a long while, but while getting my AC charged (thanks Randy B. SD member) today it really started eating at me again.

Back when I had my dyno shop we used to spray NOS on a cars intercooler to get some great IC efficiency and higher dyno numbers. With that being a known performance increase, can an intercooler that is somehow inegrated to the VIpers AC be consistently cooled? I was thinking of some type of second skin on the intercooler that the cars AC pump would cool. Still keeping it air to air but having the added benefit of a frosting effect from the mod.

Would this work?

 

[Vipermed 97.01]

Funny you should bring this up.......

 

[Daffy Duck Viper]

I have wondered about that same kind of thing for years - A/C for engine-related cooling. I've always been amazed that nobody has invented anything based on this very concept.

Given that at least three people here (so far) have thought about using the A/C for engine-related cooling, it must be that (up until now?) nobody has invested the cash to have such a device researched & developed, rather than it NOT being a good idea.

These kinds of things often require a lot of money to become a quality product that others will want to purchase. It's neat to hear that such a product might finally be on the way. Or at least that's what it seems like Vipermed is hinting at.

You must be registered for see images

You must be registered for see images

You must be registered for see images

 

[cruser]

Isn't this application already used on the new Ford Lightning?


------------

'97 Viper GTS blue/white stripe

 

[WESTCOAST JASON]

I did not know about it on a Ford (or anywhere for that matter)

Hanging with my import guys I have seen that they have mastered the NOS spraybar usage on the outside of the intercooler, but that is the most I have seen.

Talk to us Scott? Whatcha doin?????

I already applied for the patent. (j/k)

 

[opnwide]

Nice idea, but there are a couple of problems. First, your AC switch kicks off when you floor it. There is also the problem of inefficiencies when converting one form of energy to another.
I used to think it would be neat to get rid of all your accessories and have electric motors control everything like your power steering, smog pump, airconditioning, waterpump, etc. But then the alternator would have to convert more mechanical energy to electrical energy which would then be converted back to mechanical energy. It loses efficiency and doesn't make engineering sense.

The same thing happens if you try to cool your intake charge with your ENGINE-DRIVEN AC unit. If you rigged the AC to not cut out when the pedal is mashed, then the horsepower draw to cool that much air would negate any potential power gain.

Any engineers out there that would like to chime it?

 

[WESTCOAST JASON]

I respectfully disagree with your thoughts on that opnwide. I have seen common 50-75 RWHP increases with IC frosting systems (on imports no less) and although the AC compressor may take some power while under WOT, I firmly believe it would not take that much. As far as it going off under WOT, that of course would be bypass'ed but more importantly, is not the real issue. The IC would be getting frosted ALL THE TIME not just at WOT allowing a 'frost-soak' as opposed to the dreaded heat soak......

.02

 

[Gerald]

I think someone did that here on the board and tried to market it, was called the Pre-Chiller. It allowed the A/C to cool incoming air to the throttle bodies. I would imaging it would just take some plumbing to reroute it to an I/C. But now you have to deal with a hotter engine and hotter intake air temps as the A/C will be running all the time with an intercooler in front of your car's radiator..

Gerald

 

[pauls]

I used to use a CO2 fire extingusher on the intercooler of my Buick GN. I'd have someone puff the intercooler before a run. Have to careful you don't freeze the surface.

 

[Doug Supercharged Vipers]

I think someone did that here on the board and tried to market it, was called the ***-*******. It allowed the A/C to cool incoming air to the throttle bodies. I would imaging it would just take some plumbing to reroute it to an I/C. But now you have to deal with a hotter engine and hotter intake air temps as the A/C will be running all the time with an intercooler in front of your car's radiator..

Gerald

A word of caution -

Without getting into the specifics, the reason it hasn't become popularized is because if the refrigerant leaks inadvertently into the intake manifold and enters the combustion chambers the "end gas" becomes a noxious mixture - not a risk worth taking.

Regards,
Doug

 

[jcaspar1]

"The same thing happens if you try to cool your intake charge with your ENGINE-DRIVEN AC unit. If you rigged the AC to not cut out when the pedal is mashed, then the horsepower draw to cool that much air would negate any potential power gain.
"

By this argument superchargers should not work either. The difference is that the cooler air would allow you to force in more air/fuel mixture. This should overcome the hp loss of the ac compressor.

 

[Bandit400]

cruser,

You are correct. The New Ford Lightning Concept vehicle uses the AC to cool the the water for the intercooler for brief full throttle bursts. Take a look at the link below:


http://www.motortrend.com/autoshows/coverage/112_det03/index6.html#3

 

[fe155]

Check out a web called "design engineering "they have a system where a co2 bottle can cool the fuel, air intake and more . i thought if there was a way to direct the cooler temp from the low side of the a/c lines , say near the dryer by extending the tubing lines and use this to cool the fuel someway it would be more efficient than trying to use it to cool the air .Older mercedes
used this system maybe to prevent vapor lock. it was mounted on the driver side fender . The fuel line ran through an insulated housing with the low side of the a/c line . Im sure this part is still available.

 

[WESTCOAST JASON]

Doug, are you saying that somehow if a 'crack' or something let the refrigerant into the intercooler it would produce noxious gas? My idea was to almost have a type of second skin put on the intercooler by a company like spearco that could be plumped to the cold side of the AC system....

 

[Daffy Duck Viper]

CryO2 Air Charge Freezer - winner of the 2002 SEMA Show. By Design Engineering, Inc.

http://www.designengineering.com/

It uses cryogenic technology to freeze the air going into an engine.
The air freezes when it passes over a C02-charged aerodynamic bulb located in the air intake stream. This increases the power output because colder air is denser, allowing an engine to burn more air and fuel at a time.

Cool. Literally!

Fascinating stuff. They have quite a few clever products.

You must be registered for see images

You must be registered for see images

You must be registered for see images

 

[WESTCOAST JASON]

Awesome research Daffy! BTW: sorry you missed the Dana Point meet today. It was gorgeous and a great time for all!

I have found a couple companies that are manufacturing external spray bars of all sorts for intercoolers and have gotten some emails about this issue also. I will compile what I have found and make a page on speedstuff.com showing what I have gotten so far.... my crystal ball shows that something will hit the aftermarket soon

 

[Jerome Sparich]

Don't know if you have seen this yet Jason.

http://www.intercoolertechniques.com/

This is their claim off of another site- "I also have a dyno graph of a supra using a intercooler sprayer on the dyno he made an extra 61HP and an extra 42.3 TORQUE"

It shows a dyno graph from RSI but who's to say it is not just another bs story.

 

[Daffy Duck Viper]

Awesome research Daffy! BTW: sorry you missed the Dana Point meet today. It was gorgeous and a great time for all!

I have found a couple companies that are manufacturing external spray bars of all sorts for intercoolers and have gotten some emails about this issue also. I will compile what I have found and make a page on speedstuff.com showing what I have gotten so far.... my crystal ball shows that something will hit the aftermarket soon

Thanks, Jason. Yes, I'm also sorry that I was not able to go. A three hour drive was just not feasible for me this Sunday. I'm glad you guys had a great time. Saw some pics from it. Looks like you had a decent turnout.

Back on the subject of the Cry02. The info I posted is a result of what fe155 said. So, he gets credit, too. We're all a team here. Viper verses world!

Hey, and what you said about compiling what you find, and making a webpage on speedstuff.com for it - awesome idea. I look forward to seeing it.

You must be registered for see images

You must be registered for see images

You must be registered for see images

 

[Gerald]

I'm going to call B.S. on this type of thing. Here is the reason why.. Imagine having one installed on your vehicle... You're driving down the road at an average speed,lets say 45-55 MPH. You spray your intercooler which is getting anywhere from a 40 mph to a 65mph head wind. The spray will NOT cover anything but right where the holes are for the CO2 to come out. Even if there are holes over the ENTIRE spray bar it will only cool a few small fins. Sorry, kind of like the tornado there. I think people might show good dyno room numbers for bragging rights, but they will still get the regular performance they had before under real world driving conditions. I CAN see however sitting at a stoplight (no air movement since your sitting at a stand still )and it working or the drag strip... I'd rather have something that works 100% of the time.

Gerald

 

[joe117]

I remember reading about a car with nitrous being used as a coolant for the intercooler. I think it might have been some class of land speed record car. I remember thinking that it was some kind of trick to get nitrous into the engine.
Perhaps it was on the up and up.
I don't see any reason why the gas would have to be sprayed on the outside of the cooler. The gas expands and cools as it changed state from liquid, I think that's called heat of vaporization.
This change of state could happen inside tubes in the cooler.
I'm not exactly sure why nitrous would be the gas of choice for this.

 

[Gerald]

A cooler charge is only that.. a cooler charge. How would you reap the benefits if you (like what's mentioned above) can't control the injector pulse, output, timing etc. Somehow you would have to cool the air intake sensor to constanly read this so the viper computer would adapt rather that just see "blips" of cold air...

 

[joe117]

I think that spraying something on the intercooler in order to take heat away is a sure way to increase power.

How much power you could expect is another question.

A good way to determine how much power could be gained by cooling an air to air intercooler would be to compare dyno runs in winter, say at 40deg, with summer runs at 80deg. If there is any extra hp produced by the intercooler being cooled by air that's 40deg cooler, then some kind of sprayer might work.

There is quite a bit more to an evaporating water spray than one might think. If you spray water and it soaks up heat as liquid water, you soak up 1 calorie for every cc of water raised 1deg of temp.

However, if one cc of water evaporates on your cooler, it soaks up 540 calories when it changes from liquid to gas.

I don't know how good it would be to have all that water spraying inside your engine compartment but cooling the intercooler with some outside mist might work well enough to be of value.

 

[Jerome Sparich]

Subaru sprays water on the intercooler of its STI and Mitsu does it on their EVO's. Take it for what its worth.

 

[Gerald]

I think that spraying something on the intercooler in order to take heat away is a sure way to increase power.

How much power you could expect is another question.

A good way to determine how much power could be gained by cooling an air to air intercooler would be to compare dyno runs in winter, say at 40deg, with summer runs at 80deg. If there is any extra hp produced by the intercooler being cooled by air that's 40deg cooler, then some kind of sprayer might work.

There is quite a bit more to an evaporating water spray than one might think. If you spray water and it soaks up heat as liquid water, you soak up 1 calorie for every cc of water raised 1deg of temp.

However, if one cc of water evaporates on your cooler, it soaks up 540 calories when it changes from liquid to gas.

I don't know how good it would be to have all that water spraying inside your engine compartment but cooling the intercooler with some outside mist might work well enough to be of value.

Not true, in winter your cars' computer learns to adjust fuel, timing, etc for the cold air. Not so in the summer when all it sees is a short burst and does nothing to adjust injector pulse, fuel, timing, map, etc.. . It will increase power, but minimally.

Gerald

 

[WESTCOAST JASON]

The thread is not really about spraying anything on the outside of the intercooler, that is just an example of a proven method to cool an intercoolers intake charge. The question remains as to what does everyone think would happen if the intercooler was cooled like some of the AC components are. Would it frost while driving around with the AC on. Would the Viper AC be able to continually cool an intercooler at all?
I know for a hard fact, that when I fire up the Turbo in the morning, that first run up the on-ramp is of a SPIRITUAL horsepower level. This is due to the fact that the intercooler is room temp (and I live near the beach)
Once it heats up from doing its job cooling the intake charge, that power is down to just a ridiculous amount of power.
(as a side note I do want to either trailer the car to a dyno or leave it overnight and test, as all my dyno pulls have been driven to and done right then)

 

[Gerald]

Jason, with the A/C heat soak will come on quicker. So I don't think it will help, minimally at first.. Then when heat soak comes on (much quicker now that A/C is running in the summer), power will be down sooner..

My thoughts, probably all wrong, but just from experience..

Gerald

 

[joe117]

I don't agree with you Gerald.
I think that the more the intercooler cools, the more power will be produced.
Are you telling us that the computer changes the timing and fuel to produce less power than it could be making?

I think the changes made by the computer are an attempt to keep the engine from knocking. The cooler the intake charge, the less the computer will have to cut back and the more power you will make.
Isn't that the way it works?

 

[Gerald]

Drive your car hard for a few days and you'll swear you added or changed gears in your car.. The computer will adapt to your driving.. I think we are talking about two different things.


Gerald

 

[Gerald]

I don't agree with you Gerald.
I think that the more the intercooler cools, the more power will be produced.
Are you telling us that the computer changes the timing and fuel to produce less power than it could be making?

I think the changes made by the computer are an attempt to keep the engine from knocking. The cooler the intake charge, the less the computer will have to cut back and the more power you will make.
Isn't that the way it works?

Joe that is pretty much what Im saying. It's not that the car won't benifit from the cooler intake charges but there are other varaibles to consider such as the cars on board ECU current status. The ECU can only correct so much and we're running an aftercooler and not an intercooler. Sudden changes in temperature effect the ECU correction factors whereas with the cooler temps on the intercooler (actually aftercooler) what is going to supply a richer mixture for the aftercooler? Once again, I'm not implying you can't supply more power with an intercooler, it's just the abrupt changes need proper fuel enrichment.....

I'm definatley not a viper tech, but maybe I can ask Doug for his input on this ??

Gerald

 

[joe117]

I thought the heat exchanger that goes between the SC and the engine was called an intercooler. Is that the same as an aftercooler? And, is your cooler an air to air cooler, or is it cooled by the engine cooing water?

Anyway, you're saying that the ECU will not react to cooler air coming thru unless it does it for a long time? I guess that's probably true.
I just thought that the cooler air would be more dense and would give more power due to that. Not much could be gained unless the ECU can give extra fuel and advance. Is that it?
I would think that the SC would come with some kind of ECU that would be better than the stock one.