JRSC intercooler craps out!!

[lundgren]

I remember a little from my physics classes. You're really not COOLING the air intake, you are taking heat out of it, at least that's the goal.

So you need to find a way, to move the heat quickly out of the moving air, while the air is passing through it. Intercoolers have LOTS of little passages, like a radiator, and the compression occurs AFTER the blower, which is why is can be crammed through. Sine there is no cramming only pulling, you'll get poor results with a intercooler in front of the throttle body.

Now you might be able to put one of those electric superchargers in front of your intercooler... that might work, to push air through your intercooler.

[reddelsol]

I have a sort of different idea. Sort of a roof radiator.

The rough idea, is a aerodynamic fairly flat reservoir (small tubing covered by paintable fiberglass) which would be affixed to the roof (outside) of the car.

The water would run through a series of Z shaped pipes from one side of the roof to the other.

The idea being, the water being heated by the intake would be forced through tubing up one side of the car (along the pillar) and into the roof reservoir where it would be cooled by the air passing over the roof, and then the cooler water would pass down tubing back to the intake.

Not sure if this would work. You would need one way valve system so it would flow in only one direction.

[dbman96]

SCHybrid; I think you're working in the right direction; what would be ideal is to buy a short section of like 4" dia. thin-wall pipe, cut some sheetmetal ends, and weld or JBweld it to make a jacket around your intake pipe; then put a fitting at each end and flow your icewater through that jacket, surrounding your whole intake pipe. Problem is, that's not very much surface area to transfer heat into the water, so it will have some effect but not as much as you'd like for all that effort. Your idea with tubes is a good one; if you can run several copper or aluminum tubes inside your pipe you'll probably get a lot better results. And any issues with tubes "sweating" are really inconsequential, as any "sweat" is just water condensing that was already IN your intake charge; it may evaporate again off the tubes or you may get little droplets passing through your throttle body, but they'll be vapor by the time they get into your intake manifold.

Just for my own curiosity, I'll try to work the numbers on how much heat you can pull out of the intake air with a setup like you described; I just finished a class on heat exchanger design so I should be able to figure it out pretty quick.

[WickedPerform]

what about this..
try using a high temp silicone hose, 1/8-1/4 ID, coiled up inside the intake, approximately 1 foot of coil total length. Now to keep the tubing from being sucked into the intake you would need to coil it up and use an expoxy to hold its shape, and fasten it inside the intake tube somehow,
-Unfortuneatly I can't describe the theory as good as i can picture it,
-So maybe I will have to talk to MrRogers into letting me mess around with his intake and try it out,,, just a thought...

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96 civic.
<> In the Workz <>
-B18a1
-Endyn rods
-Endyn pistons (9.3:1)bored 20 over.
-Federal Mougal Bearings (rods/mains)
-Arp rod bolts
-Arp head studs
-Clutch Specialties #3
-more coming soon

[VTeCno Geek]

I keep wanting to experiment with Peltier coolers. Maybe put them on the intake and the Intake Manifold and see if you can pull some heat out of them. Just not sure if it would help much, and Peltier coolers can get kind of pricey for just playing around with an idea.

[SC HYBRID]

wickedperform, i have already put 1/4 inch
tubing inside my 3 inch intake tube and ran ice water thru it.it worked awesome at first,then i noticed a decrease in power.come to find out all the coils were bunched up at the port of the throttle body,causing a massive blockage of air flow.i wanted to secure the tubing better ,but can you imagine if something gets sucked up into the charger and then the intake?,then you've got problems.put it this way,if you've got a dirty filter,clean the hell out of it.it can make a huge difference on 10 psi performance,and also adjusting cam gears and timing properly.back to the drawing board on my pre-cooler,.
p.s. thanks for the advise lund,and everyone else.

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94 civic EX coupe/b18c1
JRSC @ 10 psi
12.7 @ 109

[WickedPerform]

I am talking about tightly coiled hose, epoxied together, and securely fastened in the intake tube, It doesnt need to before directly b4 the throttle body,, could in the middle straight section of the intake tube,
-You said you already did this, explain what you did exactly, if enough people read this surely we can get something figured out..

------------------
96 civic.
<> In the Workz <>
-B18a1
-Endyn rods
-Endyn pistons (9.3:1)bored 20 over.
-Federal Mougal Bearings (rods/mains)
-Arp rod bolts
-Arp head studs
-Clutch Specialties #3
-more coming soon

[SC HYBRID]

i coiled up 1/4 plastic tubing inside the middle section of the tube,the coils were fairly tight,but the problem is , the intake sucks like a $2 hooker,or a shop vac.if you want to see,take off you intake tube a place your hand over the throttle body and then depress the throttle plate,it'll suck your hand in.ill be the first to invent the cooler,as usual,nobody will try or risk thier own neck,just like the type R cams and supercharger.looks like ill have to invent everything around here( j/k).its good we get all our minds working together.2 heads are better than 1,unless your an inmate in the penn.

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94 civic EX coupe/b18c1
JRSC @ 10 psi
12.7 @ 109

[zip]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by VTeCno Geek:
I keep wanting to experiment with Peltier coolers. Maybe put them on the intake and the Intake Manifold and see if you can pull some heat out of them. Just not sure if it would help much, and Peltier coolers can get kind of pricey for just playing around with an idea.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


That's what NASCAR drivers use to cool their suits when the racing climate is hot and humid. Thermoelectrics consume a lot of amps and need good fans to work at peak efficiency but it might work.


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Mods

[dbman96]

OK, if you're going to get this to work, you REALLY need to move away from plastic or rubber lines. Anything like that is an excellent insulator, so it will remove a VERY small fraction as much heat as it would if you could use copper or some other thin-wall metal lines.

Regarding peltiers.... I just finished a design project using peltiers to cool an electronic device; they are SO horrendously inefficient; their only advantage is compact size. To cool any large volume of air you would need an array of probably at least a dozen of the highest-capacity peltiers you could find; which would draw at least 300W from your vehicle power supply (not a problem in itself, but that means you need enough heatsinks and fans on the OTHER side of the peltiers to dissipate all that heat, or else they just don't work). You would spend EASILY $800-1000 getting a peltier system put together that could make an appreciable difference on your charge temp; and I'm speaking fresh from a really unpleasant experience going through every bit of manufacturers data on thermoelectric coolers that I could find. Stick with ice water; it's temporary but at least it's cheap.