intercooling options..

[pres6]

so i spent some time working at performance shops and fabrication shops, so i got the making and installing thing down cold...so lets just sit back and think for a second, the word for the day is "cooling properties" currently there are only 2 widespread intercooler choices, air-to-air, air-to-water.
while both of these are good oprion and very efficient they both have drawbacks.

air-air is big, hard to mount and your still at the mercy of mother nature.

air-water small easy mounting, requires pumps and resivoir filled with cold water over and over again...

so what IF... take an air-water setup and convert it to use compressed nitrogen, even if you vent the nitrogen (post cooling) the nitrogen would still last a hell of alot longer than a bucket of ice water.. refilling the bottle is cheap enough for the rewards, plus the added weight of a bottle would help traction, granted 3000psi inside the vehicle is scary, but just imagine a 40F intake temp on a 110F day....just a thought....let me know any ideas....

 

[Dreamkiller]

As far as drag racings concerned, the latest craze is using dry ice and gets the inlet temps into the negative degrees celsius. I think they use a smaller intercooler setup thats surrounded by dry ice. Im not sure about how long it lasts also.

 

[pres6]

exactly, with a bottle setup you could run it on the street, use it whenever, turn it up and put the temps way into negatives.... anytime...

 

[Pro]

another option is N20 (or NAWS for you fast and furious fans...) instead of coolant in a water to air scenario.

 

[pres6]

nitrogen is much cheaper than NOS, if i am using NOS i would better use it to cool temps in the air charge for comustion, i am simply talking about cooling a very small core with amazing results... this idea is for a project i a working on, a big single turbo 1Uzfe,

 

[LEXUSV8NZ]

this has been mentioned in New Zealand before but I thinkthere were questions made about the legality of carrying it the tank in the car, but this could have been with a different gas being used

Joe Signorelli (20B turbo RX7 - Ex K&N RX7) uses a setup similar to a water to air but has the water replaced with Dry Ice, The yhave had a couple of experiences with the throttle butterflies frezing open. but had immense cooling power and hence more power output

Logan

 

[pres6]

the nitrogen would be much more closely controlled, you could almost "set" the temp you want...

 

[Miles B]

Keep in mind, where the gas does its expansion, is where it gets cold. If you regulate 3000 psi down to 150psi, then pass that through a hose into the engine bay, then release it on the intercooler, you'll only get the value of 150psi->14psi. You can see this by feeling a n2o bottle during a run (it gets cold), or by sticking your hand on the regulator and bottle that holds the argon I weld with. The regulator gets pretty damn cold, and the bottle slowly cools down too, as the gas in it expands. The gas that comes out of the torch is almost room temp.

I would NOT carry 3000psi nitrogen through any kind of air line around a car.

 

[autocol]

seriously, while the idea has merit, carrying highly compressed gas in a car is a bad idea. i wish i could find the photo to show you, but i've got one somewhere on this computer of a work ute, where the guy put a couple of welding bottles into the tray. one of them fell over in transit, knocked the regulator and all the fittings right out of the bottle, which turned itself into a 100 pound self-propelled rocket, blasted through the back of the cabin, through the passenger seat (which was empty), through a good portion of the engine bay and then clean out of the car!

from a theoretical point of view, the idea has merit. from a practical point of view, you should stay well away from it... IMO.

 

[pres6]

the merit brings me right back to it, being in the us or gas sux here so we need every advantage possible, as for the bottle danger, if i put one in the car i would weld a addequate cage around it. the other thought is to only pressurize it to 1000psi, that would dissapte very quickly. i have seen first had what happens when "tree" comes off a large bottle, your right its a rocket, i witnessed a 5foot bottle going through a 1foot concrete wall. i am very familiar with the dangers... thank you for your concern though...

 

[Lextreme II]

It nitrogen gas explosive? I have seen guys with N2O blow up their car and take part of the garage down because they wire the bottle wrong.

 

[pres6]

NOS is flammable because of the oxygen. nitrogen i believe is considered an "inert" gas witch means it is as safe as you can get with pressurized gas..

 

[Miles B]

No, the N2O bottles explode when they heat them too much and the pressure inside goes too high.

Obviously if you have seen a bottle go through a wall, you know how a cage cannot be "adequate" in the event of a crash. Have you read what I said above that you are going to see almost no temperature drop at the intercooler? This is a silly idea and you should not seriously consider it. There are better ways of getting around "our gas sux". Add toluene. Go to a gas station with the good stuff. Cheer up, over here, 93 equivalent is the best we get. I don't know about there, but over here, bottles of nitrogen aren't even much cheaper than N2O, which will provide you with a much safer intercooling effect with bonus oxygen.

If you are just blowing nitrogen over an intercooler, you are going to use a whole bottle REALLY quickly. That's going to require special regulators. Also, the intercooler would have to be pretty space age to stand up to sudden drops in temperature, if it can even be achieved.

 

[Lextreme II]

There was a movement in the Buick Grand National people using propane gas as a cooling agent.

 

[Toranamat69]

Just a note on the above. Neither oxygen or N20 are flammable, they support combustion but are not flammable in themselves - they need a fuel present to burn.

I have often wondered about cooling techniques for intake charges as well.
Has anyone ever thought of a compressor and evap system - sort of like an a/c system for your intake system. I know this would require power to drive it but how would you tell if the power increase was worth the the power loss and extra weight?
Just food for thought.

 

[pres6]

just another note...oxygen is a fuel itself, and is extremely combustible...

 

[Miles B]

Oxygen is an oxidiser.. there is a difference.. toranamat is exactly right.