Intercooler

[DaGr8Tim]

Ok, this is more of a curious thing than anything else. Let's say you had an intercooler on a NA engine. Would the fact that the air going to the engine was cold(er) make much of a performance difference or would it be lost on the extra weight of the intercooler and plumbing?

You know how late night what if conversations go, and I got curious.

 

[Anonymous]

The air being taken in would be the same temp as the air used to cool the intercooler, so no significant temp change. Now the story would be different if you cooled the intercooler with something colder than the ambient air temp, ice, dry-ice, Co2 spray or such.

Power would depend on how much cooler/denser you could get the air. It wouldn't be the same as on a SC engine as part of the gain seen is the ability to run a little more timing or compression, or even more boost than normally can be tolerated due to the much increased air temps. Theoretically you could get some though, probably not enough to mess with though.

 

[Anonymous]

I think some of the drag racers still put ice on the intake manifold to get a cooler charge during the run.

 

[SuperMag]

A simple test would be to route your car's air intake through your A/C evaporator and make before and after dyno runs. My guess is that the HP needed to run the compressor would be a lot greater than the gain in HP from the cooler charge, as that difference would be quite small. You know, like the difference in summer and winter performance.

 

[DaGr8Tim]

A simple test would be to route your car's air intake through your A/C evaporator and make before and after dyno runs. My guess is that the HP needed to run the compressor would be a lot greater than the gain in HP from the cooler charge, as that difference would be quite small. You know, like the difference in summer and winter performance.

That's sorta what I figured. I just wanted some other thoughts on the issue.

 

[Anonymous]

go ram air..its a lot colder than stock...i just got my setup 'done'...it works good enough for me...but when i drive it cold now it will hesitate and stutter and feel like its gonna die, some of my freinds that have upgraded to cold air intake packages for their cars have the same thing..so its gotta be colder. when the car is warm it goes like stink...i really cant see an intercooler making a whole lot more difference...

 

[DaGr8Tim]

go ram air..its a lot colder than stock...i just got my setup 'done'...it works good enough for me...but when i drive it cold now it will hesitate and stutter and feel like its gonna die, some of my freinds that have upgraded to cold air intake packages for their cars have the same thing..so its gotta be colder. when the car is warm it goes like stink...i really cant see an intercooler making a whole lot more difference...

I'm playing with afew different ideas for intakes. One is a varation on MustangGeezer's ram air, and another is a home made cowl induction system.

The home made cowl induction is not very feasable on my car just because of the layout of the intake system. This idea seems like it might be very workable on a carbed engine. Basically it involves being able to rotate the air cleaner assembly somewhere between 45 and 90 degrees on the carb. I saw a 89 monarch that had the perfect air cleaner assembly for this at the junk yard. From there you have the inlet "funnel" for the air cleaner pointing directally at the driver's side fender or maybe alittle past that towards the rear drivers corner of the engine bay. Then run a peice of vynal snorkle hose towards the fender, then run it under the outside fender and back. From there you make a hole for the hose to mount above the drip lip on the cowl.

I got the idea for this from something I saw on a ranger site about a way to move the intake inlet higher to keep it from getting wet in mud and water.

 

[Anonymous]

i just used a bonnet off a Taurus and a hose off a Fierro with a sock in between for filtration...not the best filter, but it works..i had to dent the bonnet so it was facing towards the rear rather than the front cause the hole in my hood doesnt go that far forward...i cant find any place up here that sells air cleaner hose though, the fierro hose works but isnt quite long enough to have a really good setup...is there somewhere in the states that sells a decent length of it for fairly cheap (cause i gotta factor in the exchange and cost of money order)

 

[DaGr8Tim]

i just used a bonnet off a Taurus and a hose off a Fierro with a sock in between for filtration...not the best filter, but it works..i had to dent the bonnet so it was facing towards the rear rather than the front cause the hole in my hood doesnt go that far forward...i cant find any place up here that sells air cleaner hose though, the fierro hose works but isnt quite long enough to have a really good setup...is there somewhere in the states that sells a decent length of it for fairly cheap (cause i gotta factor in the exchange and cost of money order)

If you look at Mustang Geezer's site, you may get some ideas. Also, I've know some guys to use flexable metal dryer vent hosing. I'm personally not that brave, but they say it's 3 inches in diamater and works well.

http://www.inlinepages.com/~inlinefever/ram_air.html

 

[Anonymous]

Yea...thanks for bringing that up again...forgot about that...I think i'm gonna have to check out some of that dryer vent hose.