I ran some tests with a little pen cam I had. I never saw any form on the inside of the pipe, I think because of the airflow. And even if it did injest a drop or two I'm not too certain I'd be concerned.

The army used water injection systems in their jeeps for some time. turns out they cleaned the engine very well.


BTW, thanks Lobuxracer.

 

this just gets better and better

 

Any updates on this? Its been 2 months just curious

 

ahhh no, sorry. I have talked to a local metal worker who has agreed to measure and mandrel bend a proper intake for me, but as you know it costs money.

Unfortunately for my hobby, I've had to make expenditures that put it further down on the list of things to buy. My wifes envoy has been giving her fits and was due for a major overhaul. Sorry, guys....but a happy wife is a happy life.

Remember that.

Anyway, I've definitely not given up on it and hope to get the new pipe fabbed up next month. I'll keep yall updated.

cheers!

 

Sub'd. I'm a registered (PE) HVAC engineer (with a little b/g in SAE) if you need any assistance...

My initial thoughts: Looks like you've put some serious effort into this, which is outstanding and 100x further than most folks, who sit on the sideline, simply thinking of ideas and not having the motivition to go even a step further.

That said, I'm also curious what the added weight will negate in effective performance since we are talking about an independent refrigeration loop. With the added parasitic losses of alternator, it is something to consider in your "net benefit calc".

For a quick math reality check, if your current strategy is based upon 240W of power draw as you mentioned, assuming EER of 10, that only provides 2400W or ~8200btuh cooling capacity. Assuming fairly standard conditions (dQ~8200~1.08*dT*SCFM), where SCFM for a 4-cycle engine is approximated by CI*RPM/3456, we get ~410SCFM, and solving for the first equation (ugh never a huge fan of math, glad its not calculus), we get a temperature differential of 18.5F.

Of course, these conditions assume steady state, steady flow at WOT, redline conditions. Practically, you should be able to do a bit better than that. Really, we should be able to get the system down to 40-55F at any point, because we have very little mass flow under standard highway conditions (or even parked at a stoplight), and have some "thermal mass" of the metal intake and tubing to act as a heat-sink at the evaporator. If you insulate this from the engine bay, you'd basically have a system that should be capable of keeping the intake very cold.

Anyone else care to take this a step further? Use the ideal gas law to approximate improvement of air density, and ratio of densities should approximate % improvement of power. Simply throwing some guestimated figures into an online density calculator, 3-10% improvements are not unreasonable.

Other things to consider:

- Condensation as has been mentioned several times. This is a function of how close ambient air is to saturation (dew point). That's to say, if you're driving through fog or very low clouds (indication of humidity near 100%), condensation may be a problem. But I also agree with previous poster, the water should not be enough to be problematic, and may even stay in water vapor form.
- Ability of system to x-fer heat properly. In other words, even if you can cool the intake surfaces down to 40-50F, is there enough HX actually ocurring at WOT to get the air cold enough for the system to benefit sufficiently? Any "true" HX made for said purpose may be too heavy to justify.
- Playing with thermal mass of intake and or secondary fluid to "store" cold and enable longer periods of boost above steady-state/flow temperature improvements.

 

Excellent deductions!!!

But you're right about the heat transfer efficiency....it is proving difficult. As hard as I tried, it was impossible to get COMPLETE and total contact between my copper tubing and the aluminum intake by hand rolling it. I've got a manufacturing idea that requires me to build a stand that will allow me to roll the copper onto the intake with absolute contact on every portion of the aluminum.

With that said, let me ask your opinion. My low side uses a 5/8 OD tube. Obviously, I cant wrap a 5/8 tube around the intake, so I split it into 2 5/16 tubes to give me the matching 1/2 diameter. However, after looking at other evaporators in normal uses, I think I've decided to use MANY 1/8 lines distributor style to surpass the 1/2 total ID to allow for complete expansion before bringing it back down to 1/2 ID on the suction side.

As I looked at these other normal home evaporator installations I noticed that the evaporators ALWAYS had WAY more total ID volume and then would reduce back down to the necessary tube size before getting back to the suction side of the compressor. This is why I've decided to go with the multiple 1/8 lines to surpass the 1/2 requirement.

Will this allow for better and more efficient operation? Because as you understand, the intake itself is acting like the evaporator in a very literal sense. And if the evaporator isnt allowing for complete expansion then the system wont work as it should.

Thoughts?

Oh, and I know its been in a lull lately. Partly because it costs money to continue and partly because I was a little burnt out. But, (call me a nerd if you want), after watching TRON last night I've been inspired to continue despite the obstacles. LOL! I know it sounds silly, but the ending of the movie really inspired me to give it my all again. BTW, TRON's definitely a good redbox rental...best dollar I spent all day long.

 

you may wanna look into newsgroups and put your redbox money towards your new intake manufacturing business!

Tron WAS pretty good though.

 

This might be stupid seeing as I have no clue about heat transfer and whatnot but wouldn't it work better if the cooling stuff (freon or whatever) went through the walls of the intake itself instead of through copper tubing wrapped around it? So for example make the intake have a certain diameter, then have a thin hollow space for the cooling fluid to flow through then another shell on the outside? Or is that what you meant by rolling the copper on the outside of the aluminum?

Also why use both copper and aluminum? why not just make the whole intake one or the other? I imagine it has to do with cost and thermal properties but just thought I'd ask.

 

simply put....I have no way of doing those things. It would absolutely be best but that requires Massive amounts of money (to me), cad drawings, and a manufacturing process I'm sure hasnt even been invented.

 

What If you used something like this and ran your coolant through the grooves, then heat wrap it? I know it's used to disperse heat, but thought it might also do the opposite and help maintain the cold? http://www.frozenboost.com/product_i...0c901f2567a005

 

no enough room in the engine bay I dont think. And besides, I've got a special little part I conjured up to help with the heat transfer inside the intake.

 

What ever happened to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics? Can someone explain why this project doesn't violate that (and therefore won't work)?

 

The 2nd law still applies fully.

Tell me where the energy from the alternator comes from and where it goes.

Ok now when the battery is fully charged?

If you dont know, it gets shunted so that it doesnt overcharge the entire system when you bring the engine to redline.

that = wasted energy.

Turn that into cold air and now the engine can use it again.

Rinse,repeat...until the diminishing returns finally win out.

 

Are you sure the alternator is shunted? Where is the shunt located? If there is a shunt, it would produce a lot of heat - if it doesn't, little or no energy is being "wasted" and your device just adds to the load.

 

ok, you're right there smart guy.

Tell me where the 150 amps from the alternator go when the battery is full and the car's electrical system only pulls less than half of that?

THe system operates on only 20 amps. Thats almost exactly what any aftermarket receiver would pull. That 20 amps goes into making sound that's technically wasted (from the engine's point of view).

I'm turning that 20 amps into a little something the engine can use again.

Hell, I could take off the alternator all together and free up GOBS of horsepower, but the real world dictates that I cant if I want a car that'll operate after the inital charge on the battery falls below 10 volts.

it's energy conversion, that's all.

No worries though, I dont think the powered version is a commerically viable product. It was a "see if I can do it" and reap whatever auxiliary awards I could. As a result, the non-powered intake design... that'll sell like hotcakes, for less than the big name brands out there. It is, in my opinion, the best design that's never been mass produced. It has the performance and sound aspects of a conical filter with the sealed box qualities of the oem system that cant be beat. This will be the intake to look good,sound good, block hot air, AND make power. Mark my words.

I wont speak about it any further until I am a registered vendor on ClubLexus, but this will be where it make its debut.