Thread: Is it possible to...

youd be better of just buying a charge cooler

no, that will decrease the effeciency of the intercooler.

the air going through the cooler would be preheated by the coolant.

spraying a mist of water from a winshield wiper washer bottle however helps.

Any idea how big a reservoir would need to be for an average trip or say 400 km. Would it be best to have it electronically timed for when the air it hottest? That being said what it the optimum temperature for combustion?

On the above (first) question, would the system work if I mechanically cooled the liquid in the heat exchange by using a peltier system. This could be achieved by including another heat exchange in between the tank and the intercooler, which is cooled by the peltiers (if you are unaware of what a peltier is, it is a simple device that turns electricity into heat/cold). Or I could use a small 12 volt compressor off a car fridge to cool the heat exchange, which would in turn cool the liquid running through the cooling system.

Don't ask where I would put all this stuff...it's all theory so far.

If you are prepared to cool a liquid coolant then use a water to air charge cooler instead of an air to air cooler. You would then be able to reduce the size of the cooler, reduce the length of the intake path which would reduce lag.

I would look to use a larger/thicker and probably relocated air to air intercooler.

When I updated mine, the new intercooler was the same width and height, but twice as thick. It went into the standard location.

We used to make up a rudementary water injection system on our cheap arse turbo setups we used to play with on weekends. We ran a solenoid, operated of the throttle to switch on at wide open throttle. Water from a pressurised coolant container from a Falcon then squirted through an ultra fine, low volume irrigation mister into the boosted airstream - worked very well, and we could usually screw up the boost a couple of PSI running this system. As we were always on a tight budget, the bottom ends we used were generally from the wreckers, and we would just bolt the top end we had developed onto them. Used to get a few thousand KM out of them before smoke out the back became too much for other motorists...

Disregarding the plumbing I have described, you could still use a switch off your throttle to activate a pump to squirt water onto the intercooler as Blknight suggested. Not sure what capacity you would need - depends how long you have your foot to the floor, but if you could work that out, and the flow rate of a specific nozzle, you should be able to work out how big your tank needs to be.

Originally Posted by Redbuck40

...... That being said what it the optimum temperature for combustion?
......

There is no 'optimum temperature' for air being taken into the engine - as far as power is concerned it is simply the lower the better, as this gets the maximum mass of oxygen into the combustion chamber to allow the maximum amount of fuel to be burnt.

John

Originally Posted by Slunnie

I would look to use a larger/thicker and probably relocated air to air intercooler.

When I updated mine, the new intercooler was the same width and height, but twice as thick. It went into the standard location.

+1 for this suggestion... far less work involved with fewer components to fail.... simpler=better....

Although spraying water on the intercooler will work, my concern would be with causing premature failure of the intercooler. If you are spraying the hot intercooler with nice cold (relatively) water on one side with uneven spray distribution on that side, you are going to get transient thermal gradients across the welds/brazes in the radiator inducing stress and, given enough time, cracks....

Having said that, I am not sure what the average operating temperature of the intercooler is... so the thermal stress induced may be tolerable.