Air to water intercooler ideas?

[Tictakman]

I was just doing some searching on a system like this and wanted to know if anyone had any input on it. i think wd was or is going to be working on one in the near future. i know the heat drop is very significant between air to water and air to air. id be very interested in making one. i know you need the actual unit, water container, lines, and a water pump. anything else?

Just somethin to think about..

Zak

[andrave]

well, you have a few options... for drag racing they are great, water takes a lot more energy to change the temp of water, so if you use ice water it should cool the air better... until the water heats up. I've seen people run a radiator on theirs, but again... once the water heats up and air to water cooler to cool it back down isn't that effective.good for drag racing.

[madbouncy]

For real fun you could try disolving ammonium nitrate into the water in the intercooler to cool it down. I think it's like about 1/4 of a pound of NH4NO3 to 1 gallon of water. I think you'd want the water at about 4 degrees celsius, unless you're willing to freeze it. That'd the densiest it'll get so you'll get the most in the intercooler at that specific time (you'd want an overflow can for when it heats up though.) I think you can pretty much go gram for gram as far as dissolving NH4NO3 into water, so the more you put in the faster it would get it there, it might take a couple minutes putting in the mixture i said above.

1 pound = 452 grams1 gallon H2O = 3785 gramsspecific heat of h2o = 4.186 J/gCNH4NO3 into h2o = H of 26.4 KJ/mol1 mol NH4NO3 = 80 grams NH4NO3118.3g NH4NO3 can dissolve into 100g H2O at 0C

25C to 4C is 21C4.186 J/gC * 3785g * 21C = 33.272 KJ33.272 KJ / 26.4 KJ/mol = 1.26 mol NH4NO31.26 mol * 80g/mol = 101 g NH4NO3101g/452g/lbs = .22 lbs NH4NO3

Obviously that's not perfect since not all the numbers are exact and so on. Plus not 100% of the NH4NO3 will dissolve so I'd go with like 1/3 a pound. It's more expensive then ice, but it's not a real chemical reaction so you can get your ammonium nitrate back. Now if only you could run that over the engine to dry it out and then have it filter back into the intercooler to redissolve...

Screw it, I'm going to bed, I have a chemistry test tomorrow that I figure I'll fail, it's multiple choice so I should be able to get a 25 and I read one of the three chapters so maybe I can pull off like a 40 or something. Why can I only think at night... must sleep...

[C-Kwik]

Can someone translate? Seeing as how I haven't touched a Chemistry book in 12 years, this is rather cryptic.

Actually I'm more interested in the reasoning for putting this particular chemical into the water. All the mol weight stuff was confusing enough in high school.

[andrave]

I think he is saying he wants you to put that chemical in the cooant becauseguess #1) it is more or less dense, so it would either a) make the coolant more dense, therefore it would take longer to heat up or b) make the coolant less dense and quick to exchange heat, therefore potentially coolint fasterguess #2) the chemical he mentioned is something like dry ice that would cool the water hella down.

anyway what I've seen guys do, is they usually run coolant in theirs, and they have a big canister somewhere that had a spiral of copper line in it. You pack that cyl with dry ice right before you are ready to run, and it chills the coolant.

[yelnatsch517]

Actually I understand all of that even though I haven't taken chemistry in 4 yrs. I did pass the AP exam with a 5 though so I guess I should be able to. Basically dissolving, I'm just going to call it "that" compound since its easier to type, is heat absorbing. All that calculation was simply to find out how much of that compound was needed to get one gallon of water from 25c to 4c. I think he may have made a mistake though, I'm not sure. I don't know where he got the specific heat of that compound into h20, but he needs to check what the concentration of it is required to get that value.

As for the recirculation idea, that seems pretty interesting. If only you could get a prototype to work. Just off the top of my head, you would probably need a second reservoir to keep it working while the "used" solution is being "filtered." Somehow, the evaporated water needs to be piped to another tank. Then the dried nh4no3 needs to be collected (most likely scrapped) needs to be dumped into the water tank automatically while the 2nd reservoir of solution gets piped into the engine compartment to get "filtered."
Modified by yelnatsch517 at 2:57 AM 12/8/2004

[Tictakman]

over the summer a buddy of mine twin turbocharged a corrado and he was running a custom air to water intercooler. we would go out and do some long hard passes but when we would get back we would pop the hood and you could rest your hand on the actual intercooler. it was luke warm. he said that it never gets too hot to touch. if i can remember right all he had was a resivior(sp?) for the water.

Zak

[IvanAtSPRacing]

I have a ton of experience with liquid intercoolers coming from Syclones and Typhoons.

Liquid IC systems are much more efficient in pulling heat out of the intake charge. I have two 4.75x 4.75x 10" cores for my car with a combined HP rating of 900HP. Small package, big cooling. Liquid cores dont have to be mounted in the clean air flow so they can be mounted just about anywhere. This means IC piping can be kept to a minimum. Super cooling the water can get your MATs below ambient which allows you to make more HP then with air/air system. For my race car, I will be running an extra cell in the car filled with water and ice. A pump on a switch will be used to pump cold water from the tank to the IC cores and back to the tank. Keeping the pump off untill after the burn out will allow me to have the IC as cold as possible for the 1/4 mile run. For street cars running a liquid IC you would want a closed loop system with a heat exchanger mounted up front to get clean air. Basically a radiator for the intercooler. I will probably end up setting something like this up for my car when I want to drive it on the street. I removed my AC so coming up with a cooler that would fit in that area and would be easily removable would be pretty easy.

[andrave]

I was at walmart the other day and I noticed they sell a few 12 volt refridgerators. Everyone knows a freezer is just a cold refridgerator. I wonder if you could take a street car, pack the refridge with ice, and crank it all the way cold....that would help with the heat soak. Of course those things prolly eat a lot of power so you'd have more draw on the alternator. Just a crazy thought, since we are throwing them out there.

[IvanAtSPRacing]

The Syclone Typhoon folks have had an AC based intercooler for some time. It works but when you go to the track and the condensation from your AC is dripping, they kick you off the track.

http://www.coolflow.com/Intercooler/index.htm

[madbouncy]

Yeah you have the idea. I thought the value for it was just how much energy was released when NH4NO3 was put into water. I just looked it up real quick on the internet, I thought it was like 24 so when I saw 26.4 it looked right. Sorry about not making what I was doing clear, it was night and I was tired as all hell.

Basicaly, it's like an ice pack, they use ammonium nitrate in ice packs that you keep warm and then you break them to make them cold. When ammonium nitrate dissolves in water, it takes in heat, so it makes the water colder. If you could cycle it, it would just be a way to keep your water cooler in the intercooler rather than having to constantly add ice.

The only way I could think of it working is if you could make the water evaporate almost instantly. Then you just have a bunch of chambers. You throw the solution into the chamber, the water evaps out into a collection tank, then you flush water back through it to redissolve the NH4NO3 (i could type ammonium nitrate but I just keep pasting NH4NO3 because I have it copied.) So if you did that, while one chamber is evaporating the water, you could flush the other one so you have a continues coolant flow. You'd probably have to put the chambers in the engine to make them hot enough, but even then I'm not sure how long it would take to get rid of the water.

[Tictakman]

im really interested in doing this but im on a budget due to college. Ivan, do you have any plans that you might be able to share that wouldnt mean buying a whole kit for a ton of money. id like to put one together myself.

[IvanAtSPRacing]

No real plans. You can design one yourself. There is some usefull information at http://www.turboneticsinc.com they offer cores, end tanks, pumps etc. Precision Turbo is where I got my cores from.

[absolute]

hey as far as the refridgerated idea goes, couldn't you just disassemble the refridgerator and just use the compressor part ?, maybe sitting it inside a small bath of water since you have to have pumps and all anyway. or just run a hose to the water reserve , chilling it? and i assume you were talking about a minifridge like the ines in dorm rooms?

[yelnatsch517]

LOL this thread reminds me of when I first got interested in water cooling for my computer.

[andrave]

someone makes some miata turbo kits with some nice water to air units. I've also seen some from some company called "POWER" something or anotehr, but there are a ton of companies that fit that description.

And then you could always get one of the used PRO 5.0 setups that replace the passenger seat... like 4" or 5" piping. the size of a fuel cell. awesome!

[AZhitman]

Keep in mind you're talking about adding a lot of extra weight for minimal gain.

Back in the day, we ran a "cool can" for fuel... Added an additional 50 ft coil of fuel line into a coffee can, filled it with dry ice (or just crushed ice) at the track.

I'm thinking you could accomplish just as much with CO2 or NOS vented in the vicinity of the IC (if CO2, being careful to keep it well clear of the intake). Saw a system like this at SEMA, and the interesting part was, it didn't need to be upstream of the IC, it could actually be behind it.

[boostdesigns.com]

the company ATR that i source alot of products from uses these I/C setups with a glycol mixture with a small heat exchanger on there street grand nationals and they work quite well you can also run the same setup with a small insulated resovoir put inline to use dry ice if you attend track meets for even more cooling they will drop air below ambiant temp but they do require a moving vehicle to keep heat soak to a minimum. these guys have what appears to be transmission coolers with small flex lights behind them pulling air thru. they all swear by them even for street. if your interrested my intercooler supplier can make these type cores the rest of the setup is just a trip to your local auto store.

boost designs

[nissanfanatic]

Back in the day, we ran a "cool can" for fuel... Added an additional 50 ft coil of fuel line into a coffee can, filled it with dry ice (or just crushed ice) at the track.

I still see people do that at the track. Mostly muscle cars though. Now they have these http://www.designengineering.c...pid=3

I'm thinking you could accomplish just as much with CO2 or NOS vented in the vicinity of the IC (if CO2, being careful to keep it well clear of the intake). Saw a system like this at SEMA, and the interesting part was, it didn't need to be upstream of the IC, it could actually be behind it.

http://www.designengineering.c...pid=5

Something like that?

[IvanAtSPRacing]

I was at PRI today and was hanging out with Harry H from PTE for a while and Harry told me they are going to start carying cooling products. They had some BAD A55 units for either trans fluid / engine oil / or water. One unit had a single SPAL fand on it and the other dual SPAL fans. The dual unit would be perfect for a very efficient CCHE (charge coolant heat exchanger) Its already set up with fans, shroud, AN inlet / outlet. I will probably order one up this week some time for my S14.5 and I will be happy to take some pix.

[Tictakman]

ya, id be interested in seeing some of the pics. can you give a link to the product ivan?

Zak

[Tictakman]

forgot to ask. if i were to use one of these intercoolers would/or could i just run it off the tb coolant lines? or would this get way too hot and do the opposite of what im trying to achieve?

Zak

[IvanAtSPRacing]

no link yet. I just saw the coolers in person. These coolers are just to cool the lliquid used for the intercoolers, the intercoolers are seperate.

You could use the factory coolant system but only if you want 190 degree IATs. Not a good thing. You want as close to ambient as possible. Thats why you would create a seperate cooling system just for the IC.

[Ubernoober]

Good lord. All this and I still don't think his question was adequately answered. I think he is looking at this as a closed loop system designed for a daily driver, not a dry-ice ultra-cooling challenge. I will also try to help and probably totally mess it up, but here goes:

Air-to-Air: Pros: Highly efficient. No moving parts. Already available in Kit form. No liquid to leak or spill. No liquid to periodically change.Cons: Requires you to blow the intake charge through the entire piping system, which can delay the onset of boost and makes for multiple places for piping to slip apart or leak. Low heat capacity (heat soak comes on quickly).

Air-to-Water: Pros:The additional length to the air path can be as short as the thickness of the intake plenum core. The cooling core can be placed anywhere that is convenient, though the radiator must be placed in clean air. Tremendous heat capacity. The ability to hyper-cool. Coolant is easy... a 50-50 blend of water to antifreeze.Cons: You must circulate the coolant, which means a pump. Less efficient (temperature drop of intake charge will be less). Periodic changes of coolant. Liquid moving through a core IN the intake system, so a leaky core means sucking fluid into the combustion chambers.

Water is a tremendous heatsink and it takes a huge amount of energy to heat it up, which means once the reservoir is cool you can run harder for longer before the water warms up significantly. The metal of an air system will rapidly heat up and relies totally on the airflow over the radiator for cooling. The water will come back down to ambient temperature more slowly than the air system though.

An example:My Saleen has an Air-to-Water intercooler. The front mount radiator sits right on front of the engine radiator. There are two Spal fans that constantly pull air through half the radiator so that even at an idle, the water can cool off. The cooling core sits directly beneath an Eaton supercharger. It is about the width and height of a normal heater core. It is double the thickness and the fins are designed to maximise both heat exchange and total airflow. Doing a hard pull from idle through 120 MPH, the temperature of the water will rise from 60 (this time of year in Cali) to near 65. Thats it. Seriously. Additional runs will slowly warm the water up to a max of about 90-100 (again, this time of year). At that point, the radiator is able to hold that temperature. If I drive without boost at cruise speeds for 3-5 minutes, the water will have returned to 60.

[IvanAtSPRacing]

Air-to-Water: Pros:Cons: Less efficient (temperature drop of intake charge will be less).

This must be a typo. Liquid IC systems are MUCH more efficient than Air/Air. Not only in cooling but in pressure drop. The core is MUCH smaller with liquid setup and the IC piping can be extreamly short. A well designed CCHE is the key to the whole system. Keep the water cool and you will always have near ambient IAT tempatures.

[Ubernoober]

Told you I would get something wrong.

[IvanAtSPRacing]

You did a great job I thought it was very informative. I for one appreciate your time and efforts. I just wanted to clear one thing up.

[Tictakman]

ivan, u thinkin about makin a kit?? sounds good to me. discount?

Zak