Better than an Ice Box?

J

jhaas_lsc

Registered
I had a crazy idea as I was going to work the other day, not sure if it would work so I wanted to run it by the "brain trust" here at LOD.

Would it be possible, and don't worry if the interior of the car has A/C anymore or not, but would it work if a person put the A/C core (the piece with the fins and tube coils) in front of the intake for the car, essentially cooling the air as the car sucked it in? A couple things I was wondering about was:

1. Is the core unit (condenser? I don't know all these terms) too restrictive to have that much intake air pass through?

2. Would the device allow too much humidity to enter the engine? Perhaps water droplets?

3. Would you be able to turn off the WOT switch on the A/C compressor to allow the unit to remain cold as heading down a dragstrip?

4. Is this even possible?

Reason I ask is because we're all trying to keep the hot engine bay from affecting the intake air temperature of the car. Why not just have it air conditioned on its way in? Or even if you didn't want to disable the WOT switch, wouldn't it provide a helluva bump off the line? When my A/C turns off in the cabin from WOT it stays cool for 4-5 seconds. By that time the "super runners" kick in on this motor. Perhaps a solution to low-end torque in hot climate issues?

Like I said, I'm no expert by any means, just wondering if anyone had tried this. I know some turbo cars have intercoolers, but those just use water, right? And is it even for the intake air? Why not use delicious R-134a???

Flame me / talk to me - just let me know what you think!
 
RE: Better than an Ice Box?

Disclaimer: I am in no way an expert on this subject, my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt and perhaps dismeissed altogether.

I actually gave this some thought one time. This is basically why I quit thinking about it.

If you do what you are suggesting I see a couple problems. First instaliing an evaporator in the path of the air intake moisture definately will become an issue. I know that a motor can ingest small amounts of water with no problem, but A/C evaporators produce a lot of moisture and it gets worse as the humidity increases. You'd have to setup some kind of system to redirect the condensation away from the intake.

In addition this evaporator would have to be of some size, I don't know the math to explain this, but their is a lot of air moving through that intake. So much in fact that I don't believe a standard evaporator will have the ability to cool it all in one pass. Then their is the problem with the MAF sensor and turbulence in the air that the evaporator would create. If that is not enough issues, turning off the WOT switch to the compressor will likely shorten the life of the compressor dramatically. If you did manage to work out all the problems, a belt driven compressor would not be the answer. Keep in mind that the compressor actually robs power from the engine (no clue how much) and it also creates a lot of heat. So if you manage to make this work, you'd probably just be shooting yourself in the foot because the compressor is robbing you off all the gains you "might" manage to make. I would focus on an electric driven compressor if this was something I was going to try (such as the one in your home)

Oh yea where are you going to put the larger or additional condensor to accomadate your new evaporator? The bottom line I think you'd have more problems than you'd actually solve, be a tremendous waste of time, effort and money. And this is only the stuff I could think of as I have been typing for 5 minutes. Go get a super charger instead.
 
RE: Better than an Ice Box?

The air/water intercoolers are heavy and the gains you see from the marginally cooler air on a n/a car are almost negated by the weight gain. Not to mention the cost of them. $$$$
 
RE: Better than an Ice Box?


I really don't think I'd worry about the moisture. On a Mustang 4 cyl. I had I used water injection to keep the intake charge cool and ran 17 lbs of boost with no ignition retard and got no knock. It did take only 4 quarter mile runs to use 1 quart of water. That's 1 cup in 14 seconds. I did that for 2 years and had no problems. Just make sure it doesn't get any with the engine stopped. That might cause a hydraulic lock in one of the cylinders.

Wayne
 
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