Hi all.
I read a few posts about the physics of cold intake charges,
and it seems that we have 30-40 horsepower to gain by cooling
the intercoolers with crushed ice and/or ice-water. This would be
doable at the drag strip or for dyno tests.

I would *really* appreciate it if anyone who was doing dyno
runs with their car could do one extra run, changing nothing
except for putting a quart of crushed ice up into both intercooler
intakes so it goes up and in, and lays on top of the intercoolers.
I bet we see more power. I took some intercooler temperatures
without ice, and I see them surprisingly high, over 130 degrees
at idle, which means the actual intake charge even is higher.

Joe

 

can spray nos unto them

 

What's the point? It's not like you'll be able to do this in real-world driving conditions, so why artificially boost the numbers?

 

NOS wouldn't be as efficient unless you had volumes of it and a spray
setup to cover the whole intercooler while running.
As to practicality, actually for me it is, and for anyone competing in
quick sprint events. A drag race or autocross would benefit totally,
and would last for the first several minutes of a track race.
Joe

 

Old trick but it does work. The problem you usually face is that after you pack the intercoolers with ice into a location which is usually hard to reach (such as our cars), the ice melts. Initially this isn't a problem, but when you roll to the line and your car is dripping ANYTHING, even if it is only water they will pull you off the line.

Plus with our cars, how exactly would you get the ice up in front of the intercoolers?

Best thing you can do is to pack the intake manifold with ice between runs, but on these cars it's so inaccessable that it's not really worth it IMHO.

I had an alcohol spray once hooked up to a throttle switch that sprayed the IC at WOT, but I think the benefit if any was minimal.

 

I have been shoveling handfuls of ice into the intercooler air intakes, just aft of
the doors, so it went back and covered the top of the intercoolers. This did
drip little bits of water aft of the rear wheels where the air outlet is for the
intercoolers, but no one cares about that. I even built a cool flexible-handled
scoop that I can push ice in with. Bare hand is sloppy, inefficient and can be
painful. I do take pyrometer measurements of the underside of the intercoolers,
and they go from 135 at idle to lower than ambient.

 

I just realized that dry ice would solve the drag-race dripping problem!
Joe

 

rob at scargo has done this a few years ago it made ex mag as i remember think it was chads car... it was not an ice pack .. a little more hi tec

 

F1 teams pack the radiator ducts with dry ice before they roll off for the formation lap to keep the engine from overheating.

 

you could also spray alcohol into the intake charge and it will accomplish the same thing; so would meth.

 

Dragracing friends of mine often use a CO2 fire extinguisher to spray the IC before launch, works best on a front mounted IC though. It will leave a fair ammount of Co2 snow on the IC to keep it cooler than ambient for a short while.

 

I was going to mention using the extinguisher. Works well in my opinion, especially the straight CO2 extinguishers.

 

intersting . anybody can tell which one has more effect spray alcohol or ice !!!!!

 

Looking at for example the STI subarus, they use the washer fluid (alcohol/water mix) to spray the IC, this is convinient as you have the reservoir of cooling agent onboard.
Ice is less convinient to carry around and also blocks the airflow through the IC to some extent.