Let’s get some new involvement and support of this site! I’m looking for info on using the ac system for cooling intake air temperature. I’ve got an email outbound to Joseph Kincaid and will share what I’ve learned. Meanwhile, any other user’s personal experience would be great!

 

Steve, that's an interesting concept. What role does ambient temperature play? I am guessing that this would be more effective in your part of the world than in my neck of the woods in mid-July ...

 

Actually it’s your area with warmer ambient temps that benefits more. Cooler air is denser air, equaling more fuel to get the same ratio of fuel to air. If your ambient temp is too high not only will there be less fuel the ecu will respond by retarding ign timing to eliminate dangerous pre detonation. Exacerbating the problem the M113k intake design puts the air to water intercooler between the valley and the blower, not exactly a friendly place. Not to worry though, a notoriously low volume and failure prone pump circulates the coolant through a woefully small intercooler up front in an attempt to bring the coolant, thereby the intake air, back to a halfway reasonable level. Coolant that, by the way, is shared with the engine.
What were they thinking? Well… in their defense not many - if any - who bought these cars new subjected them to the kind of repeated pulls that reduced the power to normal SL500 levels.
We've seen all kinds of tricks, divorcing the two coolant systems (including some kits from big name companies with laughable engineering) higher flow supercharger coolant pumps, bigger front mount intercoolers, small spacers to keep the upper intercooler from actual physical contact with the heads, and completely different blowers claiming to have far better intercoolers built in.
Then came much bigger reservoirs, soon with large fill ports and drains to facilitate the addition of ice. A rather temporary but effective method of seriously cooling whatever liquid is circulating in your intake system’s intercoolers. Finally, we have those who decided to utilize the vehicle’s ac system to cool said liquid. Serious players have a bypass that prioritizes intake cooling over cabin cooling. Systems like this can drop intake temps 20 or more degrees below ambient, with most people preferring to keep the cabin cooler at the expense of raising the intake temps some…
None of this is new, and could easily be assembled by someone with rudimentary ac and fi knowledge, but what I’m looking for is the dawn of a plug and play kit.
Go to the shop, evacuate the Freon, install the kit, recharge and done. I’ve not heard anything from Killier Chiller or anyone else yet.

 

That's really interesting (and detailed) info Steve. Keep us posted on your research.

 

I’ve found a couple companies that claim to offer killer chiller kits in ‘plug and play’ form for the M113K powered R230 cars. The only way to truly test what is involved in installation and how effective it is would be to buy one, which I have decided against. My car will be dyno tuned when completed, and realistically that’s the only time the engine would be repeatedly loaded enough to notice any advantage from the kit. The added wear on the ac system, well known drag on the engine when the compressor engages, and the unknown of how longevity would be affected by the additional volume of freon, no interest in researching any of this… with my car anyway. After all, it is a 2.25 ton luxury car that happens to be quite fast enough as it is.
For some anyway - I have the dreaded +100 disease, which shows itself as the need for around 100 more horsepower than stock to any car residing on property. Once the SL is done 3 of 5 cars here will meet that goal. It hasn’t run since Oct of last year due to parts and shipping difficulties and a mistake at powder coating. One of two last roadblocks in assembly have been fixed as of Monday and substantial progress has been made.
Further pictures and reports will be found in Vlad’s P30 thread.

 

Steve, the problem with the '100+' disease is that after a while the effect of the extra HP seems to vanish. When I first fitted a Europipe exhaust system with low-restriction cats and a Cobb tune (combined, said to add 100+ HP) to my Turbo S, I could feel a noticeable difference. Now a couple of years later, the baseline seems to have shifted and the car just feels plain old 'normal'. Can't wait to see photos of your finished project.

 

That can be said about home, property, income level, and so many other things. What was once wow - awesome becomes ho hum normal. Human nature. Yet my almost 500hp Audi suv still manages to impress me. Perhaps you need to drive a less powerful car more often… certainly easier and more palatable to attain than less house or income!