Problem: I noticed my intake temps going above 160 on my rear mount setup pushing 8lbs.

Solution: Add Air to Water intercooler to cool down temps.

Question:
Would it be a good idea to use gas to cool down the intercooler?

Things to consider:
1. It would be cheaper
2. New fuel constantly flowing doesn't acquire heat soak
3. How much do you think the fuel will heat up through the process?
4. How much do you think the air intake temp will drop?
5. Will the larger volume hurt fueling? Meaning the sump inside the A2W intercooler?
6. I know they make ways to cool down your fuel for power, how much of a difference do you think an extra possible 10-20 degrees will hurt?
7. As RPMS go up, boost goes up, temperature goes up, but so does fuel flow. This means even more fuel will go through this and it will spend less time in the intercooler.
8. Yes this could be a safety issue if something fails but I'm talking about buying a quality A2W intercooler from frozenboost.
9. Some kits come with pumps that are over 300 GPH to move the water while my 255 LPH is only about 67 GPH max, which means that I'm probably only moving closer to 30-50 GPH at 8lbs of boost. This may pose a problem.

I know there are some damn smart people here that may help me answer this question. I have discussed this with a few people including Josh from frozenboost and a few friends. So far most people say its a bad idea but the biggest reason people give me is that it could be dangerous and no real answer as if it would help with power.

Thanks for looking and hope someone much smarter then me can finally settle this debate I have in my mind.

-Kyle

 

This idea has been around for many years. And it does work. If you do a search many variations of this have been patented.

I do not remember correctly, it is either Carol Shelby or Smokey Yunick has one of the patents and they actually made a turbo with the gas line wrapped around the Hot side. This they put it on one of the Mopar Race Cars in the late 80's early 90's

 

What effects do you think that the warmer gas will have on the overall output?

 

It'll atomize faster when it gets to the injectors..may have a tad higher pressure at the rails cause it will be warmed up.

I'll be sure to have a fire extinguisher ready when you get this setup there bud..

 

Lol, thanks Merv. I started researching it more trying to find groundczero's car and ran across a thread of cooling your gas down to increase power. Found that to a certain extent it helped but then after a point it went the opposite direction and caused the fuel to burn less efficient. This could almost be a pro, especially when its cold outside. Good question is, will there be enough fuel flow to cool the intake down quite a bit and what repercussions will be from the added volume of the A2W intercooler. Granted I have a Racetronix 255LPH walbro design pump.

 

Sounds interesting. But i think you should take another look at your a2w system, mounting location, heat exchanger efficiency and location.
There are far more powerful cars that run just plain water and are dd and mange fine.

If you mean, that you want to upgrade from a2a to a2w. Go for it.
It is a better deal overall

 

Well currently I have no intercooler or meth kit installed and noticed the temps on my logger. One of the reasons this intrigued me is because it doesn't require a pump, no extra reservoir, or extra lines. My temps are showing 160 degrees plus which for some people isnt a lot but as a daily driver I wish I could make it much cooler. Everybody knows there isn't much room under that hood either so I thought this may make things work without taking up too much space. If this is going to work and I go through with it I will upgrade my fuel lines to -6 all the way to the rails with the intercooler hooked up closer by my radiator.

 

On a camaro u got that huge area behind the grille to mount a large fmic.
No pump or water lines needed. And significantly cheaper and easier to install.
Will lower temps a good amount

 

Although that is an option I don't like the pressure drop, big turn off. I'd rather spend a few extra bucks and get a water/meth kit at that point which is my #2. The A2W intercooler would be approx $200 after new fuel lines, which wouldn't exactly break my budget. The point here is finding a big enough turn off on this idea to turn my head. So far this seems to be a viable option.

 

Are you talking about the water heating up? You just run the water through a glorified tranny cooler.

Water has ALOT of thermal capacitance, I have no idea how much gas has.

Its been awhile since I bought a pump, but the last ones I bought where $55 each shipped. A good heat exchanger (glorified tranny cooler) can get pricey, but if you shop around on Ebay you may get a good deal. I got two monster ones for @ or under $100 each shipped (its been awhile since I bought those also).

When you buy your water line, ask the auto parts store for a discount and buy a whole box of heater hose. Found this one out the hard way, got a whole box cheaper than I got 15' for.

I have no idea about how well the gas would work. I do know that if you set up a w/a IC properly that it will do everything that you want it to do. Other than the IC and its pipes you would be looking at $150 to $250 to finish off the set up.

 

Here is a little math to put into perspective how much heat energy water can absorb (basically its thermal capacitance)

The same BTU's it would take to heat up 3470 cubic foot of air 1 degree Fahrenheit would only heat up 1 cubic foot of water 1 degree Fahrenheit. So from a cubic foot and btus to heat up one degree Fahrenheit standpoint it is a 3470 to 1 ratio.

I could not find the info online to try to calculate this for gasoline.

 

"Specific heat is used when describing the capacity for heat absorption. Specific heat is the amount of heat energy (joules) per unit mass (grams) required to raise the temperature of a substance by one degree Celsius. The greater the specific heat,the more energy a substance absorbs before it heats up. Gasoline has a specific heat value of 2.02 joule/gram-°C. Water has a specific heat of 4.18 joule/gram-°C. This means,for an equivalent volume,liquid water will absorb about twice as much heat as gasoline while increasing in temperature the same amount. Or put another way, for a given quantity of gasoline,half as much water is as effective when it comes to absorbing heat energy."

Reference: http://www.audiworld.com/tech/eng80a.shtml

Thank you for steering me in the right direction, I found this info and basically water is twice as effective. Let's say I use water though and have the temp near ambient...we will say 85 degrees. What do you think the gas temperature be? I researched this for a while and can't find an answer, I do know gas feels colder compared to water if they sat next to eachother but this may be because gas evaporates quicker, giving a colder effect. But I know that gas would be colder due to the fact its in a tank under the car where it has shade and far away from all heat sources.
The point im getting at here is that gas is colder even with the water cooled back down. An educated guess from this knowledge presented is that an intake charge of 160 degrees would be approx 130 degrees with the gas method and a 110-120 with a well built water to air intercooler setup...this is just my guess and I may be way off base. But no matter how hard I run this, the gas will never acquire heat soak and even on drag days my intercooler would be ready to take a hit after every one, the water method may need a couple extra minutes to cool back down, not really too big of a deal though.
Please somebody give me some more input, im learning a lot from this as im a novice performance junkie.

 

Im strugling to see the point in using fuel to cool the intake track down (thats basically what you are doing but using water as a medium). why not just go A2W (or even A2A) and ensure you have a VERY large heat enxchange on there? The GT500 guys have have tested this to death. They have guys running lots of power and road racing for 20min. With the right HE you will keep intake temps low.

If you want more cooling add some meth and watch your temps drop!

Chris.

PS. aircraft do use fuel to cool specific components but they have a higher flow rate and jet engines are less dependent on fuel temps form what i hear. Plus it MUCH harder to cool components at 30,000 feet! lol

 

Im thinking of doing this for a few reasons. 1. Neat concept 2. Cheaper 3. More space conservation as well as less weight addition 4. Less complicated 5. Less parts to fail 6. Although they make pumps that are quiet they still make additional noise.

 

So you are worried about pressure drop on 8 psi? I don't think you are going to see much at that level. Maybe at 20 psi but not at 8 no matter who makes the intercooler

 

You wont see much of a pressure drop across a true water to air core. I do not know if the Ebay liquids use true water to air cores, or just a boxed in air to air core. I have four REAL liquid IC's if you where here I could show you the difference. A real water to air IC will flow ALOT of air with little pressure drop.

You dont have heat soak man, you are over thinking that due to bad input from people who never ran good water to air set ups. I am not knocking your gas thing, I have no idea if or how well that set up would really work. But I do know water to air IC's, and properly set up you can hot lap your car at the track. This was a big advantage over the air to air guys. They have to let their IC's cool down, not the water to air guys.

Now my old six cylinder was only making about 600 HP @ 30 psi. Now 600 hp worth of air isnt near as much as say 1000, but at 30 psi its pretty hot coming out of the turbo. We could get into the math on that one, but off the top of my head cooling down 600 at 30 is prob going to be close to the thermal load of cooling down 1000 at 18. Anyway you just dont heat up the water alot on a pass that only takes a few seconds. Then the minutes coming back down the return lane ect gives the Hx plenty of time to cool down the water.

Just a basic concept: lets say you would never be able to make back to back passes with less than 10 minutes in between them. So your Hx has 600 seconds (10 mins) to dissipate the heat your a/w IC absorbed in 10 seconds. Even if it only gets rid of most of the heat it picked up lets say your water is at 74 degrees instead of 70.. your engine will never know the difference.

If you do it for room, cost, to be diff ect thats all up to you. Do not put heat soak on your list of why you did it tho. Thats just bad propaganda by those moral-less air/air bastards!

 

You will not loose any weight over a traditional water to air setup.
you will need the same number of HEs (the air to water core and then the water to fuel core).
You still need a water pump to feed water to the Chargecooler.
The only space you would be saving is on the Heat Exchange, however these are normally at the fornt of the car and smaller than intercoolers.
The system is now more complex than before and you have to think about fuel getting to and from the cooler. you have more fuel lines running around the car.
Where are you going to mount the water tank?
is the water to fuel HE going to be in the tank or external?
Then you need to think about the recovery of the system. Whats you peak fuel flow in gallons per hour?
how much heat can you honnestly pull out of the system by using fuel? i really dont think it would be that much!!!
How are you going to deliver the fuel? High presure or low?
Are you only going to use the fuel going to the injectors?
What about fuel rail temps and evaportation of the fuel?
What about the effect on the AFR as the fuel tmep rises? (more boost = more heat = hotter fuel = less power!!!)

If you want to use fuel as a coolent then look to inject it further away from the intake ports (seond set of injectors). this is a tried and tested method of reducing intake temps and also getting better atomisation of the fuel (helping with power).

Seriously, dont re invent the wheel on this. If you want to run air to water stick the biggest and most efficent heat exchange in there you can and be done with it. Its easy and safe!

As other have said at 8psi you are probably not going to need a MASSIVE IC anyway. Just fit the biggest air to air core you can find / fit. maybe look at the Procharge style vertical flow cores. These should offer much less presure drop than normal flow cores.

See below for a garret core that will support well over 1000bhp (the 5.1inch thick core). There will be similar offerings form all other core manufactures.

http://www.turbobygarrett.com/turbob...t/intercoolers

Finally check out this web page for more info on all types of intercooling. (very informative)

http://www.are.com.au/feat/techtalk/techtalk.htm

Chris.

 

Hey Chris I think you may have gotten the wrong idea. The less weight comes from not having to add a pump, a reservoir, or and extra radiator to cool the water. What is being done here is using a A2W intercooler but instead of running water through and it and the other parts of a normal system, I'm just thinking of running the fuel lines through the intercooler. I would only add a couple of extra feet at most depending where I mount the cooler. The fuel pump pumps the fuel through the intercooler through the injectors already on the car for fuel flow. Thanks for trying to help though. I've learned a little bit from this thread already, still on the fence though. This setup, regular A2W intercooler setup, A2A setup, or just a straight up meth setup.

 

Question:
Would it be a good idea to use gas to cool down the intercooler?


I am going to answer this simply in my view and my view only.

ARE YOU NUTS??? I could be wrong about this but i dont think so!!

 

It does and has worked in the past, using the correct parts.


I got your back Kyle, just remember to turn around when the fronts on fire..