First off, I'm not a FI guy yet, just a pre-engineering student. And I'm just sittin' around on midnight shifts wondering car stuff LOL.

I've always wondered this. From what I've gathered, Air-to-water setups are great at the dragstrip, but not so great on the street, because they can't keep the water charge cold enough over long periods. Could the factory refrigerant resevoir be replaced with a larger refrigerant resevoir, and second evaporator be installed inline with the water supply to the IC? I'm betting it could be installed on a WOT switch to supply the refrigerant to the second evaporator, or any time the AC compressor is on, or something. Either keep the water supply nice and cold until its needed, or keep a reserve of refrigerant available to cool the water under high loads. Granted it might not be as effective on a road course where the AC compressor couldn't keep up the demand, but on the street or strip it would have merit. And I can't imagine it would weigh a lot more.

Ok, so much for tonights midnight shift "thoughts to ponder".
Enjoy

 

I have thought the same thing. I just wouldnt want to mess with my a/c to do it.

 

The AC requires a lot of power to drive it, so wouldnt be a great idea to run all the time....

That said, perhaps just before a run, with an A2W cooler, you could use it to chill the water in the system, and turn off the AC before you make a pass.

 

on the road a air to air will work much better. im not saying air to water can work (it does for the roots/twin screew guys!!!) but you need a very larger pre rad to get rid of all the heat! and when i mean big i mean big! like the size of a stock rad!!!

thanks Chris.

 

you would need a very large system to cool the water, and it would just heat up immediately after reaching boost.

 

I like stevieturbo's idea.. Basically all you would have to do is re-plumb your line and dunk an evaporator into a holding tank.. While you're in the staging lanes, have it running and chilling the water. When your run, just shut it off..

 

I've been rolling around this summer with a setup I made that uses the factory AC system to chill water. It's not really all that hard if you use the factory heater core. My system differs from most because I wanted to eliminate pressure drop, but if you have a conventional A2W setup, it's easy. What you do is: instead of using a front mounted heat exchanger to cool the air you use the heater core. With my truck and I assume f-body's as well, the evap coil is right before the heater core. When you run the AC, turn the setting to heat and turn the fan on, it blows cold air from the evap coil across the heater core and chills the water being pump through it.

It has been quite effective here during the 110* summers, but you give up your heater. Also you have to run your AC compressor all the time. That's not a problem here because I would be doing that in the summer anyway. The PCM is program to shut off the compressor clutch above 4000rpm and/or at WOT, so the AC won't rob any power when you need it the most. The key though is to have an insulated reservoir that stores the chilled water while you're cruising down the road.

I have a stand alone setup I'm working on now that doesn't affect the factory HVAC system at all in the vehicle. It's completely self contained and will work with existing A2W setups. It should yield below ambient IAT's ALL the time with minimal amounts of pressure drop. I'm catious in developing it though, because I'm not sure if the interest is really there.

Oh yeah duner is another member over at performancetrucks.net that has done with with a Vortech SC with good results. Search his name over there for some pics and more info.

 

Also a lot of tracks are VERY much against running your AC, even in staging. The condensate drips off and gets things wet. It also gives them the suspicion that your car is leaking. Hence, the need for a self contained system with NO condensate.

 

I recall that some turbo BUICK folks were messing w/ that idea.. Never found it had become very popular...

 

About a year ago I read an article on the new Lighting that was supose to come out. That did something similar too that. Ford used the AC to cool the intercooler down. do a search on it somewhere and you will find it. I think it was in Car and Driver.

 

I remember that article. I wonder what ever became of it.

 

look around at computer water chilling. that is what they do.
they stick the evaporator in the water and the water goes below 0c that is with a small compressor(1/4hp) where the compressor on these cars are like the equivalent of like 2 hp.
also you need to run alcohol as the water in the intercooler or run a mix of anti freeze.

i always wondered about that.

 

I was gonna mention the Lightning it was the one for the existing F-150 that they never made (they got rid of the SVT division) it was kinda like a boost thing you pushed a button and got 50hp for like 90 seconds and then it took a few minutes to recharge.It ran through the factory A/C system but they never said how it worked though. It would be a good idea to find out about, but then again it would prolly be simpler to just add a meth kit.

 

What kind of intake temps are you seeing with this? I think this would be a great setup, (like I've stated before for the radix guys) to wire this up with a switch and some solenoid valves to ether circulate the coolant thought the engine and heater core as normal, or to have the engine coolant bypassed back to the the motor and just run the intercooler water back though the heater core.

 

When I ran the heater core setup, I never saw drastically reduced IAT's. At least nothing like I was hoping for which was ambient IAT's. Maybe I had my hopes up, but it was also probably due the fact that I was not running a conventional water to air intercooler. I'm sure it would've worked better had I done that, but I was trying not to effect pressure drop.

I took aluminum tubing and spiral wrapped the charge pipe with it and then I used thermal mastic I got here at work to aid in the contact of the two metals. The water droped to about 40*F within minutes, and it transfered quite well to the charge pipe. Before any type of IC my truck would get heat soaked and IAT's would sit around 130-135*F while cruising. At WOT they would increase to about 160-170*F. With my setup, they would get to about 145-150*F while at WOT. The limiting factor here was surface area. Because I was not usuing a conventional, albeit effective plate and frame heat exchanger, I wasn't getting the most out the heat transfer.

I have a new design that will be by far superior when it comes to surface area to just wrapping the charge pipe. It will have more pressure drop, but nothing is free. I just need to figure out how to weld aluminum with an oxy/acetlene torch since I don't have a TIG.

 

Here is where it was talked about on the truck site. Lots of links to kits and information.
http://www.performancetrucks.net/for...d.php?t=349512

Ricky

 

I've seen it done VERY effectively on a Twin Turbo Pantera that lives up here in S. NH. Of course you couldn't get specifics out of the builder, but he is quite the craftsman.

 

Then it IS do-able. I might have to throw a little tinkering time at this some time.

Sweet

 

Or you can just throw ice in the A2W box

 

what ever became of this? anyone get a system to work?