Last night I had a dream, well maybe it was a nightmare about how to design the worlds best cold air intake on my 73 big block build.
I’ll explain and see what all you pros think.
First, during the installation of my new Vintage Air ac system, I could insert a Y into the main duct, then run two 2” flexible ac ducts off my Vintage Air system through the firewall.
Next I could cut two 2” holes, on the bottom side of my air cleaner and attach the ducts.
Off course I would make it look really nice..
This will produce a constant flow of nice moist, cold air blown right into the air cleaner at the flip of a switch.
This should make the absolute best CAI on this planet.
IT COULD REALLY WORK!
This idea is way over Bubba’s thought level!
What do you guys think?

 

I think I get what you’re saying. I’m not a physics major like some people on here, but the law of conservation of energy would be what I imagine being the limiting factor on it though. Using the engine to make cold air with the AC system to feed itself. It sounds like a really cool concept though.

Reminds me of how the Dodge Challenger Demon uses its AC system to lower the charge temperature for the supercharger.

 

Certainly you can't believe that your the first one to think of this. Cold air intake is a good thing. Air that's to cold needs to be warmed up.
A point of diminishing returns?

 

So, I was a little bored and posted a ridiculous thread just to see what type of reactions or smart a$$ comments would follow.
Lets look at the reality of it.
If you had an ac equipped car, but didn’t need or want ac, this could be something that would work.
Pumping moist 40 degree air into the cowl or the air cleaner, being able to control the temperature and amount of cold air inputted though the carb would be awesome.

 

I see a few problems.

1) Your air filter setup will pull the great majority of its air through the lower restriction filter unless you have a valve/shutter to close off the external warm air. Without the close-off valve, any air pulled through your a/c evaporator coil will be overwhelmed by the warm air coming from the engine compartment or outside the vehicle.

2) Assuming you have the outside air shut off, you will see a noticeable drop in hp as the carb airflow will be restricted by the evaporator. A typical evaporator is sized to cool air in the tens of CFM, not hundreds of CFM. And, a high-capacity/low restriction evaporator is not going to package well in a Corvette. The condensor is a similar problem.

3) The a/c compressor requires horsepower to compress and circulate the refrigerant. A compressor big enough to cool the intake air noticeably is going to be big, heavy, and power hungry.

Engineers are constantly reminded that there is rarely, if ever, a free lunch in nature.

 

You would lose more power running the AC than the system would gain..

 

I would like a nice Electric Air Conditioning System like a Tesla would use. Why does it need to be driven by the engine? How do the electric battery operated cars make cold air conditioning? It might be easier to install an electric AC system than having to install pulleys and brackets

Now If you could make a system that keeps the interior temperature the same as the outdoor temp you could make some money with the idea. Imagine if the interior never dried out and cracked due to the heat? Everything could last longer if they are kept cooler. The auto industry would stop you fast if you made their cars last longer.... just ask Preston Tucker about improving the design.

My car has one of the very best designed CAI systems out there. It is a factory 1968 L88 Hood with the filter lives in the hood and the wedding cake and accessories are on the carburetor. The air entering my engine is very close to ambient as the path is short and very direct. This allows a high compression engine to drive "normally" without detonation or the absolute need for 100+ octane fuel. The only bad part is that I have very little in the way of air filtration with the original system. I have a K&N Filter Charger cover over the foam element and screen and that does far moire than the factory filtration. All the combustion air is drawn in at the base of the windshield where lives pressure pocket when the car is driving down the highway at speed. I believe the first of these CAI hoods appeared in 1963 at some race where they had their "Mystery Motor" in the Chevy race cars.

 

This is easier

 

Tesla compressor is 400 volts.

 

From "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", TANSTAAFL!

 

same type of funtionality as the system I put on my car. I have a dual digital temp readout which gives me realtime underhood temps and temps in the air filter housing and the air filter temps are ambient as long as the car is moving. They slowly climb at stoplights. and drop right bac down when moving again. This consumes no energy to work. AC systems all require a lot of energy to power.


same.. I keep mine under the hood

 

Actually reading this, I reminded myself that there sort of is. I did this test once with my particular hood and things went pretty well provided I was moving.

https://www.corvetteforum.com/forums...n-my-69-a.html

And as a bonus I got lectured on converting C to F!

I sort of remember somebody making airflow measurements at the gill area.

Here is a better picture of my hood


Back when life was really fun!

 

There is no free lunch, and you can't break even. The AC pump will eat up more than you gain from cooling.

If you are going to cheat by using stored battery energy to run a Tesla AC system, you may as well run motors directly, like the new C8 E-Ray.

 

I am aware that one of the Dodges does this.
From a capacity standpoint I could see where it could work well in the beginning, and at least for 10 sec.
Which is about all you would need to get to 130mph in that 600HP monster you built!
After that, you would need to "cool it" anyway LOL!

 

This is what I am running- I had no room on the front of my engine as I'm also running a 3 stage dry sump pump.
Here's an electric AC compressor- designed for 18 wheelers to run AC in no-idle states-
Has an inverter- and draws about 30A full tilt




My alternator to run it - has an outboard fan cooled rectifier- and it's a flat wire Nippon Denso 190A- with just under a 100A at idle ( smallest pulley I could find!)





This is another thought- cooling your fuel with the AC system- much easier than trying to cool the air
And to me makes more sense as in cooler temp you wouldn't be running your AC.

I'm currently just using a fuel cooler on the return side as it was heated up by running around underhood-

 

Wow Richard,
Those are some really cool designs and components!

 

I don't understand any of it, but I agree!

 

Thank you Richard454 for the suggestion about the Coolit systems! That is a interesting company!

Back in my College days I was able to make AC using waste heat and nothing else. The system worked and all it needed was heat to make it work. There are other ways of doing things than the normal ways. I used a parabolic dish to get the temperatures I needed and it tracked the sun heating up a transfer fluid. This was in 1977 while living on a Houseboat in Fort Myers, FL. A heat generated AC system would only work after the engine is up to operating temperature but could be used for many different things.

The fuel system on my C3 is insulated every inch of the way from the tank outlet to the throttle body. The front 10 feet are covered in a flameproof cover to protect the lines near the engine. I also bring the fuel into the engine by going over the bell housing versus bringing all the fuel lines to the front of the engine. The immense heat coming off the radiator does little besides heating the fuel up. I use an electric in-tank pump and have nothing with fuel near the front of the engine to absorb heat. I never understood who was the bright engineer who put the fuel pump behind the radiator in the middle of the heated air streaming back.

I have been planning on making some new "Heat Pipes" that would fit down the fuel fill-hole to cool the gasoline down to the nigh-time low temperatures. A heat pipe is a simple device. Inside the copper heat pipe is a vacuum with water in this case. The water will boil at lower temperatures being in a vacuum. You stick the heat pipe in Hot coffee and the other end gets hot almost instantly. I have used them in many applications and know the inventor. A heat pipe designed to boil at 68* can pull the heat out of the liquid easily. You can adjust the vacuum and material inside the heat pipes. They are used in computers now as well as protecting electronics from excessive heat. I have designed passively cooled shelters for use in the deserts of the world. I was able to make a $25k set of batteries go from a predicted life span (1.5-2 years) in the desert and made them last over 14 years. Some of my designs are operating in the Hottest parts of the world protecting electronics and batteries.

Having some data acquisition equipment I want to test the fuel inlet temperature as well as monitoring the intake combustion air along with ambient temperatures. Cooler air and cooler fuel will help any engine make more power!

 

Since you requested.

 

Water can hold a tremendous amount of heat compared to air. It's heat capacity.
And evaporating water also requires or removes a tremendous amount of heat.
Cooling off the air itself requires large components with a lot of flow capacity.
It seems to me the easiest way to cool off the air intake charge in a retrofit case is to cool it off with with evaporating water.
Freon works by going from 70* liquid to -40* gas as it evaporates.
Water mister systems work by going from 100+* liquid to 70* gas vapor.
AKA: a water or alcohol injection system.
Mister systems are used in Arizona for outdoor AC.
Since you have plenty of heat in the intake charge it should work well.
Water mist will turn to vapor quite quickly in a 160* air stream in the intake.
Compact, easy to adjust, and removes a lot of heat.
Yes you have to fill up a water tank once in a while.
Some of the race cars I deal with run methanol fuel, and run carbs, and when the methanol fuel evaporates, it removes so much heat that the intakes have ice on them after a 8 sec drag strip run. That's from the humidity in the air freezing on the ice cold intake. It is one of the main reasons methanol fuel can make 10-20% more power than gasoline fuel.
So even small amount with a mister system can have a large impact on air temp. You really do not have to remove that many BTUs from a cubic foot of air for the temp to drop. There is just a lot of cubic feet involved vs cooling the fuel itself.