Is this worth the money????

Before I drop 4 bills on the intercooler cooler , I wanted to know if anyone did this (was it worth it????)?

After doing a web search, I'm more confused now than ever The attached link says it robs HP

http://www.cryofuzion.com/spraybar.htm

Summit Racing link to intercooler systems

 

anytime yu cool the intake charge, boost drop or not it increases ponies. Aslong as your motor isn't breathing that inert gas. That being said, Id drop that money on water/alky. far better return for the money, easier to refill (blue washer fluid) and does a superb job keeping the combustion chamber free of carbon.

 

I absolutely agree with BTF. One reason is just plain physics. Lets say its a 90 degree day outside, and your average intake air charge temperature at peak boost is say 180 to 200 degrees F. That means there is a delta T between 90 and 110 degrees. It would take a HUGE intercooler, to cool the incoming air mass any appreciable amount. By huge I am meaning an intercooler that isn't going to fit in your car. I have a liquid to air intercooler in my suburban that I paid Mr. Whipple an extra $1500 for because he said my engine would make an additional 30hp with this setup.......NOT!!!

The reason it don't work is because once the water or in my case anti-freeze that circulates within the intercooler system gets hot due to ambient engine heat and absorbing the air charge heat, it can't cool as efficiently as it does when its cold. Now in a race application where you can carry a larger resorvoir and have the ability to add ICE to the resorvoir, yes it will work.

Now, the reason I agree with BTF I posted this on an earlier thread about liquid intercooling............ alky injection intercooling or as some would call aqueous intercooling works well because of the physical properties of water called LATENT HEAT. One thing we all have to remember about alky or water injection in general. While we all are wanting the so called "intercooling effect" of the aqueous type of intercooling. Most of the cooling doesn't really take place in the intake manifold itself. Where it does take place is in the combustion chamber. This is where the latent heat characturistics of water cools the chamber temperatures down drastically. Latent heat is defined as the amount of energy (in this case heat) that a liquid absorbs before it changes state from a liquid to a vapor. In the case of water its latent heat value is 2258 kj/kg while gasoline is 348 kj/kg.

As you can see water absorbs considerably more heat energy than gasoline does. So the actual intercooling takes place within the combustion chamber. It is a good idea to place the IAT closer to the air filter or tune the IAT compensation tables out so that there is either no compensation of little. I would prefer to see the sensor just downstream of the filter. Another thing to remember in the cases where alcohol is also used. Alcohol is another fuel source, so that means that when you are tuning, you have to take that into consideration as well. Meaning that if you tune for a 50% mix of water and alcohol, you should maintain that mixture. Because if you were to say just have water in the resorvoir one day, you may risk a lean out.

 

I got the cure for your suburban TJ, Use your a/c in a dual evap mode to chill your tank. In fact, a suburban is where I got the idea from, only originally I wanted to straight up use the a/c evaportator in the airstream. Well, there isn't really enought thermal inertia in one to make it thru a boost run, hense the need for water to serve as the capicitor. It's very easy to do, and you can buy most of the parts thru grainger, and have the (3 way)hose made at a local shop. we have never seen any Iat's above 120deg F on bruces car. Even when it was boost spiking to 11-13 psi. The funny thing is, Iat's before the boost event are usually around 110F on a hot day. If only the pipe between the intercooler and intake were coated, I bet iat's would drop even more.

So 85 stalker, going to water air/chilled res is a option for you as well.
But going water/meth is cheaper, easier, and lighter. It just has to be checked to make sure you got enough sause for the day.

 

BTF do you have any pictures of your resorvoir setup that you did for Bruce? My resorvoir is mounted on my firewall, and holds about 2 or 3 quarts. I could make a new one with an internal evap core and plumb my AC lines to it. I thought about doing that as I have increased boost to 8 PSI on the old 8.1L. And now that there are some aftermarket heads for this engine, I may do that as well. Raylar says that with their cam and heads on a NA engine they make 520+ HP from the 8.1 engines. I figure its more like 480+ because they are using GMs marine engine testing standards which are not the same as the truck standards.

 

yep they're on my site. I'll post the link. The tank is a 3 gallon dragster cell with about 25-30 ft of copper tubing coiled into it. I used a 1.5 ton bulb style expansion valve with the bulb in the tank. the return hose was custom made.

 

Thanks for the great info guys!!!! Time for me to do some some more research with my engine builder to figure out which way we are going to go....

He is running a 10" tire Outlaw Mustang Stroker with a 300 shot. My goal is to give him a run -- but damn, that thing is fast!

 

How do you tune out the IAT compensation with the DFI?

85 stalker,

I would have to agree with BTF, TJW. Meth is the way to go. Very easy and cheap to refill and works very well. I run VP M1 meth and water mix. ECS and snow both make good units. The only downside to the snow is that the reservior is too small.

 

these intercooler sprays were populer with the EVO/*** import people a while ago. they did work for thoes guys, but only for short periods. i think some of the serious guys started using them brfore drag runs to get the initial temp of the intercoolers down. then left them off on the run. thinking about it, you would prob get the same/better results from cramming your intercooler full of dry ice before the run.

water injection is a good idea on any FI motor. it will allow higher boost presure, more compresion and more advance on the timing. and its not just down to the amount of energy required for the water to change state (sorry for got the term) its also the fact that it take 4.2KJ of energy to heat 1kg of water by 1 degrees K! thats a huge amount!

thanks Chris.