cooling the alky

[1dollardog]

Is there any benifit of cooling the alky while racing or is this not a good idea. I was thinking it could be cooled at the track with ice packs around the tank between races. I don't race but was just wandering if it was a good idea or not.

 

[Razor]

The faster you can get the alcohol to flash.. the better. Freezing the alcohol for example delays this reaction. You dont want liquid entering the engine.. you want the alcohol to flash and atomize with the incoming air so it distributes.

Some have had the idea of wrapping the pressure hose around the lower radiator hose to pickup heat. the down side to doing this if the alcohol hits 160 degree's it will boil.. and if the boiling alky makes it back to the pump.. it can then get air.. and then the pump wont move it. This is why pumps shouldnt be in the engine compartment.

So.. I would say no. But your welcome to try and experiment

 

[1dollardog]

No exerementing here, I'll leave that to the experts:smile: . I'm just fishing for info. I just figured that if alky was used primarily to cool the intake gasses somewhat that it made some sense to cool the alky. But I didn't think about it screwing up the flash point. So how about the gasoline itself. Is it better cooler or warmer?

 

[Razor]

Need to keep all fuels cool, not cold. If the gasoline gets too hot it boils and will cause vapor lock.

On carburated race cars they use cool cans. Moroso sells them. I have never seen them on fuel injected apps with return systems.

 

[BlackMetal]

Good info to know.

 

[davekusa]

Listen to Razor. I tried it. Had it cooled to 10F. You could see the computer pulling out fuel to compensate for the added alky but the IAT only dropped 5-10F versus 50F alky dropping IAT 30-40F. On the other end of the spectrum I had accidentally pointed my blow off valve toward the alky resevoir and heated the alky to 130F+ resulting in the same correction on fuel but an increase in IAT and 3 melted pistons.