Liquid nitrogen on the intercooler

[michael evans]

Wondering if anyone offers a kit to spray on the intercooler like a friend of mine does on his Procharged V8 ?

 

[turbo nasty]

Thats what Alky is for.

 

[No disintegrations]

Do you mean compressed co2? (also nitrous can do this job) I would think liquid nitrogen would allow boost to shatter the aluminum cooler? plus very dangerous to handle

 

[bison]

There is very little real time cooling going on at wot. Cooling the surface of the intercooler can help a little but the biggest gains come from getting the pressure drop reduced (better core) and getting the turbo all in.


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[Nick Micale]

A few years ago when southern California had more drag strips like Carlsbad, I had a match race with a Toyota P/U there, and he was using CO2 spray on his front mount intercooler with a 1987 GN drivetrain.

He was still in the testing phase, but I remember his inlet air temp was about 40 degrees at the end of a pass on a 80 deg day!

We were both low 10 sec. cars then and my IAT was more than double his at the end of a run.

There we a few companies that had kits for spraying intercoolers as this was very effective. The spray was usually activated at WOT only.

 

[turbo89]

A few years ago when southern California had more drag strips like Carlsbad, I had a match race with a Toyota P/U there, and he was using CO2 spray on his front mount intercooler with a 1987 GN drivetrain.

He was still in the testing phase, but I remember his inlet air temp was about 40 degrees at the end of a pass on a 80 deg day!

We were both low 10 sec. cars then and my IAT was more than double his at the end of a run.

There we a few companies that had kits for spraying intercoolers as this was very effective. The spray was usually activated at WOT only.

What intercooler setup were you running that day .. front mount ?

 

[Nick Micale]

My first FM was a Powerstroke unit we modified.

When I went to the large RJC front mount, I would average air temp at the finish line about 10 degrees lower from the start.

 

[turbo89]

My first FM was a Powerstroke unit we modified.

When I went to the large RJC front mount, I would average air temp at the finish line about 10 degrees lower from the start.

When you say 10 degrees lower from the start .. I would assume your talking air temperature around the core and not IAT .. pretty impressive intercooler
if at the end of the pass the IAT is around ambient .. never seen anything that efficient .. heck its hard to get a liquid close to ambient at the end of the run and that has ice water going through it

 

[Pronto]

Thought spraying on the intercooler was not allowed at the track?

 

[turbo89]

Thought spraying on the intercooler was not allowed at the track?

Depends what your spraying and what track ..

There are huge benefits to it for certain applications

 

[Pronto]

Ya, I can see it would help but in the NHRA general regulations they say no artificial spray or coolant on the intake is allowed. Never asked the tech but they are usually pretty uninformed anyway.

 

[Nick Micale]

When you say 10 degrees lower from the start .. I would assume your talking air temperature around the core and not IAT .. pretty impressive intercooler
if at the end of the pass the IAT is around ambient .. never seen anything that efficient ............

Thank you, my car has been set up to be as efficient as possible.

As you probably know, boost is restriction, when air is turned, like in a bend, this is a restriction and heats the air. I have done many things to reduce and eliminate restriction for the air inlet into the turbo, and this applies to the hot exhaust gas side as well.

My heads are very well ported, I also have custom headers we fabricated, and the turbo was oriented so the air inlet faces front which directs air straight into the turbo with very shallow bends and no turns in this ram air path.

This also allows a no-bend path for the exhaust also with a very shallow path as well, no 90 degree bend right at the turbo exit.

My IAT sensor is in the throttle body, so this tells me this it a very efficient system, and an excellent intercooler.

The car also runs on e-85 which is certainly a factor for engine cooling vs. 116 octane race fuel!

 

[Rafs-T-Type]

Ya, I can see it would help but in the NHRA general regulations they say no artificial spray or coolant on the intake is allowed. Never asked the tech but they are usually pretty uninformed anyway.

Is nitrogen considered artificial?

 

[Pronto]

I think the jist of it is they don't want any liquid or gas released in the engine compartment or dripped on the track. A closed system would be ok like a water cooled intercooler.

 

[~JM~]

A friend of mine had a turbocharged, FMIC, SBC, Malibu for a while. He would pre-cool the IC by spraying it with N2O straight from the bottle before a run. After a while the IC came apart. They were able to repair it by welding the crack. I had thought that cycling the aluminum through heat & cold may have made the material brittle.

 

[Rafs-T-Type]

A friend of mine had a turbocharged, FMIC, SBC, Malibu for a while. He would pre-cool the IC by spraying it with N2O straight from the bottle before a run. After a while the IC came apart. They were able to repair it by welding the crack. I had thought that cycling the aluminum through heat & cold may have made the material brittle.

I'm not sure it would make it brittle, but it probably fatigued something from extensive expansion and contraction.

 

[No disintegrations]

A friend of mine had a turbocharged, FMIC, SBC, Malibu for a while. He would pre-cool the IC by spraying it with N2O straight from the bottle before a run. After a while the IC came apart. They were able to repair it by welding the crack. I had thought that cycling the aluminum through heat & cold may have made the material brittle.

As I said in post 3 super cold metal is not happy.

 

[1986 Buick GX1]

Is nitrogen considered artificial?

Make sure you use certified, all natural, organic, free range nitrogen that has no MSG or growth hormones, that way you can run it at any track you like.

 

[robzombie]

There is very little real time cooling going on at wot. Cooling the surface of the intercooler can help a little but the biggest gains come from getting the pressure drop reduced (better core) and getting the turbo all in.


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That is simply not true. I have seen WTA intercoolers pick up more than three tenths at the track. Granted it was in a true race car and the water was pumped from a tank full of ice water. After two passes the tank has to be refilled with ice. If the system isn't pulling heat out and condensing the air why is the ice melting so fast???

The three tenths number comes from same car same day same setup, just that he didn't have ice in the WTA to drop the water temp.

I also have used this type of setup on my diesel in the past and it worked well until it got heat soaked [rad wasn't big enough].

My point is that your statement is wrong if the system or approach you have in place can effectively drop the air temps by even as little as 10*/20* over ambient.

Temperature plays a big role here because as the air temperature is increased, its density decreases (PV = nRT for you science buffs). Therefore, if the temperature of the ambient air is increased, the turbocharger now must do more work (spin faster) in order to provide the engine with the same amount of oxygen. As temperatures continue to increase, the turbocharger can no longer increase its speed efficiently and therefore can no longer provide the engine with the same amount of oxygen. This results in a loss of power.

Lastly, if there is no real time cooling taking place at WOT I guess I can sell my intercooler as it's just dead weight slowing me down.

 

[bison]

That is simply not true. I have seen WTA intercoolers pick up more than three tenths at the track. Granted it was in a true race car and the water was pumped from a tank full of ice water. After two passes the tank has to be refilled with ice. If the system isn't pulling heat out and condensing the air why is the ice melting so fast???

The three tenths number comes from same car same day same setup, just that he didn't have ice in the WTA to drop the water temp.

I also have used this type of setup on my diesel in the past and it worked well until it got heat soaked [rad wasn't big enough].

My point is that your statement is wrong if the system or approach you have in place can effectively drop the air temps by even as little as 10*/20* over ambient.

Temperature plays a big role here because as the air temperature is increased, its density decreases (PV = nRT for you science buffs). Therefore, if the temperature of the ambient air is increased, the turbocharger now must do more work (spin faster) in order to provide the engine with the same amount of oxygen. As temperatures continue to increase, the turbocharger can no longer increase its speed efficiently and therefore can no longer provide the engine with the same amount of oxygen. This results in a loss of power.

Lastly, if there is no real time cooling taking place at WOT I guess I can sell my intercooler as it's just dead weight slowing me down.

Ive got plenty of data showing that maximizing the intercooler design nets huge gains. There are plenty of intercoolers on the market that will drop inlet temperatures close to ambient yet pick up little to no performance over others with less temperature drop. Also the ones that caused the most drop were a lot heavier. The ones with the big temp drop usually don't flow enough and cause large pressure drops. 3-4psj loss across a core is simply unacceptable when looking to maximize performance. Some are worse. Yes very little real time cooling. There's no way to get enough air over the core to remove the heat of the mass of the air flowing through it. Almost all the cooling effect is heat sinkage into the core mass of the core. Not heat exchanged to the air.


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