Re: Inercooler cooling

[Brett Dikeman <brett@pdikeman.ne.mediaone.net>]

>Alright, so some people mis-understood the question.  Let me rephrase.  Is
>the intercooler really working in RELATIVELY low speed (stop and go even)
>situations?  It doesn't seem far fetched to imagine the IC actually soaking
>up heat from the engine when stopped at a light, so how long does it take
>after you start moving for the IC to start having a substantial beneficial
>effect?  Would you already be at 60mph?  That would only be less than 10
>seconds.  I realise that at a constant 60mph the IC is working nicely.  I
>haven't found too many cities I can drive through without stopping.
>Still curious.
you've hit on the exact problem with air-air IC's.  Heat soak and semi-slow
recovery time.  On cars with the IC right in front of the radiator, it's a
tradeoff; you've still got airflow thanks to the radiator fan, but lots of
radiant heat and not much airflow at speed due to the additional resistance
of the radiator behind the IC.

Spearco now sells a neat little IC that's a water-air IC; it's designed for
all those honda etc. drag racers; you pop in ice cubes and fill it up; it's
basically one of their IC cores, with two "saddle" tanks on either side.
The water holds temp long enough for one short drag run, then the ice
starts to cool the water down again, etc.

When used with a air-air IC first, it's supposedly _very_ effective.
However, at $500 for something that's good for only a bit, not my kind of
solution.  It is very elegant for the racers, because you don't have to
wire in a radiator, plumbing, etc. for a normal water-air IC.

Brett

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Brett Dikeman
brett@pdikeman.ne.mediaone.net
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