Howzit, rx'ers- Maybe this is a brain fart, but has anyone considered hooking up their a/c cold air duct to their cold air intake? Cold air density charge is good for combustion right?- thoughts?- Aloha

 

Better used as an intercooler. I don't think the benefits would outweigh the power drag on a non-turbo engine.

One way to find out though - dyno test it back to back and see what the results are.

FWIW I didn't see much benefit from icing the carb and intake manifold at the dragstrip. And I would *fill* the air cleaner outside of the filter with ice, put ice on the carb spacer plate, put ice in the ACV hole (note: this only works if you plug the air ports in the rotor housings and thus don't need an ACV blockoff), and put the rest of the ice bag on top of the air cleaner lid.

Before anyone asks, yes, I did make sure that all of the ice in the air cleaner was melted before shutting the hood and making my run...

 

that system you speak of is being tested by ford and seems to work effectively for them. however, they are working with EFI. you are working with a carb i assume. big difference there. i think it would work to an extent but the drag put on the engine by ther compressor would probably even things out. meaning it would be like you did nothing to increase performance. just my opinion.

 

sometimes the stupidest ideas are the best in the long run.

 

Ford is testing it on naturally aspirated cars?

I do know that one of their supercharged V8s (Lightning?) uses an A/C evaporator core as an intercooler. And the idea's been around for a looooong time.

 

This is a thermodynamic losing situation - you can't gain more power from running your A/C, even if ALL of it, into your intake. Here's why;

The A/C compressor gets it's power from the crankshaft on the engine via belt, as the compressor is turned, it pumps high pressure freon (or R134 for some of you) through an expansion valve which cools the fluid (if it were a gas, it wouldn't work). This pumping action requires a lot of energy from the engine - enough so that Mazda designed an air control system to INCREASE the idle speed to keep it from killing the engine when the A/C turns on...

If you were to route the cooler A/C air to the intake, yes, you're providing colder air than outside, but you're also using energy from the engine to make it cold. Even a turbocharger has tremendous power losses to power it, and superchargers (belt-driven), also require huge amounts of power to make them even marginally successful in increasing overall engine performance.

You are burning crankshaft energy in an attempt to bring in cold air, but the gains that you have with colder intake air will have no chance to overcome the losses from powering the A/C compressor. When you add ice to the system (not dry ice, btw), then you're using an outside source to absorb heat.

There's no winning with this situation, and you can't hope to break even. Dyno test it,... you'll see.

 

Good Point