refrigerated intercooler idea and discussion thread
 

well, today while i was doing a used vehicle inspection on a Saab 900 turbo i was taking a look at the intercooler setup on it thinking it was a nice setup for a universal application then i looked at the A/C condenser and an idea clicked in my head....

my idea is fairly simple but i forsee some problems with it. first, the idea is a intercooler module that uses refrigerant vapors from a standard A/C cooling system much like a evaporator core cools the cabin in a car. the module would be a sealed system using the refrigerant vapors to super cool the intake air as it passes the plates inside the sealed/divided system. the module could be placed anywhere in the engine compartment due to the modular design but obviously keeping it away from heat sources to keep it from heat soaking would be best.

the downside to this is it requires the A/C compressor to be running at all times during boost, ultimately putting more drag on the engine and likely would require an underdrive pulley to keep the compressor from burning up due to high RPM applications. the extra drag caused by the A/C compressor would be traded off with lower intake air temperatures ultimately allowing for higher horsepower gains from the engine due to a more dense air charge, this would also help prevent detonation.

i am still not all that experienced with turbos since this is my first forced induction car but i do know the basics and after thinking this over the tradeoff sounds like it would be worth it. i doubt i am the first to think of such a thing but i am wondering what the major drawbacks of using susch a system would be since i could virtually find no info on the subject on this site or on the net for that matter... i have never been revolutionary in my experiments so i'm sure this has been tried before and canned but i figured it would be worthy of a discussion anyhow.

another benefit of such a system would be it could be run paralell to the cabin refrigeration system to allow both cooling of the intercooler and still have A/C in the cockpit for those who choose to have both.

so am i retard or does this sound feasible? :)

You're trying for >100% efficiency in physics. Aint gonna happen. Stick with energy thats available, like wind for the intercooler.

On the other hand, if you had a second 5-10hp motor in the hatch running only the AC-intercooler system, it might work.

everything has pros and cons, harnessing the wind also adds drag to the car. please give explanations why one method is better than the other, i thought about the extra drag on the engine but i also figured that the cooling effects of using a refrigerant would also cool the intake charge about 10 times what the wind could do.


the underdrive pulley would also help reduce this drag to reduce top end power loss.

I too have had that idea plopped in my mind.

You already noticed the downside, the parasitic loss from the air conditioning. The question is if this drain is less than the power created from it. Supposedly in NA terms you get 1hp for every 10*(C i believe)) your drop an intake. Typically your A/C low side temp should probably be about 40* fahrenheight, compared to outside air (front mount intercooler effect) so probably about a 30-40* difference == about 5 hp. I would not think that economical. THIS IS ARBITRARY and COMPLETELY INACCURATE

Also, the way an intercooler works in theory (or any heat sink) is that its receiving a lot of air over a large surface area effect (like from a fan on a comp heatsink) You would also need to consider any fan and the incredible volumes of air that you are trying to cool in the time it takes for the air to get from your turbo to your engine (extremely quickly). If you are cooling something then the cold side of the ac will need time to absorb the heat from that object. So if you had your car ac cooling a house with a fairly large fan it would obviosley have very little effect.

A way to not be parasitic would be to use these small electronic thermocouples called peltiers (look on ebay). You could provide a temporary electric boost (battery pack and cap) to keep your car cool for a short period of time maybe before a race.

It would not be convenient to cool both the cabin and the intercooler at the same time because you would be doubling your cold side and therefore be transferring twice as much heat to the same sized warm side, ultimately this would barely cool both cold sources and might actually cause the hot side to get so warm that your a/c becomes incredibly ineffective.

Some have talked about a shot of co2 or n2o onto the intercooler to cool it down also.

Water injection would also provide you w/ less detonation, a cleaner engine, and more power due to the volumetric and heat properties of steam combines with the non burning factor.

that is interesting, i didn't think about the volume of air that it would need to cool, this would easily overheat a normal sized condenser and cause the system to stall while it cooled. see, i told you i was not revoltionary in my inventions, lol...

a peltier is a good idea for temporary cooling but i was thinking long term, it sounded good in my head at first but i knew there was a flaw with it or it would be widely accepted by now. ;)

Well then basically you would have to find ways to draw heat from the intercooler, if you are thinking about how a computer heatsink works, theres peltiers, and water cooling to draw heat out and cpu heatsinks are pretty damn effecient. So maybe you could find someway maybe to put something to watercool the the intercooler somehow and link it in to the stock cooling system or attach peltiers to the intercooler to the top flush part of the intercooler to draw heat how with some heat sink compound and get a intake temp gauge to measure if its making a diff or not. :\ I guess the gain would be pretty minimal and not really worth it though..

the intercooler water cooler would have to separate from the engine cooling, the coolant from the engine would be inefficient in cooling the intercooler, in fact it would likely have a warming affect on cooling it. a peltier system would probably be best but figuring out the cooling system to use with it is the issue.

Would running a C02 sprayer work almost as good, but with no power loss from the ac belt? Or N2...but C02 is much cheaper and I'm..well cheap :D

Sorry to hijack a little, but you think it would be worth getting a co2 sprayer for my top mount? If I can get the bottle realy cheap? I haven't seen any "halos" small enough for our tmic, but I guess I could fab one up..

good question, only time i see people using CO2 to cool the IC is at the drag strip but a sprayer to cool it from the cockpit has been done before, i just wonder if it is worth the effort though.

You could mod out *maybe* a water-air intercooler with the peltier(s). So you could have for example the air-water cooler inside the bay and route the pump lines to a couple or radiators with a good pump on the front of the car for the fluid cooling. You could maybe run oil instead of water for the cooling process, fuck if I know.

I have not read any of the posts above, so im not going to comment about the AC idea (I dont think it will work). If anything, try and improve whats already out there. The way I see it for turbocharging ideas, is if you can think about doing it, someone has already tried it in the last 20 years.. trust me. If it was really practical, then it would be in place right now. If you think its more than practical and no one knows, try it out for yourself and see.

The electrical load on the peltiers and pumps would be pretty crazy, heh.. you might even want to consider a seperate battery or alt just for that job.

This idea has been tried before and is always a failure. The gains either do not outweigh the losses compared to more common intercooler approaches (i.e. power lost to the AC compressor), or if they do are so small as to not warrant all the extra time and effort required to make it work okay.

Could you run Propane and Nitrous into the Air intake... The expansion of the gas in the intake would cool the incomming air and you would benefit from the added fuel...lor would this just be asking for a big explosion? What about misting water over the intercooler to take advantage of evaporative cooling?

I spent a decade building armored cars of all sorts. One of the best things to do when adding a ton or more of armor to a car is to start off with one that has some form of forced air induction. Through the years we happened across a contract for a Mercedes Benz S660. The car came with only two options from the dealer, Paint color and wheel package. The car came with a twin turbo v12. As I was disassembling the car I had to take the A/C lines loose before I pulled the dashboard out. While I was under the hood I noticed a very intricate plumbing of the refrigeration system. Then I noticed that the intakes where plumbed into a box that the a/c lines ran through. After scratching my head an following the plumbing around came to the conclusion that the intercoolers where refrigerated. Talk about a fast car, this thing was the largest boat Mercedes made but it pulled so hard in second gear it would almost make you black out.

Your ideal of refrigerated intercoolers is not only a great ideal, it is already in production.

They ran a stock boost of 22psi.

How about using a water/air intercooler but instead of ice water running throw the core have a small nitrous shot run throw it. Would take a few test to find the right jet that would not cause the intercooler to freeze but may work. Bet a 25/50 shot would work.

Just find the right size evaporator coil and add some end caps.

or you could just get a Cry02 Kit and call it a day. and btw, hello 2005

I'm actually glad you revived this thread. I have never found it. I've only recently thought about a refrigerated intake box... A refrigerated intercooler would be an even better idea, though. Shows you how far ahead Karack was/is.

Yes, there have been several cars and trucks that have used A/C refrigeration to cool the air to water intercooler stock.

First I had heard of it was the early '90s GM Syclone truck.

You basically want to have a high mass water to air heat exchanger (bigger and heavier the better) with lines for the A/C refrigerant where the water would normally be and run your water to where the intake air would normally go. This is a easy cheap way to get high surface area heat exchanger.

The high mass is good because when you are on the throttle you want your A/C to cut off (just like stock) so you aren't wasting power to the A/C compressor. The high mass of the A/C chilled heat exchanger will slow your water temp rise as you boost.

You still run other air to water heat exchangers.

The loss in horsepower is so small when compared to the gain of running the compressor. In essence is is an air over evaporated refrigerant setup. I have been looking at the stock evaporator coil and it would make a worthy component for a test build. We have some really advanced aluminum mig welders at work I really want to build one now...

lol, i totally forgot about this idea....

would be alot of work but it would definitely work and many have used similar in the form of a water to air intercooler with icewater. of course that is only a temporary thing where an A/C system could cool the core much quicker and much more often when the power loss from the compressor is not apparent. running it continuously would negate the power gains(or would it? keep reading). for a strict drag racing application it may work but also adds a bit of weight but would be virtually maintenance free.

thing about IAT drop is it allows you to run more boost. so arguably the compressor may draw 5% total horsepower but if it allows you to run 2-3 more PSI safely then the horsepower gains CAN in fact push beyond the loss from the compressor. of course race gas would be the simple option versus pump gas with it's rather low autoignition tables. thing to remember about turbos is they are not all created equal, one turbo may only push 10whp per psi where another can push 50+whp per psi of boost at certain pressure levels.


timing the compressor actuation could be another route, well, feasable. we need a mythbuster episode for this!

create a system capable of cooling the cabin and the intercooler and you may have something(mentioned above) for a street car with creature comforts and additional safety for running higher boost. problem i foresee with that is the RPM speed of the compressor near redline would likely be hammering most conventional A/C compressors, even stock most newer 7's cut off the compressor at WOT.

damn my german brain..

That's a great point about being able to run higher boost, at first glance I didn't think this had much potential. For a lot of the time during WOT the wastegate is opened far, wasting some energy that could be put to use compressing the intake charge more. The electric AC system makes much more sense for this use, just like electric water pumps.

Think Liquid-to-Air core for intake looped to Liquid-to-Refrigerant core. Could be the same exact model as LtoA. The liquid acts adds buffering capacity so that during boost, it is ok for the compressor to shut off. :) Add a small surge tank for increased liquid capacity and expansion. Add TXV on the Liquid-to-Refrigerant. Temperature switch on the Liquid-to-refrigerant that turns on the circulation pump- attempts to maintain the liquid in the loop at a temperature set of choice-say, 60* or 75* liquid temp.



Advantages: Disadvantages:This is and has been my plan for my future N/A Turbo Convertible project. Project is on the back-burner while restoring my 10 Anny.

Several modifications need to be done the the refrigeration loop and to the stock compressor controls to accommodate the additional hardware, but that is beyond the scope of this post. Plus I don't want to give away all my random thoughts and lead someone down a frivolous path.

I like the electric ideal and chilled water but my concern is added weight. Forget creature comforts, the ideal is to use everything under the hood. the A/C compressor hammer/cavitation is an easy fix, simply under-drive the pulley. Refrigerant flow will not really be needed until higher rpm's where the turbo starts really moving some air and increasing IAT's. The air/water/refrigeration ideal really does have potential if it where tied into a alcohol injection system, 50/50 mix would have a significantly lower freezing point allowing you to prechill both the AI and intercooler. With the right alternator, power inverter, and mini fridge coils you could potentially bring the fluid temps to -40f before the fluid would start to freeze. This would be great for time attack or drag applications. My ideal is to run a system that does not require a regeneration cycle and runs continuously, the potential extends beyond performance and can affect economy and longevity as well.

Going out and i mean way out on a limb here. Travel trailers have a propane refrigeration system that uses a furnace to refrigerate, something similar could be used in conjunction with exhaust gasses.

I like driving my car in the winter. ;)
Water injection is nice too.

I'm sure someone will build this fantastic system into a 25 year old FC.

i don't look at my car as a 25 year old piece of machinery when i have a handheld sitting next to me that i can adjust almost any engine function within a few seconds and the car has well over twice the horsepower that it originally came with, all while the simple engine is relatively as it was designed when it rolled off the assembly plant with very minor changes done to it in its 210,000 miles.

who wants to redesign a brand new car that they just spent $40k for and void the warranty? and in actuality most new cars it is very easy to do more harm than good as technology increases and you have inexperienced "tuners" throwing ebay parts on because they are claimed to be "better".

Hey Ben! This is the answer to your original question.

Mercedes KC Kit Gen 3 all years* | Kincaid Performance, Inc.

Ok...I'll say it..

That is So Cool!!!..lol!

would be nice to store the cool refrigerant and use it for short bursts to keep the intercooler cool, ideally you wouldn't want to have the compressor running when you are trying to make power as that is counterproductive.

What they are doing in this particular car is using the existing OEM water to air intercooler system and enhancing it with the refrigeration adapter. Lots of the guys will also add a small storage tank of a couple of gallons capacity to create a supply of cool/cold water for when the A/C compressor turns off. I believe it turns off based on RPM only, not throttle position. In this car, the intercooler water pump doesn't run constantly. It only runs when the car is boosting.

same thing basically, now i have the time for those ideas but no money. go figure.

Or the AC compressor could be electric and driven by auxiliary Li battery.

any form of battery would have to be charged outside the car, which would be a huge pain and the battery would have to be large to do that amount of work. charging any form of battery from the engine is even less efficient than a mechanical conversion.

i drive a hybrid, i know how much the losses are with charging batteries. hehe

These systems have been on the market for a while
Most new car guys dont like giving up a cool cabin and for whatver reason lots of drama follows the guys who make the systems

First real helpful post on the forums here, I'll try to be as helpful as I can. As an hvac professional the amount of heat you are looking to remove (130f+ in some cases) would cause MOST car hvac compressorS to run such a high head pressure to the point of extreme inefficiency. Let's say you have a small 400 sqft shop, it's uninsulated and in direct sunlight. It's average inside temp when sealed reaches 95f. Now you put in a 1.5 ton system and expect it to remove the heat from that space. Although it's only 400sqft the heat load is through the roof, so the system would never bring the space below 85f if your lucky. Now let's say you have a large fan, the fan moves 1000cfm or so, you open the doors to the shop and let the fan evacuate the heat. Now the shop in theory should be close to the outdoor temp in the shade. Ok, let's say you put 4 tons of cooling in said space. Yes it will more than likely cool the space but at what cost? You'll probably get another 10f drop vs the fan but the fan pulls 1/8 the power dran so what's the better option? My point is, it could be done yes. Is it worth the amount of drain weather I be electrical drain through the battery then the alternator then the engine or through the compressor then the engine. In the end using the free cooling you have (air flowing through the front of the car) is so much more efficient it's not even funny.


Cliff notes: you cannot use the oem ac system or any oem ac system to drop the intake temp more than what a quality fmic would.

you're overthinking the issue though. the A/C system is just a system of heat exchangers, so is the intercooler. the intercooler does generate a lot of heat but we aren't trying to bring the temps down to 32F.

many people use water to air intercoolers, except the water has a limited thermal capacity so it's more for drag racing. turn the air conditioner into a partial cooler for the water and you now have a water battery for cooling off the intercooler.

in my mind that idea would work, not for track duty but for the intermittent burst of boost, like a highway duel where you can cool off the water between runs.

Run electric motor with supplied power from alternator if your alternator can supply enough amps. Thermostatically controlled. Guessing motor would pull a lot of current since just by turning on a/c system, revs dip.

Been eyeing electric superchargers, going to school for mechatronics, been messing with raspberry pi to control systems.

Know you've been thinking of this for years, but would be cool to see some data you've acquired over the years or some weekend project you tried with this idea. Always curious on what you're working on

Here is a thread where a guy is using Killer Chiller at the drag strip and street. It seems to work pretty well he says for "mainly for street driving with a few quick blast up to 140mph on the interstate".

Killer Chiller installed / heat exchanger removed = 50 degree IATS ! - MBWorld.org Forums

KC's website is pretty much absolutely worthless for information describing how their system works.

because most of them are terrible to deal with, its as if they are all the same person every company fit sucks and lots of drama surrounding them

This might help give an overview.

There is a rotary race bike that is "gas cooled"...i dont know the details but it sounds to me as if the whole engine is refridgereted, so it should work on an ic too?