Humidity VS Performance
 

How much does humidity effect your FD's? When it is a VERY humid day, sometimes as I accelerate, it is almost as if my turbos just stop working completely for a second or two, then kick back in. Also the overall boost seems down.

Anyone else have any of these experiences with humid conditions? At times the effects seem very drastic on the turbos.

Thx

RXJoey

It's not the turbos, it's a simple matter of more water molecules instead of oxygen in the same volume. Same thing will happen at high altitudes and temperatures.
Ambient Pressure (altitude), ambient temperature, humidity all have adverse effect on the amount of oxygen going into the engine.

Bah, your car loves humidity. It's like free water injection. It's just that, for most of the country, humidity comes with heat, which is the real performance killer.

Rub it in Mr. California!! ;)

Cool thx for the posts, and here's hoping the humidity goes away soon :)

I drove to and from Tampa this weekend, and I noticed my engine temps were higher as the humidity increased.

Saturday; GA: 89C, FL: 94C
Sunday; FL: 93C, GA: 89C

I know those temps are a bit high, but I was cruising at a rather high speed :)

[Edit]

Oh, I meant to add that the intake temps were the same all around.

Turbos spin at 10s of thousands RPM. If they cut out momentarily, it's probably the turbo control valves or actuators being controlled incorrectly.

humidity does drop density, esp at high ambient temps. Example:

At 110F, and zero Relative Humidity (Phoenix?), a volume of air would have 11% more oxygen that at 110F and 100% humidity. But if at 60F, going from zero to 100% RH you only loose 2% oxygen content.

No benefit in density like cooling effect of wi, as the water vapor mass is low and it is heated just like the air. May have trace amounts of anti-knock value.

http://wahiduddin.net/calc/calc_hp.htm