Coolant Jacket mods - Question
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From: Behind a workbench, repairing FC Electronics.
Coolant Jacket mods - Question

I know that doing this causes the combustion area near the spark plugs to stay cooler resulting in less chance of detonation.
What happens if you do this in other areas of the rotor housing?
I know it'd probably be a waste to do it in the exhaust area. Heat can leave the engine through the exhaust gasses
What about the intake area and upper area where the rotor is in compression stage?
Would the coolant be warmer than the intake charge, thus resulting in warming the intake charge and result in lost performance?
OR
Would the coolant be cooler than the intake charge thus resulting in cooling the intake charge and increasing performance?
I think the fact that ambient air temps are lower than coolant temps with an NA, and thats all that area sees, you wouldn't see any power gains. With a turbo, who knows. Remember we're dealing with thousands of degrees from the spark plugs, not hundreds in the intake tract and cooling passages.
What you are doing with those ridges is creating more surface area for the transfer of heat from the metal to the coolant. The only time the coolant temp would be lower then the intake charge would be when the engine is cold. Once it reaches operating temp the intake charge will almost always be cooler (in a N/A motor, turbo is a different story). Trying to use the engine coolant to cool the intake charge is inefficient at best. As far as adding more ridges to the cooling system, that would take some research. On the plus side it provides more surface area which means more area to transfer heat. On the downside the ridges introduce turbulence to the coolant flow which could potentially cause a bigger problem. Water cavitation though the cooling system can lead to flow volume problems and potentially introduce air to the coolant stream which will reduce the efficency of heat transfer to the coolant from the metal. That can cause hot spots which are a bad thing. If you wanted to increase the surface area of the coolant ports you could just enlarge the ports by porting them as you would an intake port. You would want to end up with a somewhat rougher finish similar to the as-cast surface as that roughness increase surface area on a smaller level while keeping turbulence to a minimum. If you left it totally smooth you loose heat transfer capability. When its all said and done, I think there are much better ways to address higher coolant temp issues such as a more efficient radiator, the addition of coolant additives such as water wetter which reduces the surface tension of the coolant and a better fan. Just my 2 cents.
P.S. air/water intercoolers dont use the engine coolant, they are a separate system.
P.S. air/water intercoolers dont use the engine coolant, they are a separate system.
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