So I've had this idea for a while of a trunk mounted Ice box for our intercooler system. Basically it would consist of a coolant line from the exit side of the heat exchanger (preferably running through the cabin) running into the trunk to a fitting in the side of a box. Inside the box the coolant would move through some coiled tubing and then to a return fitting which would feed it back to the intercooler endplate.

Now the box would have a lid fitted to it so that ice could easily be dropped in around the coiled tubing to give the coolant a nice drop in temps.
It would also need a valve on the bottom to empty the water after the ice has melted. I have an Optima Yellow top battery so I have taken the battery vent tube off and was thinking I would be able to connect some tubing from the empty valve on the ice box to the venting grommet in the spare tire well to dump water out under the car when the ice melts.

Other thoughts were also to use a small transmission cooler (heat exchanger) instead of coiled tubing mounted inside the ice box for cooling.

Also what are your thoughts on a box material? I was thinking of Aluminum or actually using a small plastic cooler.

So..... give me your input on this idea it may be a fun summer project for me

So far here are my thoughts on it:

Pros:
-Cooled intake temps for a denser charge, more power, and a more efficient running engine
-Even when not in use with ice it would still have a positive cooling effect on the coolant
-Could be used in conjunction with dual-pass mod
-Would be done by myself except for possibly box construction (I cant weld)-inexpensive

Cons(worries an unknwons):
-Im not sure of the specs on the pump and I wonder if it will be able to handle the extra coolant and length it has to travel????
-Would this require tuning????

 

seems like too much work for the small benefits it would probably produce. you gotta make sure the pump can fight through all that line safely. I'd say that's where you're problems lie. You might need an extra inline pump. my own opinion is I dont think it's worth it. good luck tho man.

 

yah thats where im thinking the trouble will be as well. This would leave a lot of room for upgrades though being able to keep the heat down.

 

go buy a paintball CO2 canister. before you run the track open her up and spray down the heat exchanger

 

^pretty much what he said.. they sell front mount kits that will spray cold Co2 into your heat exchanger..also with all that heat going into that ice it wont last that long your just keep having to refill it also the weight you add into the car wont help it much... sounds like a good idea but it wont add any HP

 

lol i could i already have a 20 oz. tank with an on/off valve but that is just like the N2O spry bar kits they dont work to well with air to water coolers. Im also thinking this would be a little more useful on the street.

yah the ice would be more for the track not everyday use

 

Ice probably would do the trick simply beceause of the heat.

However...Dry Ice would be perfect for this application. Biggest thing would be to find somewhere that sells it.


My dad used to work for a dairy and he got it all the time for free.

If your unaware what dry ice is, its pretty much a solid piece of ice, that doesnt melt per say...when it "melts" it lets off a harmless smoke..its mainly used in haunted houses and crap.

Its extremely cold, and lasts for a long amount of time. It will smoke when water or any other liquid touches it....so id recommend if you went this route to make your chamber air tight otherwise nobody will let you run seeing smoke pouring out of your trunk.

 

Says who??

And to TCarter, dry ice is frozen CO2, thats why it doesnt melt, it evaporates, or sublimes if you want to be technical. Awesome stuff.

 

Just make an icebox that goes in front of the passenger seat with room in there for some sodas as well.

 

haha meijer sells it, i had thought of that too, it would be interesting to see how long it lasted.

ahhhhhh sorry they dont work well with OUR air to water HEAT EXCHANGER since it is not mounted up front and tougher to get to. I cant find the thread but someone did it and dumped ice water on the HE and had noticeable results with the water and not the CO2.

But im looking for something more permanent that I dont have to mess with a lot.

 

Then wait awhile. There is a company working on a new type of cooling system that will mimic a "dry ice" system.
It will be all electronic and produce about 800watts of cooling power. It is still in the design phase but I have seen most of the components, as this setup will be on my car. This is a quote from an email I got today:

This unit will not be available for a while yet but it is something that will require next to know messing with, other than flicking a switch when you plan on racing. No it won't be cheap but I am told it's worth the price.
And this a permant setup.

 

heh, if you want something more permanent that you dont got to mess with, you might want to look into getting a A/C, sticking it in your trunk, and running the vents onto your engine/h/e.

 

What are you talking about?? I know of a car that was equipped with an intercooler sprayer, the spray bar actually fit between the condensor and the H/E radiator. I never got to use the system myself, but the driver told me a 10 sec spray was good for about 4 more pounds of boost, and over 30Tq on the dyno. It can be done, but it is a lot of hassle and not as regulated as an icebox.

On a similar note, anyone converting over to a return style fuel system would be well served by a cool-can for the fuel to help with the high heat levels the fuel rail sees under full throttle/boost operation for any length of time.

 

victory are these guys who are developing this kit talking about using peltier cooling for the heat exchanger? that's a big mess for the payoff. for those who don't know a peltier is a ceramic (i think) pad with a current sent through it.

one side will get so cold ice forms and the other side gets hot as ****!!! i have it on my comp. you have to cool the hot side with a water system so the heat doesn't pass through to the cold side. this will also need a special power source with a good rail b/c this will draw alot of amps.
-Victory am i right?

 

That is a question I will ask as I have heard nothing about using anything ceramic.
The design is like two giant heat sinks with several cooling modules in between.
We are also using "state of the art" cooling modules, that have just come to the market, as well as a couple of German engineered fans.
You are correct about this using alot of power. Fortunately, for me, my whole car is stripped so rigging the system up for the extra power is esier to do. This will also allow for some testing on how to do this for others with minimal mods to the electrical system.

 

DEI:CRY02 system

 

pelters are a cool idea, but you need to figure in the thermal dynamics of them. Are they going to be drawing more power from the engine than what they can produce? This would be the same draw backs as pipping the AC into the intake. You draw more power from the engine then what is produced. Also peltiers do a good job of cooling computer parts, but i dont believe they are powerful enough to cool the water temp. It would take a very large peltier that draws a ton of power to keep up with the heat that is produced by the charger. I mean look right now it uses a raidator with 2 fans drawing 30 amps each and its barely enough.

Peltiers arent the way and neither is a catch can. That trick worked well on carburated engines because they would cool the gasoline, so they would only have to take something that is ambient air temp and bring it down. Your trying to cool something that is 150+F, the ice wont last long enough or your going to require so much ice and water the effects of it will be lost by the added weight.

 

i disagree. i believe that with a 2nd battery or other electrical upgrades, it would be able to power a decent peltier. and peltiers get sub zero temps on them. cpu's on computers can create alot of high heat you'd be suprised. it would be sick to see that done though. u'd be the only car done like that probably. hahah supercharged/ peltier-cooled.

 

Well I think my idea is not so well suited for me the daily driver/ocassional racer, but someone that runs it as a weekend car and at the track a lot. If I could reduce IAT 2 temps by say 50 degrees with the ice box setup and 25 degree with no ice, of what I would normally run I could probably add in a good amount of timing or a smaller pulley etc... and the gains will be far greater than the negatives of the ooooo maybe 25 lbs i add to the total weight.

Just an idea, thanks for all your guys input

 

nope, you also not taking into consideration the other heat exchanger water cooling setup you will need. PCs that are using peltiers require a pretty eleborate water cooling setup. While one side of the peltier gets nice and cold, the other side gets insanely hot, and air cooling them just isnt an option. You need to attach a water cooling setup to the hotside of the peltier to cool them down. THis involves heatblocks for all the peltiers, water lines, a pump, a radiator, and fans to cool the radiator. This is going to be another huge draw on the power system and a ton of money to setup. Its just not worth it. For the amount of money it would cost to set the system up, you could just invest in a twinscrew designed blower and be leaps and bounds ahead of the peltiers.

Also the Icebox might be a good idea, but i see it being a hassle in that your going to need another pump to move the water that far, and i dont see the ice/water staying cold for very long. It would prolly melt withing a few minutes.

 

I was going to add this same thing. Some Asus notebook computers shipped with Peltier cells as the primary form of cooling, and the damn thing ran so hot you would not sit it on your lap if you wanted to have kids.

The rest of this is way over my head but dry ice (liquid nitrogen) gets awfully cold. Some supercomputer in Germany or some **** set a new speed record and it was liquid helium cooled. That's really expensive stuff and probably not worth it, given your other options by the time you're looking at forking over that much money.

Not to mention you'd have to find somewhere in your car to put the apparatus.

 

honestly your best and cheapest bet would be to create a CO2 cold chamber. Basically setup a small box with a radiator inside it. Pump the water from the IC through the radiator, inside the box have a Co2 spayer and spays the radiator. Make sure you leave a small hole for pressure to escape. C02 is like 10 cents and ounce. So filling like a 50 ounce bottle would be 5 bucks.

 

why dont you use a mini fridge cooler coils. i believe that they run off of 12 volts