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using Air conditioning for an intercooler? Thoughts.....


The Beast I Drive
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Hey guys, Im just thinking out loud here, and I had this idea.

 

Now I dont plan on running a turbo on anything for a long time, just too much stuff I dont want to deal with for a powerband that isnt where I want it for what I do. But, this was something I had in mind, and if someone thinks it could be a good idea then maybe they can use it.

 

I read a long time ago (2004ish) when the SVT Lightning concept car came out on the new F-150 body that they had a system that used the air conditioning to cool the air charge for a 15 second period and gave it a 30hp (or something like that) boost in doing so. I never quite understood what they were doing, but it sounds good.

 

What I am thinking, is why couldnt you build a box that houses the air conditioning evaporator, and plum that to have the after-Turbo air charge run through it? If it could work, you would have the coldest charge possible, right?

 

so what say ye? would it work, or am I just full of it?

 

-Bill

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No reason it wouldn't technically work. Both an evaporator and intercooler are heat exchange devices. I would imagine the biggest problem would be that under a constant load, the heat generated by the turbo would overwhelm the freon's ability to transfer heat, and thus stop the cooling effect as there would be no liquid to gas transfer. The high pressure switch would probably cut the compressor before that point anyway. Just rip the bumper off and throw an obnoxiously large FMIC on and call it good! :lol:

 

Mark

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ALso a turbo is "free" horsepower so to speak. Using an air to air intercooler is fairly free too (not including the hardware). Using the AC will cost you 5 HP ish, and there most likely is not enough flow through an evaporator to cool the air sufficently as flow gets higher. The other choice is to wrap the intake in refrig lines, which can cause icing.

 

But you know, if you got spare material, a few beers, time on your hands.......

 

 

nipper

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What you need is a heat exchanger.

 

IF you could get a inter cooler with a extra set of rows to flow the freon along side the rows for the intake air, that might be a idea.

 

BUT you now have the draw of turning the compressor to yield that cooling effect.

 

Time + Money to make this work > Gain if it works

 

Just mount your IC where it will have some ram air on it.

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"We" (by we I mean us drag racers) use NOS to spool up the larger turbos...but this also cools the air down alot. Also Like mentioned before, just run a sprayer in fron of the IC which is activated by a manual switch. Some of "us" run the water to a dry ice chamber to super cool it.

 

But what you would want to do is run the air through a IC that has seperate vains for ac...which I think that lousy, crappy, shouldn't be making vehicles of a company mentioned (I can't even say their name :eek:) was experimenting with.

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