Hey guys.

My friend and I here in Guam are trying to figure out how to get lower intake temps. While the year round gold season is nice here it's hell if you're trying to make any power. With the stock set up IAT was at about 180F with city driving, with the Needswings Single CAI they have dropped to 140F. What can I do to an N/A engine to get the temps lower?

I've read that wrapping the intake or headers could help, but would have insignificant changes and risk damage to the headers.

Some people at the drag strip here have also mentioned putting dry ice near the intake but I want something more permanent and without the risk of something exploding under the hood.

Also something on the cheaper side, with the government shutdown going on, who knows if I'll get my next paycheck.

 

Could always vent the hood...

 

Wanna hear my dumb idea I've been thinking about ?
I'll tell ya anyway :
what about wrapping the CAI in 1/4" copper tubing ( AKA refrigerator ice maker ), then hook that to a 12v pump and a small air-to-fluid heat exchanger ( radiator ).
I'm thinking this would at least keep the IAT close to ambient, and not much drain on the battery by the tiny 12v pump.
You could always then wrap the copper tubing with a heat wrapping so it does not look too funky.
I don't know, maybe worth a try ?

 

I wrapped my intakes. It takes longer to get hot, but once hot, they hold the heat. If your going to wrap them I'd use a removable wrap with velcro. Mine are coated with a plastic spray, then header wrap and lastly a cool wrap with velcro and they still get burning hot. I now think no wrap would be better, I guess I had to try.

Les

 

Yes, I went that route also, they did stay cooler initially, but heated up after time anyway.
That is why I was thinking of the copper tubing wrap UNDER the insulation wrap that would circulate near-ambient water
via the cheapie pump and the mini-radiator. Just a thought.

In this simple diagram, the copper tubing would be tightly wrapped around the CAI, then covered with heat shield.
The H / E ( heat exchanger ) would be located somewhere in the ambient airflow.

BTW, this is N/A talk, all you SRT6 pukes don't get excited ......

 

I love it! I was thinking of some sort of cooling system for the intake but didn't know how to design it. Can you find the parts that would be required and the cost? I'll build this and I might get a few people here that might be interested so I'll have a decent test group. One guy with a turbo, one with S/C and then my N/A. just for the hell of it we might do one for each.

Thanks for your ingenious minds!

 

So another option I just saw was this
CryO2 Air Intake 080110 | Purchase DEI, CryO2, Ny-Trex, Boom Mat & SPA Turbo Products | Design Engineering, Inc. - Thermal Performance Products

A bulb that sits inside the intake and cools the air that passes through and of course modifying this system to run as a water cooling system similar to what you would use on a gaming PC. Also insulating the intake with a wrap might help as well. Here's a piece for fuel systems as well.

CryO2 Fuel Chilling System 080125 | Purchase DEI, CryO2, Ny-Trex, Boom Mat & SPA Turbo Products | Design Engineering, Inc. - Thermal Performance Products

 

tubing :
1/4 Copper Tubing | eBay

heat exchanger :
Radiator Suzuki DRZ400S DRZ400SM 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 2000 2008 2001 2002 | eBay

pump :
ShurFlo 1 GPM SLV Series Automatic Demand Pump (SLV10-AA40) - Agrimart

( 1 gallon / minute might not be enough, might have to up this a bit )

 

That is pretty interesting. But damn they are expensive!

 

Thanks, it's a simple idea - Cooling the air while it's passing through the intake.

But the hard part is keeping it a closed system so that you don't need to have an extra tank (CO2, Nitrous, meth) but efficient enough to make it worth the cost.

I've read of some systems tapping in to the A/C system to cool the air but the added load on the compressor off sets any gains that could be made.

 

Plus your AC is always onl. <75 degree weather would suck lol.

What about the ceramic coating Needswings does? How does that do for lowering temps?

 

So I did a bit of test driving and please don't tell my wife but I was cruising around 90 on the island and saw my intake temps drop to 100F and it was 92 outside at the time. So seems like no fancy add ons are needed to get a lower intake temp. Just keep driving fast and you'll make more power. When I was stopped intake temps went back up to 130-140 but quickly fell once I was moving again.

 

The larger volume of air you move through the intake, the more you will overcome the engine heat soak on the plumbing.
At 140, you would probably be within 4-5 degrees above ambient .....

I tried an experiment yesterday : I boxed in the air filter in front of the radiator with cardboard to ensure it wasn't sucking heated air from the face of the radiator. I drove 30 or so miles and saw absolutely NO difference in the ambient / IAT ratio than without the cardboard dam.
This tells me that ambient air is indeed entering the system, but the plumbing ( single NW CAI in my case ) is heating it up between the air filter and the IAT sensor. ( I removed the cardboard )

 

Yesterday was much cooler and I got the temps down to 93F , and it was around 88. It really seems that once the temps get below 100 these cars really start to show their stripes.

 

Cryo Cooling with CO2 would be your best bet on N/A car. Kit's are not too expensive. Coupled with a cai or ram air kit, you should get more cold air.