Charge cooling and such...

volospian · Post by **volospian** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 7:34 pm

Hello all.

As some of you may know, my TVR is no more after having an MY08 fiesta installed in the boot, so I have replaced it with a Jag S-Type R (yeah, it's not really the same type of car, but after freezing my arse off all winter, and baking all summer, I decided I'd go for a spot of luxury for a change).

Anyway, 400 horses are still not enough, lol, so I'm thinking about modifications. There are a few bits and pieces already out there such as a smaller blower pully, remap, exhausts and so on, however, I'm wondering about what I can do about lowering the charge temps.

I think the current set up uses the engine coolant as the charge cooler fluid, which is obviously less efficient than it could be. I'm wondering about re-plumbing the charge coolers to take fluid from a seperate header tank, via some new rads and so on. I think a couple of people have explored or tried this route, but I don't know how they have gone about setting it up, or what size header tanks, etc. they have used.

I'm wondering if anybody knows the maths on how to calculate the amount of fluid I'd need. Too little could become saturated and cause more issues than it would fix, but too much would mean carrying around excess weight.

This is all just theory at the moment as, as mentioned, there are already other ways to achieve more power, however, I'd really like to find an extra 100 or so horses at some stage...

kiwicar · Post by **kiwicar** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 8:14 am

I think if you take try and work it out all before hand with the upgrading of the charge cooler you will end up making alot of assumptions about heat transfer across heater/charge cooler matrixes that are no more than +-50% either way, make two of these and you may as well take the approach of "looks big enough" and save the grey matter. I think if you are going to try and circulate cooler water through the existing Matrix by seperating off this part from the rest of the cooling system is a good approach long term, and as part of a set of other Mods you have thought of but you will also very soon end up having to uprate the charge cooler Matrix aswell. I think you may have problems fitting in a second cooling system in and have some issues to sort out as the engine warms up.
For the cost of all this and your target of an extra 100bhp you may be better off going for nitrous and just have the power come in when you hit the sport mode button.
Mike

Ian Anderson · Post by **Ian Anderson** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 9:56 am

I heard of someone fit a second aircon pump and have a resevoir of ice cold water for the heat exchanger and so when needed the cold side was really cold!

Ian

ian.stewart · Post by **ian.stewart** » Wed Apr 01, 2009 10:34 am

Ice and charge coolers is not new, LSR cars have been using it for years, Ford introduced a charge cooling generative system using aircon, [Lightining truck, 05ish] which in effect diverted the aircon cool air thru a charge cooler, when boost was wanted the intercooler was ice cold, and gave a good 30 secs of boost before recooling was needed, I dont think this can be maintained as a constant cooler due to the laws of Physices demanding you cant have somthing for nothing and the amount of aircon power needed to run full time is more than the output of HP gained

Eliot · Post by **Eliot** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 12:23 pm

Is this the V8 XJR supercharged engine your'e talking about?
My mate had one and I always thought the same thing, so we sat down one afternoon and followed the pipes.

The chargcooler circuit is actually independant with its own little pump and radiator. There is a SINGLE link pipe between the normal engine coolant and the chargcooler circuit.
So it doesn't actually form a circular circuit. We figured that the coolant circuit is just connected to the CC circuit to keep it bled - the link pipe is several inches long and we figured that a few inches of water actually makes quite a good insulator.

I've messed around with chargecoolers extensivley on my dakar,including big tanks of water etc - it does make a difference for a until the water heats up - then it takes even longer for the water to cool back down again.
Overall - I 've gone over to intercoolers now - you can read about my extensive titting around with CC's here:
http://www.mez.co.uk/turbo8.html

topcatcustom · Post by **topcatcustom** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 2:26 pm

Cant you get varous parts and spray bars etc for n2o/co2 for charge cooling?

chodjinn · Post by **chodjinn** » Thu Apr 02, 2009 3:18 pm

topcatproduction wrote:Cant you get varous parts and spray bars etc for n2o/co2 for charge cooling?

Yes, but there is a school of thought as to whether the additional weight (plus a few other things) is actually worth the small performance benefit you get out of it. I think it really depends on your application.

volospian · Post by **volospian** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 8:55 pm

Eliot wrote:Is this the V8 XJR supercharged engine your'e talking about?
My mate had one and I always thought the same thing, so we sat down one afternoon and followed the pipes.

The chargcooler circuit is actually independant with its own little pump and radiator. There is a SINGLE link pipe between the normal engine coolant and the chargcooler circuit.
So it doesn't actually form a circular circuit. We figured that the coolant circuit is just connected to the CC circuit to keep it bled - the link pipe is several inches long and we figured that a few inches of water actually makes quite a good insulator.

I've messed around with chargecoolers extensivley on my dakar,including big tanks of water etc - it does make a difference for a until the water heats up - then it takes even longer for the water to cool back down again.
Overall - I 've gone over to intercoolers now - you can read about my extensive titting around with CC's here:
http://www.mez.co.uk/turbo8.html

Yeah, pretty much the same engine. It does look like there are seperate small rads down behind the front bumper, where the front fogs would be.

So what you're saying is that filling the coolant up also fills the CC system via the link pipe, but that flow would be relatively small between the two systems...? That makes sense. I suppose a tap on the link pipe would stop any flow altogether, and some larger alloy rads may help keep the temps down a bit... but I suppose, really, it won't make much difference without changing the actual CC's themselves.

There are a few little mods out there already, a smaller pulley system, a re-map, sports cats and new exhaust. That all adds up to maybe 50ish by the look of it (the figures advertised add up to around 65, apparently). They also reckon that headwork can release another 35hp, but it's expensive.

However, I still think my target of a 500hp engine is feasible in the long run, I have seen a 600+ XJR on the jag forums, but that does have custom CC's and a twin screw blower. I suppose it's a question of how much do I want to throw at it....

Eliot · Post by **Eliot** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 7:28 am

I would start by monitoring temperatures to discover if there actually a problem that needs solving first.
If you see significantly more than a 20'c temp delta (i.e. ambient 20'c inlet 40'c) then it may be worthwile upgrading things.
A simple OB2 scanner such as the ELM322 may reveal and log that information for you.

volospian · Post by **volospian** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 7:40 am

Funny, I was thinking exactly the same thing after I made the last post. My only concerns were... where to place a sensor as the CC's are part of the inlet manifold.

Eliot · Post by **Eliot** » Sun Apr 05, 2009 8:04 am

You need to find where the OEM inlet temperature sensor is, I would of thought it would be after the CC's.

SuperV8 · Post by **SuperV8** » Thu Oct 01, 2009 12:31 pm

I would look into getting a twin screw type blower (budget dependant). Much more efficient so would be less heat to try and get rid off.

Has anyone read about/ tried the fusion intercooler. Really clever idea I thought.

http://autospeed.com.au/cms/title_The-F ... ticle.html

Post by **Rossco** » Thu Oct 01, 2009 1:24 pm

Why not fit a water injection system.

Eliot · Post by **Eliot** » Thu Oct 01, 2009 2:00 pm

SuperV8 wrote:I would look into getting a twin screw type blower (budget dependant). Much more efficient so would be less heat to try and get rid off.

Has anyone read about/ tried the fusion intercooler. Really clever idea I thought.

http://autospeed.com.au/cms/title_The-F ... ticle.html

Yes I read it - dont think it would work though.

chodjinn · Post by **chodjinn** » Thu Oct 01, 2009 2:22 pm

Fusion intercooler? Sounds like something off star trek

From briefly reading that article, it just looks like another version of an air/water intercooler, but uses e.g. wax instead of water, that correct? Theory is quite sound I guess, but like Eliot says, probably won't work in practice. I'm sure if it was good then everybody would be running them by now surely?!