Supercharger options?

[LetItSnow]

Originally Posted by RoughSilver92

...Fords SuperCooler system... uses a tank of coolant cooled by the A/C system ran through a water to air intercooler to cool down the charge. I am surprised this system has not made its way to a production vehicle yet, or at least an aftermarket add-on.

Writeups claim 45 seconds of chill time with a 2 minute recharge. Anyone can tell you that that's plenty of time to get a Lightning down the quarter cooled, then charged before the burnout box even on a day with very few cars at the track. Double up - most of our local autocross events are ~45 second tracks! The estimated add-on cost is $750, which is cheaper than a comparable nitrous setup as it is (and undoubtedly safer for the engine!) Maybe someday as SVT?

[svxistentialist]

Originally Posted by RoughSilver92

I don't think they would call it a fire hazard, washer fluid is methanol/water. My favorite method of cooling the intake charge is Fords SuperCooler system, which has been in two of their concept vehicles, originally introduced in 1993, then brought back in 2003. It uses a tank of coolant cooled by the A/C system ran through a water to air intercooler to cool down the charge. I am surprised this system has not made its way to a production vehicle yet, or at least an aftermarket add-on. Simple enough system, just need to find a way to make it fit. I'm sure somebody will jump on the idea as soon as the patent runs out.

I love the idea of this, but it has a number of negatives hanging over it.

In the case of the SVX there is not a lot of room under the bonnet to fit any kind of a water/air intercooler, that's the first obstacle.

The next one is cost. Liquid/air intercoolers are more efficient at cooling than air to air. However because they are less simple they tend to be multiples of the cost of an equivalent FMC or other standard model. This restricts their use, people generally opt to keep the costs down and use air/air.

Jaguar is the only mainline manufacturer I know using them. In the Jag application the compressed air from the supercharger is forced into the intercoolers and from there the cooled charge is forced into the stacks and into the cylinders. Water [or coolant] is forced into the intercoolers [they use one for each bank of the V8] by a dedicated electric pump on the valence. The liquid coolant gains heat from the compressed charge in the intercooler matrix. To lose this heat the supercharger coolant is fed by the pump through a radiator up front.

System = radiator -pipes - pump - pipes - charge coolers - return pipes -radiator.

I must read up your Ford system, it sounds interesting. Maybe instead of cooling via a pump, lines and radiator the Ford system opts to cool the liquid through the air-con matrix?

If this is the case it would be interesting to know a couple of things; would this use of the aircon coolant to cool the engine charge reduce the coldness of the system for the car's cabin in hot summer weather? And does it require the aircon pump running at all times? Because if it did, the aircon pump uses upwards of 5 hp when in use, and this would be an additional parasitic loss to add to the already high pumping loss of the supercharger.

Perhaps it has not come to market because it is too complex and inefficient?

Joe

[svxistentialist]

Originally Posted by LetItSnow

Writeups claim 45 seconds of chill time with a 2 minute recharge. Anyone can tell you that that's plenty of time to get a Lightning down the quarter cooled, then charged before the burnout box even on a day with very few cars at the track. Double up - most of our local autocross events are ~45 second tracks! The estimated add-on cost is $750, which is cheaper than a comparable nitrous setup as it is (and undoubtedly safer for the engine!) Maybe someday as SVT?

I better read up on this.

Are you saying this cooling system is a One Hit Wonder sort of thing? Like a shot of Nos?

It will work OK for a run on a drag strip, but does not run continuously?

If that's the case it has limited appeal as a source of extra power, all day, every day.

Joe

[LetItSnow]

<SuperCooler details>
It acts like nitrous oxide as an occasional performance boost.

[svxistentialist]

Originally Posted by LetItSnow

<SuperCooler details>
It acts like nitrous oxide as an occasional performance boost.

Hmmmm.

Thanks. That makes it more of a track add-on than a genuine horsepower boost system. It's a nice idea, but not developed enough.

Subaru already have a spray pump to mist cold water over the standard intercooler in the Sti models.

If you were to fit this nozzle and pump and feed it using icewater from a tank you would get similar power gains for a fraction of the SuperCooler cost.

I'm not knocking it completely, I like the idea of liquid intercoolers. However I would be more inclined to have the coolant lose heat by the regular pump and radiator. Whatever gains you got you would enjoy all day, at all times.

Joe

[subbieatnz]

It be cool if they still built Latham Superchargers. By the look of the things they build a tiny unit that fits a rx8
http://www.axialflow.com/history.htm
The really old ones looked pretty cool