Ice cubes in the tank

[PolarisSnT]

I was thinkng about this as I was installing my Coolingmist setup.

Say you want to head to the track and you know that you want the most out of your setup. Since I am storing my 50/50mix in my washer bottle under the hood, its going to be hot. What if you froze distilled water into 1oz ice cubes and added that to your tank. You can add additional Meth or whatever you use to compensate for the added water. This would cool the mix giving greater cooling benefits in the engine.

Do you think the cooling benefits would be practical or you wouldnt even notice the change? Im sure the mix when its under the hood, or even in the trunk, is going to get hot so I assume cooling it down cant hurt.

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[Coolingmist]

Never tested, however I strongly believe that ice in your tank will get you more power. Just speculation.

For cooling the charge, Raising the resistance to knock...believe it or not it makes little difference if the water is hot or not. Its the atomization of the mist and the evaporation process that is the most important..not the temp of the water.

At the end of the day its up to you to prove what it will do. Run it on the dyno or take it to the drag strip and try it with and without ICE. It may not give you a conclusive result but you may get a good idea if its worth it to you.

Just make sure that you have the outlet of the tank so it cant be obstructed by the ice. Its very possible for an ice cube to clog the passage.

Thanks for your purchase.

[hippy]

You really think that the temp of the stuff beinginjected will be that different? I mean even if you chilled the whole mixture b4 the run, it would still have to go through the pump(get pressurised and heated), then through tubing, a check valve or solenoid, and nozzle which have all been heated by something. Also, some parts aren't ment to work with cold fluids. Many solenoids and check valves aren't supposed to be used below 32F, so having liquid that's below that temp might cause problems(at least from what I've heard). I'm not sure that pumps are ment to be used with liquid that is so cool either.

peace

[Coolingmist]

I think it would be interesting to test.

As far as the PUMP specs I can say that our system was tested in the sierra nevada mts in single digit temps (the silver pump). I dont have shurflos spec sheet handy but I can say the pump definately works in cold temps (obviously you need some alcohol).
I doubt there would be any significant difference from one shurflo model to another, but again thats just a guess.

[hippy]

What would be cool is something like what they had in svt lightnings..... I think they chilled water with ac lines to dump through the intercooler when the intercooler needed it. Imagine havine a nozzle that was chilled this way(water running through it that's been cooled by freon). Then even if the water going to the tubing isn't cold, the nozzle chills it. I dunno how cost efficient it would be, but I think this would be a better way of cooling the water being injected.

If you put ice cubes in your mix, they might not disolve as much as you want, or might disolve too much and screw up the mix. The mix would probably heat up pretty quick anyways since the tank is in the engine compartment(maybe it would work better in a trunk mount tank or fender mount tank). If you're content on trying this out(cooling the mix in the tank), there are probably better ways to go about it. Making compartments on the sides/bottom of the tank for dry ice, ice packs, or frozen meat,...., or...(or just mounting the cooling elements with straps) might be one of those. Even if the concept did work, the nozzle might not even atomize the fluid as well if it's cooler, which could make the useable range of flow smaller. As always, this is just my opinion, and I'm no expert.

peace

[PolarisSnT]

Just a thought I had and was wondering if it had any validity. When its all hooked up and running I may give it a shot.

[Uncle Scotty]

for water to absorb the most energy....it must change state......liquid to steam in this case---and not solid to liquid......so cold water in the tank would be, for all intents, a waste of time as the few joules of heat associated with raising the water temperature a few degrees, liquid, would be negligible.....and warm water would change state faster.....

[PolarisSnT]

That makes sense actually. Oh well, just a thought.

[Coolingmist]

Originally Posted by PolarisSnT

That makes sense actually. Oh well, just a thought.

In one of our test vehicles I always had the pump and tank in the trunk (the rx-7) about a year ago I moved it to the engine bay. In the Rx-7 the radiator is below the intercooler (great design) and the air box is also just above the radiator. The only place to put my tank was connected to the airbox just above the radiator. The water in the tank was to the point to where it was steaming.

I have before and after AIT probes, both factory and aftermarket. The probes were far from the injection nozzle to keep them from getting wet or sprayed directly. I was able to log no difference in intake temps between the two configurations. In addition to that, the time it took for the air to heat back up (after the injection stops) was roughly the same.

While I dont claim this to be any scientific test, I detected no noticeable power difference between the two configurations (in the front with HOT water temps vs in the back with near ambient temps). I would estimate the water temps of the container when it was in the engine bay was close to 200F, in the trunk was no more than 10-15 degrees over ambient.

I always wanted to try it with ice, but never got around to it. Now I have the tank and pump back in the trunk again.

[firebox40dash5]

I could see the liquid temp making a difference on say, a stock STi setup, just spraying down the IC to cool it. But I don't doubt that any power gains in cooling the liquid in a WI system would be negligible at best- your only gain is the added thermal energy to bring the injected mix from, say, 40 deg. vs. maybe 120 deg., not a lot of energy... I could be wrong, but that's my thoughts.

[remowgn]

Originally Posted by firebox40dash5

I could see the liquid temp making a difference on say, a stock STi setup, just spraying down the IC to cool it. But I don't doubt that any power gains in cooling the liquid in a WI system would be negligible at best- your only gain is the added thermal energy to bring the injected mix from, say, 40 deg. vs. maybe 120 deg., not a lot of energy... I could be wrong, but that's my thoughts.

It doesn't make any difference whether the water is going on the outside or the inside of the IC when it comes to temperature. It's still the phase change that absorbs all of the heat energy.

[ride5000]

Originally Posted by remowgn

It doesn't make any difference whether the water is going on the outside or the inside of the IC when it comes to temperature. It's still the phase change that absorbs all of the heat energy.

... not ALL of the heat energy.

[cmann14]

It will make a little difference, but not much.It will take engery to heat up the water to the same temp as the intake charge, but this pales in comparison to how much energy it takes to change the phase (from liquid to gas) of the water. The funny thing about this is that the intake charge is too cold to change the phase of the water(assuming you're using an intercooler). It's when the injected water hits hot parts (valves, pistons cylinder walls) that it cools things down. This is also why atomization is critical: more drops = more surface area = more cooling. I'm no expert on this, just making guesses - hoping I'm remembering my thermal dynamics correctly.

[ride5000]

Originally Posted by cmann14

It will make a little difference, but not much.It will take engery to heat up the water to the same temp as the intake charge, but this pales in comparison to how much energy it takes to change the phase (from liquid to gas) of the water.

true.

The funny thing about this is that the intake charge is too cold to change the phase of the water(assuming you're using an intercooler).

not true. air temp does not need to be above the boiling point of water in order to change phase--the air temperature only needs to be higher than the dewpoint.

[Uncle Scotty]

not true. air temp does not need to be above the boiling point of water in order to change phase--the air temperature only needs to be higher than the dewpoint.

....but the ammount of water vaporized off a, say 250° object will far surpass the ammount off an object at 100°....NO???

liquid water flashing to steam off a sufficiently hot object is a very efficient cooling tool.......evaporation is usually a much slower process

[ride5000]

Originally Posted by Uncle Scotty

....but the ammount of water vaporized off a, say 250° object will far surpass the ammount off an object at 100°....NO???

liquid water flashing to steam off a sufficiently hot object is a very efficient cooling tool.......evaporation is usually a much slower process

absotively.

[LetItSnow]

How much would you have to cool the fuel to really make a difference? I'm under the impression that it would take an exorbitant number of ice cubes in order to reach that point, in which case you're also diluting your fuel. At that rate, you would influence the charge with the incoming air, which is constantly suggested to be at a higher-than-ambient temperature on this forum. You might get 4 degrees cooler, with 10% of your fuel being water.

[OT]Maynard may tell you that those 4 degrees would matter, but that's another story.[/OT]

Innovative? Yes. A good idea? I wouldn't put money on it.

[hippy]

Just to note, I couldn't find any info on how cold liquid can be when use with a shurflo pump, but shurflow says the liquid is not supposed to be hotter 180F on the 150psi pump(since their pump is not ment to run above that heat I assume), and 170F on the 100psi pump. This can obviously be a problem for people who have their tanks in their engine compartments.

peace