I've had this thought for awhile now, and I don't see why it wouldn't work. Imagine taking a 3" square aluminum tubing, about a 1-2 ft section and filling it with some sort of cooling fins like a standard "radiator". On the outside mount some high watt peltiers to cool the inside. High watt peltier's can bring metal temperature down to -60*F in some situations. You could use this system on your piping to run straight from a turbo right into the intake. Also Instead of cooling air with air why not have the "radiator" on the inside of the IC piping filled with liquid that circulates from an external water supply. You could even mount the peltiers to that water holding tank to REALLY get the water cold(would need antifreeze).

This would save from having to run a lot of pipe, and should cool the air _much_ better then a standard air IC system. One concern would be condensation on the inside of the pipe, but wouldn't that kinda act like a water injection system? Thoughts?

Phyte

 

Sounds much like the Vortech After cooler?

 

A pelletier cooler large enough to make any significant difference would likely be larger than your car and consume an astronomical amount of power.

 

If you could cool a gallon of water with several, say 6, 2" peltier's, I think if would cool down the air quite a bit. Industrial peltier's can differentiate upto 120*, which is far beyond what just ambient air temperature could accomplish. Why not run the air over/though a ft or so of radiator that has minus degree liquid in it. Obviously liquid is much more dense then air, so it would cool that much better.

Over clockers in the PC world use small peltiers to bring computer processors down to way below freezing temperatures.

How about this. Why not cool the air before it even gets to the turbo? You could use the same idea to cool the air significantly at the air filter. Just a thought. It wouldn't cost that much to mock up, maybe $200.

Phyte

 

Cooling BEFOR the turbo would not help at all.
Turbos use the Exh. velocity and heat to spool up and produce the boost. AFTER it would work.

and What is a pelletier cooler? sounds interesting.

 

N/M on the What are they question. google answered that for me.

http://www.lytron.com/custom/custom_cp.htm

Looking through this site made me go Mmmmmm.... deff. some interesting ideas. but at what cost.

Im building a 355 with tt's Im not at the intercooler stage just yet. but Im looking.

 

What are you going to use to cool the Peltier? Peltier coolers aren't magic. All they do is move heat from one place to another. They're not terribly efficient and require a large amount of current to operate, which generates a lot of heat which the cooler has to dissipate on top of the heat you're already removing from the object being cooled.

By the time you've generated the current for the peltier and provided another cooling system, you've outstripped any gains you may have gotten from it.

If active intercooling is a good idea, then why don't you see cars with conventional freon (or something similar) refridgerated intercoolers?

 

- they’re very inefficient. You’ll need tons of power to run just a couple (I used to use 2 to cool the cooling bath on a water-cooled PC and had to use a separate power supply just for them). If I remember right most are in the 5-12amp/12V range. Hook up 6 of those and unless you run something the size of jumper cables your wiring will be a fire hazard and it will be enough to kill your battery in a couple of minutes with the car idleing.
- You’ll need a lot of heat sink area, like on the scale of close to a 6” cube maybe more for each element, depending on if they’re exposed to engine bay or outside air, for each one to get it to work well
- They’re not very durable, they’re intolerant of water and even humidity will kill them quickly and the vibration in an engine bay won’t help either. If one even slightly looses contact with it’s heat sink it will be toast in a matter of seconds.
- Cooling the inlet to the turbo is not a very efficient way of doing it. It will have some effect, but cooling is all about the temperature differential and how efficiently whatever it is you’re using can transfer heat, so say those elements can get things down to 0*, and you’ve got a cooler (fins…) that is 70* efficient, then you’ll get a 70% temp drop between the cooler and the air temp, or on a 90* day that would mean you’d get 27* air… then assume that your running enough boost to get a temp rise of 200* (about 16psi), you end up with pressurized air at 227*. If you put the SAME COOLER between the compressor and intake, the compressor adds 200*, so you’ve got 290* and then you take a way 70% of the difference and you’ve got 87*, 140* less then the other way

 

Sounds interesting but dont forget that the power that drives them must come from the alternator and that will cost horse power to create.

 

Great post man. I guess if it was feasible, or even worth consideration someone would of already of invented it. Oh well it was just a rough idea anyway.

Phyte

 

If everyone thought that, then how would anything new ever get invented?

 

I wouldn't exactly put it that way, but if it doesn't involve new technology and is relatively simple to do it's probably been considered.

 

... or isn't feasable.

 

just a thought... i know back in the 70 when they were toying around w turbos a few guys were running coolant into the ic's. they usued to use the ac compressor to cool down the coolant and then run it thru the ic.... dont know the cost of hp leached by the ac as to how much the gains were. maybe twas a way to run less octane? i realy dont know too much about that but i heard about it... im sure crossfire can speculate more on this subject....

and also the new ford lightning's w be using a smililar method as mentioned above.... or so ive heard... but i dont know how it can be accomplished w a roots type charger...

"FORD, the better idea." <- JUNK

 

I've considered something like that. Using some sort of air conditioning system or refrigeration system to cool the water in the water tank in an air to water type system intercooler system... just turn off the water flow and turn on the compressor when you are just driving around... when you want boost turn the water back on and turn the compressor off to eliminate the parasitic losses. I think someone clever could effectivly create an air to water IC system to cool to more than 100% efficancy for brief periods of time with this system... the duration would depend on how big the water tank is.

 

I still have a couple of those things, ane they worth anything? I have a few 3/4" squre ones and one 3/4" square one permanently "sinked" to a larger 1-1.5" one. They are very tiny and for all the cooling they provide on one side (at great cost of current) they produce massive amounts of heat that must be "heat sinked" or cooled away. I put one under a can of pepsi once and it popped because I left it there all day. My dad was so unhappy about my personal power consumption in highschool during my craze with these things he threatened to make me pay the power bill. So I moved on to something more fun, HIGH VOLTAGE! It reeked havoc with the phone and cable so needless to say he didnt like that either. but homemade lightning ***** were cool to have back when they first came out and cost a fortune. I can tell you though neon transformers can really bite, ouch!