Recovering lost heat energy in engine coolant...

[gone-ot]

...during the late 1960's, GM-Cadillac sold a 'small' "add-on" power-steering fluid radiator that sounds like what you could use--check your junkyards for it or something similar.

[t vago]

Originally Posted by mechman600

Anyway, t vago, thanks for the info above. Very informative.

You're welcome. Looking forward to seeing your HAI setup.

------------------------

So, I discovered two things that were missing from my data collection rules for this A-B-A trial. First, I noticed that it was incredibly, remarkably humid on the drive back. While that might be good for the truck's engine, it certainly was not good for the driver, so I ran the A/C as a dehumidifier, with the predictable hit on fuel economy. So, A/C usage is a disqualifier.

Secondly, it might be possible that I might have to drive the truck at some point during its 8-hour cool-off period. Again, that might throw off the fuel economy, so I added that as a disqualifying factor.

Still, I can definitely see results, and the results are definitely not the kind of statistical noise associated with testing something like fuel magnets or some other such nonsense.



1 - fabricated and installed version 2 aerocap
2 - transmission torque converter stopped locking up
3 - removed version 2 aerocap
4 - installed HAI

[ECONORAM]

Vago, I did some WAI testing this week with the RAM. Honestly, I was a little surprised to see the FE improvement. http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...tml#post343575 I like the heater core idea in the airbox; I would not have thought of that. I ran a dryer hose from the radiator to the airbox. Not as much heat rise as you got, but I did get 20*F. I later this week modified that to pull air directly from where the upper radiator hose connects to the radiator, and got nearly a 30*F rise over ambient. Pix attached. Not real pretty, but if it didn't work I didn't want to kick myself for a difficult removal...

[t vago]

Coolness!

Are you planning on refitting a heater core in your intake? I no longer use my truck for a 120 mile round trip daily commute, but while I did during this past summer, I found that a 50-55 F differential was about at the limit of what my intake heater would produce. At that, and with no aerocap at all, I could get FE figures that were identical to what I had gotten the year before with my version 2 aerocap. I have Fuelly logs (as well as what I have here at Ecomodder) that bear this out.

My current daily driver, a 2005 Dodge Magnum, is going to get a 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee heater core, as opposed to the transmission oil cooler that my truck received. I modified the intake air box cover to accept the core, and hopefully tomorrow I can trim and double-flare the pipes coming out of the heater core. After that, it's a matter of hooking the installed core to the return line of my existing heater plumbing. I'm going to shoot for an 80 F differential this time.

[ECONORAM]

Originally Posted by Christ

The intake coolant line is there to provide warmth to the intake air and prevent sonic freeze at high air velocities. It doesn't do much, but removing it creates a traceable increase in power when tuning. At least it did on my Civic, 3hp avg over 5 runs on a chassis dyno at 3k rpm. I never had a problem with sonic freeze, either.

I have not heard of the sonic freeze. Is this a freezing of the air passage due to the Venturi effect of air going through a narrowing in the intake, like the throttle valve?

Originally Posted by t vago

Coolness!

Are you planning on refitting a heater core in your intake? I no longer use my truck for a 120 mile round trip daily commute, but while I did during this past summer, I found that a 50-55 F differential was about at the limit of what my intake heater would produce. At that, and with no aerocap at all, I could get FE figures that were identical to what I had gotten the year before with my version 2 aerocap. I have Fuelly logs (as well as what I have here at Ecomodder) that bear this out.

My current daily driver, a 2005 Dodge Magnum, is going to get a 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee heater core, as opposed to the transmission oil cooler that my truck received. I modified the intake air box cover to accept the core, and hopefully tomorrow I can trim and double-flare the pipes coming out of the heater core. After that, it's a matter of hooking the installed core to the return line of my existing heater plumbing. I'm going to shoot for an 80 F differential this time.

Glad you like it! I have not decided if I'll take the plunge on a heater core intake mod. I was actually contemplating moving the filter box directly behind the radiator, and removing all the intake turns. Might get another degree or two with it sitting on top of the engine.

[t vago]

Originally Posted by ECONORAM

I have not heard of the sonic freeze. Is this a freezing of the air passage due to the Venturi effect of air going through a narrowing in the intake, like the throttle valve?

Yah, it sounds a lot like carburetor icing. I've never heard of the term "sonic freeze," either.

Originally Posted by ECONORAM

Glad you like it! I have not decided if I'll take the plunge on a heater core intake mod. I was actually contemplating moving the filter box directly behind the radiator, and removing all the intake turns. Might get another degree or two with it sitting on top of the engine.

The benefit, of using the radiator as an intake heater instead of adding a separate heater core, is that the radiative surface is already there and plumbed in. There's no need to modify the coolant system itself at all.

Of course, it also requires modifying the induction system a bit to route the heated air from the radiator (possibly around many moving parts). Also, the radiator-based heater is dependent on the engine thermostat, which effectively removes any warm-up benefit.

On the other hand, using a separate core requires extra coolant system plumbing. It might also lessen the effectiveness of the existing cabin heater, depending on whether or not the intake heater core was plumbed in-line with the existing heater plumbing. It's debatable how much the heater's effectiveness is affected, though. Meh.

As a practical matter, I've already had to replace one bypass valve because it developed a small leak that caused coolant to drip onto my truck's left header. Stupid bypass valve...

[Christ]

Yes, it's the same thing as carb icing.

Sonic freeze... I'm not sure why I called it that... it's got nothing to do with sound at all... Maybe I meant to say velocity freeze... or something. I duno.

[t vago]

Finally installed a heater core in the intake box of the Karen-Mobile.

It's a 1989-1992 Ford Probe heater core (Murray P/N 398008), and between the intake box and the core, there's about an inch of clearance on the length of the core, and about 1/2 an inch of clearance on the core width. Doubtless there are heater cores that would have a better fit, but their inlet and outlet nipples are rather awkwardly placed, compared to the Ford Probe core.

Tomorrow, I hook the core up to the Karen-mobile's heater plumbing, and see what happens.

[ECONORAM]

Originally Posted by mechman600

However....I see a problem for us folks with automatic transmissions. Having a larger throttle angle is going to make the transmission quicker to kick down to a lower gear. Maybe steady cruising in high gear will be impossible because the tranny will keep kicking down. Our electronicky cars don't have kickdown linkages to adjust either. Maybe this doesn't matter, who knows.

I have found this to be the case. Last weekend I took a road trip and noticed the tranny would downshift going up hill, easier than I thought it should. I did not try it with the cruise control; forgot completely. Before I started driving mostly with the right foot only, I noticed the tranny would drive with load better on cruise than it would without. OATs were around 90*, so the WAI was probably at 120*.

[JETZcorp]

Manual valve body on the transmission would fix that problem right up. It would mean you'd have to tell it when to do each and every shift, though. I'm planning on doing this to the Dakota eventually. If you think your automatic does bad things for economy, imagine what an unexpected downshift will do in the middle of a maximum-G corner!