Quote:
Originally Posted by RedDevil
Don't need to test that; I know what will happen. Within a minute the plastic airbox will melt. The engine might misbehave or stall befiore that. 1500 Watt is way too much.
The nice thing about making it electric is that I can switch it on and off to study its effect. I will.
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No you really don't know what will happen, I have run this experiment with a hair dryer but I allowed the dryer to heat the intake for about a half hour, then the diesel could start. Nothing melted (or even got warm per seh)
Anyway...
I am all for experimentation but 150 watts on a running engine is NOT enough
A hair dryer "typically" can put out about 20FT3 per minute and generally raises the temperature of that 20FT3/minute of air by 60 degrees. The purpose of a dryer is to heat a very small amount of air to a high temperature and eject that very small amount of air at a high speed. So you really don't get much more than 4ltrs/sec (9.8ltrs/sec on a cheap dryer) High end models peak around 41CUFT/minute (but who has a 1900watt outlet)
This means if it is -10F (as it has been around here lately) you would in theory get your 20FT3/min = 9.8ltr/sec up to about 50 F or get which is all fine and dandy and also rather meaningless because its just as easy to cool the air as it is to warm it. The element also wicks a LOT of heat into the housing and other areas, hence why a dryer is not super efficient (compared to theory)
You would need your heating element inside the engine (like a glow plug) to even heat the air inside the engine significantly because the temperature drop after touching lots of plastic and steel and of coarse the fuel evaporation would bring you down basically to where you start.
So that 100 degree temperature raise a dryer would give you at 4ltr/sec would likely turn into a 20 degree increase once it gets to the block (if you are lucky) The solution would be to insulate the intake but then once the air hits the liquid fuel and the metal in the block and intake the temperature will drop like a rock.
To be honest, I WOULD LOVE to see gasoline motors with glow plugs, then we could run hydrous ethanol year round. An added bonus might be better fuel economy on startup because of the timing affects from having a glow plug in there. (it would need to be hot but not too hot and would be VERY interesting to see)
If you have a strong head design and room to put in some $9.99 glow plugs do me a favor and mill/drill your head so you can fit in 3 of them, I would love to see that because it REALLY would have a very real affect on combustion
You would probably need to retune your motor though as it would affect the flamefront beyond your normal ECU trims.
Ah well but I digress.