Quote:
Originally Posted by Daox
Yes, it would offset it. The offset is just very marginal. In order to heat up the coolant faster, we need to move large amounts of heat. Heat is energy. The fan also uses energy, but its (hopefully) moving a LOT more energy than its using.
Its akin to a furnace blower. My home furnace blower fan uses ~300 watts of power, but it moves 80k BTU/hr which is the equivalent of about 23,500 watts.
Also, the fan is only going to be used during warm up. Once the engine coolant is warm, it'll turn off. So, its not a continuous draw.
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You could reverse your plan. Put a solenoid-controlled or manually-controlled shutter on the front grill block and allow forced air to go through to the airbox, then the exchanger, then a fan used to generate power. Restriction from the piping, exchanger, and fan could be tuned to slow the air down giving more time for the "heat exchange" The fan/generator offsets solenoid's power use. If your shutter were manually operated you'd have a side benefit of (minor) energy production.
EDIT: Nevermind, given this chart... forced air would never move as much air as a fan.