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Old 08-23-2015, 04:04 AM   #5 (permalink)
RedDevil
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Red Devil - '11 Honda Insight Elegance
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Quote:
Originally Posted by serialk11r View Post
An easier way to collect waste energy from the exhaust would be this: PowerModule-
Nice find!

Just a few things with that:
- The minor pressure drop (9.3 mbar in the example) means you lose about 6000 Joule pushing the 6.3 cubic meter of hot exhaust gas through, so the increased back pressure would cost you about 100 Watt of engine power.
- Key data like weight, size and cost are not listed.
- The need for coolant means you need a separate radiator and pump or a way to link it with the current radiator. It could use the back flow from the main radiator, but you need to either tweak the radiator valve to be stuck permanently open or have separate pump to flow the output of the module to the hot end of the radiator. It might even be necessary to keep pumping a while after engine off...!
- As the module needs to be located behind the last cat it means very long coolant lines. It may be hard to find space for it, not knowing its size.
- You obviously need a voltage regulator. It could back feed the hybrid pack on a hybrid car but will seldom match up nicely. Or it could feed a 12 V converter and be used as an alternator replacement.

All in all this is the most useable exhaust heat recovery system for car use I've seen so far.
If anyone developes complete installment kits for common makes it might take off big.
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