The idea: use an insulating material say about 3/8" thick that has low thermal conductivity and can withstand engine heat to insulate the intake mani from the head. The result is a drastic reduction in IAT and a marginal increase in intake manifold volume, both of which combine to increase power.
The question is, would this have merit in the world of FE? I realize many of you are actually trying to ingest warmer air in the name of lowering fuel requirements. However this may provide benefit to those whose grill blocks offend their radiator a bit too much, requiring FE sapping fans (either mechanical or electrical) to kick in.
In the event the grille block is causing any form of extra energy to be consumed to cool the engine this would be one of the steps to passively defeeat that. Most important however if thats the case would be using an air intake that is connected to the outside but allows no air inside the engine bay(sealing the intake in a box and sealing that to a hole in the engine bay). Also just adding a Cold Air Intake would see impressive drops in engine temp because with no grill flow the air filter is probably getting pretty toasty.
However, if the engine stays within operating parameters decreasing inlet air is only going to increase power and usually decrease FE or not influence it.
If you're looking for power at small FE cost those are the answers or if you are looking to passively cool your engine with your grill blocked.
I'd agree. The insulator is a really round about way of fixing a problem that nearly nobody here has had. If your grill is too blocked off simply cut a small hole in it and fix things that way. You don't want to have to go through the trouble of making one of these when you could instead cut a hole.
I see. Well, I've got the motor out of my car for some other work, and most of my FE efforts are centered around driver-centric fuel savings and aero mods. I'd like to have power on tap for autox etc though. FE and HP are usually at odds with each other and this looks to be the case once again.
That being said, I am still interested at attempting this. Daox I saw your writeup, good stuff. Would you mind sharing where you were able to pick up the materials?
My Metro's intake manifold is warmed with coolant flow, my throttle body has the same plumbing, came from the factory that way, to warm incoming air and fuel. My guess is it gets better FE numbers as a result.
The only place I've seen throttle body or carb insulators used is in racing... in fact, I've also seen what they call a 'cool can' used in drag racing, essentially an isulated fuel cooler that uses ice water to cool off a submerged coil of aluminum fuel line, just before it enters the carb.
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and aero mods. I'd like to have power on tap for autox etc though. FE and HP are usually at odds with each other and this looks to be the case once again.
