Thermostatic warm air intake

[Obormot]

Hello!

here is another warm air intake setup, but this time temperature of intake air thermostatically controled, by mixing cold air from outside (upper pipe) and hot air from output collector (lower pipe coming under thermal shield of output collector). in this car (Nissan Note 1.6 AT 2007) is very little free space under the hood, so connection to output collector's thermal shield is not visible.

thermostatic element is mechanical, without electronics and external power.
now it holding about +30C

pipes are 2-layered, second inner layer is cardboard.
for thermal insulation it is slightly better, than just aluminium foil.

later i will do better insulation, i think it will be one smaller pipe inside other bigger, and space between will be filled by some non-flammable insulation matherial. or i wrap this pipe by some insulation matherial.

main target - lowering fuel consumption, warm-up time and increasing driveability on cold engine while using E85 fuel in winter.

one of lacks of E85 fuel - higher consumption, long warm-up time and not good driveability on cold engine in cold weather, mainly becouse of high heat of vaporization and flashpoint.
i will try to decrease this effects by using warm intake air.

last winter i already made small experiment with usual metal pipe from thermal shield of output collector to intake pipe. i get some noticeable positive effect, but i did not any measurement, and installation was not very good.

this time i plan to do some tests with or without WAI:
1. warm-up time and fuel consumption on idling
2. warm-up time and fuel consumption during driving
3. fuel consumption on warm engine (different constant speeds)
4. maybe acceleration

i plan to use k-line adapter and TECU program (and some others) to log data and made some charts and graphs.

now i did some tests - temperature of intake air (by sensor in MAF) holding about +29...+31C all the time, at all driving conditions. on long idling it slowly increasing to +40...45, i think it is becouse of position cold pipe over the radiator, but original intake pipe has same position, so, i will think about it.
temperature quickly returns to +30C after 1-2 minutes of driving.

now outside is about +10...+15C, so i will wait temperatures lower 0C and start testing.

also, this week i will install such system to Nissan X-Trail 2.0 AT 2003.

[rbrowning]

When I was first introduced to cars my dad favored BIG Buicks. Typically they would have a flexible cardboard tube that could draw warn air from around the exhaust manifold and up to the air intake nozzle. There was a thermostat there that would control whether warm air was drawn in during warm up, or if slightly cooler air was used normally.

In this picture the tube has an aluminized foil coating.

[whatmaycome14]

Neat!

[Obormot]

yes, many old carb. engines has such thermostatic devices.

my is based on spare part from LADA

[Obormot]

automatic hot-cold air mixer, and installation on Nissan Note 1.6 and Nissan X-Trail T30 2.0

warm-up in cold weather condition become MUCH faster.

fuel consumption in cold weather not increased (comparing with warm weasther).
it is very good, becouse usually for Nissan Note fuel consumption increasing about +1 l/100 km for every 10C down, for driving in city.
for X-trail increasing usually was even bigger.

[WD40]

This looks very similar to mine, the unit i used was out of a newer volvo wagon.
It seemed to me that the sensor was way to fast at opening the gate.
What I ended up doing was a cable to manually adjust the gate.
In hindsight I think maybe adding some mass to the sensor to slow down the opening might work better as what I really wanted was an automated system.
What did your unit come out of?

[Obormot]

from VAZ-2108
part number 2108-1143010

gate moving pretty slowly
no need any connection to vacuum, external sensors, power or something else.

[Obormot]

other installations of this device (not mine):

[oil pan 4]

Thank you for the part number.
I just bought one.
Total impulse buy, I will figure out what to do with it later.

[Piwoslaw]

Originally Posted by Obormot

from VAZ-2108
part number 2108-1143010

Obermot, do you know the manufacturer of this part, and what make/model/year/engine it can be found in? My mechanic searched for it on his supplier's database, but couldn't find it.

How easy is it to get in Ukraine, and what price?