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Cold air for extra power


oldbutnotslow

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I’ve read a number of posts on the subject and have always understood that ducting cold air to the inlet will give you more power as the air is denser than the hot air being passed through the rad and into the inlet.

 

Has anyone any design plans for a cold air intake perhaps on the nose cone or side skin and any "blanking off " arrangements to help prevent the "hot rad air" being drawn in? I am running a BS air box so the intake is not far from the rad.

 

 

Grant

 

😬 183 BHP of black and stone chip excitement. 😬

here

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Hmm, I've just found a length of foil air ducting from an extractor fan in the garage, I was thinking of putting it from the airbox inlet over the radiator so it sits in front of it in the nosecone (looks a bit heath robinson but by all accounts it should do the job.

Have a look at Myles' website here

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I have the same set-up as you Grant; with a 30 degree angled Green Cotton Filter. I put a temp. probe in the airbox and the difference from outside air temp is only 2 - 3 degrees; summer and winter; fast or slow. The inlet air seems to come around the edge of the radiator, but the filter tends to be more dirty on the bottom I've noticed.

 

Another poster from last year went to the trouble of making some ducting to blank-off the filter from radiator exhaust air and was getting hotter air than me in the airbox.

 

2 - 3 degrees C won't effect air density significantly. I can't remember the figures off-hand, but the bhp per 5 degrees is in the search somewhere.

 

BRG Brooklands SV 😬 It seems that perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away. (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

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Yup. We didn't manage to get the belt-guard sorted in time - so I plumped for a full-undertray instead.

 

Trouble-was, on the Haggis-3 Scotland tour we've just finished this w/e, the car got blasted with a huge amount of very-fine grit/sand - I lost a lot of paint from the 7-grille etc. - and even my Wiley goggles are pitted (aeroscreen-boy)...

 

And yep - you can see where the sand has been ground into the pulleys as the anodising has yet to wear off *eek*

 

ONe of this w/e's projects will be to make a baffle around the edge of the radiator to stop debris making its way into the engine-bay - air will have to either go through the rad or into the cool-air box. Not a substitute for a belt-guard, but a useful interim measure.

 

FWIW, by the way, the cooling seems unaffected by the undertray (although I was running a short version before).

 

Project Scope-Creep is live...

 

Alcester Racing 7's Equipe - 🙆🏻

 

Alcester-Racing-Sevens.com


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David, performance-wise?

 

Erm, well no - but it's been rather subjective in that regard.

 

It all started when I went on the rollers at Emerald - DW shoved an old clipboard under the filter and over the top of the rad to split the airflow saying that putting *anything* there was a worthwhile exercise.

 

ISTR I made my ringbinder prototype almost immediately - it didn't seal to the nose at all well (you could see the air temps fluctuate a *lot* quicker than with the finished article (i.e. they rose quickly when coming to a halt).

 

Sooo - I haven't driven the car without something in place - all I can say is that the temps do drop on the move - I suppose I could run a back-to-back test quite easily at the w/e - the box is held on by one zip-tie and the filter itself.

 

I suspect that in performance-terms, it's just one of those things that will provide a small (but probably unnoticeable) improvement - but that if you make enough small gains throughout the system, you should end up with a slight edge.

 

Dunno - lemme see if I've got the time and conditions to test at the w/e.

 

 

 

Project Scope-Creep is live...

 

Alcester Racing 7's Equipe - 🙆🏻

 

Alcester-Racing-Sevens.com


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Ooo Ooo that just what I was thinking of! Looks a super job I have to say.

Do you have any drawings Myles to save me the fag??

By the way DW was impressed with my build of your EU2 to EU3 converter. I gave you the credit of course. *thumbup*

 

Grant

 

😬 183 BHP of black and stone chip excitement. 😬

here

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Hi Dave

 

Not yet - the car is at Caterham Midlands having its PBC and SVA - I thought it might just cause the SVA inspector to get his big red pen out if it polled up like that. I will give it a go as I'm used to having the air intake in the passenger compartment - in a Daimler Ferret armoured car its just behind the gunners right elbow and you need ear defenders to live with the noise (4.5 litre Rolls Royce straight 6 that does 4 mpg)

 

At the risk of lowering the tone of the thread can I suggest that the technique give fear related power enhancements - methane injection at moderate fear and water injection at higher levels.

 

Colin

 

Edited by - Colin Mill on 24 May 2005 14:16:24

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