fuel coolers ?????

cooling fuel is an idea thats older than me.......... and my first car was an R/T charger so its pharken OLD


Its one of those "things" that had some merit back n its day but the gains were so minimal in the old big block 186 holden motors that it simply wasnt worth it.......

however......


with today fuel systems and the pressures that the fuel is under and subsquent heat thats developed I would personally think that a cooler for the fuel would be a must have item...... after all we spend litterally billions of dollars on A2A and W2A coolers for the AIR side of things yet happily allow near boiling fuel to mix with that lovely cooled air......


common sense would would say......

we get more HP from cooled air because there is more oxygen particles in cool air than in warm air

obviously there would be more fuel in cooler fuel




how many times have you heard that the best time to refuel your car is early in the morning, you get more fuel for your $$$$$




stuff I've found so far to give you an idea of the extreams....


the 'Professional' setup ....... $$$$$$

http://www.killerchiller.com/system_4.htm




&
the DIY setup on a S/C V6....... cheap as chips



so.....


has anyone been down the fuel cooling road and if so what were the gains.....

Kingy

 

Is that cooler in the boot? Wouldn't it still heat up esspecially in a zed's engine bay?

 

yes the 2nd pic is boot mounted...... done as a test setup only at this stage.

As for the allready crowded enginebay in a ZX, I'm sure I can find a spot elsewhere on the car for such a mounted unit......


Kingy

 

interesting........

 

oowww man gone are the days of cooling fuel ..

but yes i built a fuel cooler about 10 15 years ago for a full tube lc lj torana
it was a 8.8 sec car with my fuel cooler in it it went to flat 8 it was not this type of system , it was more on the ice box round ( big tomato can ) system with the fuel line twisted into a coil and 2 holes down the bottom ( in and out ) welded up and connect. wow what a day this thing was mental ( 9 sec is like going 6 sec in today's times). what we did was , disconnect it filled it up with water freezed it, and back on . then we went to ice cubs , this was still good but nothing like a full frozen ice box, this lasted half a day , but pluck it worked out well ..

 

with that setup you need a upgraded alternator those fans suck 30 amps !!

 

no dry ice?

 

uuummm , im not sure why we didn't use dry ice , it could have been a time thing , ,, come to think of it , it was not 10 15 years ago , it was more like 20 years ago . im 37 now this was built when i was 15 16 , well a long time ago . , i remember it was running a custom big block from the usa, , and the guys at Richmond auto , were freaking out on how shit the build was , so they took the engine down and re built it from scratch.. i 100% no that there is a photo of the car, at richmond automotive , ill go past and see if i can get the pic ( one day )

 

Hey I have an idea !

How about if there was a fuel temperature sensor that would allow the ECU to make adjustments, would'nt that be cool !

OHH wait we already have one. :zlove:

 

Doesn't cool the fuel though..?

 

I didn't know that ..can you hook up a temp guage from it?
as I was looking at putting a sensor in my surgetank for one .

(also looking at putting a fuel air cooler externally on the return line under the car )

 

There are merits for using such items. Over the years of reading peoples build threads (not this forum) there have been plenty that incorporate a fuel cooler for optimal efficiency. Some of the easiest I've seen are by using an all alloy fuel line under the chassis. The alloy line has heat sink fins on it at which do a pretty good job at reducing the fuel temps. I recall one guy even used this special type of pipe and inserted it into a thin walled alloy tube (to protect the fins) and still had a very good cooling effect.

You could even expand on this idea by even pumping low pressure high chilled water through the outer alloy tube and over the alloy fins to a chiller box in the spare wheel well.

Otherwise you use a conventional cooler mounted out front and have a water mister come on when at wot and reap the rewards that way. Only negative to this is if you had a front ender.... Might be a little disastrous.

 

I have no doubt you could hook up a gauge to it but you would need to check/calibrate it before taking any readings as gospel.

Build a surge tank with cooling fins on it for a start & as suggested above use all pipe to move the fuel from the tank to the engine and back, those two things alone would make a big difference to fuel temp.

Who was it asking me about a surge tank a while ago? got a new feature to put in there now I guess :zlove:

 

my surgetank is internal (spare wheel well)..fins wont make a difference ?
hence for external AIR cooler.. (which is more trying to keep it closer to ambient temp as compared to actually cooling like the ice method)

 

Without a doubt some of the stupidest shit I have read on this forum.

Wake yourself up before deleting posts and writing this sort of stuff please, it shows the blood is not flowing to your appendages early in the morning.

 

What is it that you are claiming to be "some of the stupidest shit" you have read on the forum?

Do you not understand the benefits of cooler fuel? do you not understand a lot of the gains had by running E85 are from the faster evaporation of the fuel resulting in a cooler charge to the cylinder & all the benefits that come from that.

Cooler fuel WILL make more power, try looking up a few equations on thermal dynamics etc & try to understand them. You will soon realise that by mass the amount of fuel added to the chamber is far more than you might think at present and that by reducing the temperature of that fuel by even 20 degrees c WILL yield more power from the motor.

True the stock rails have a fuel temp sensor fitted and true the stock ECU uses this to ensure optimal mixtures based on the fuel temp. This is not to say that a can running with a perfect tune but hot fuel will run better than a car with a perfect tune but cooler fuel.

The stock car also has a coolant temp sensor to ensure the car runs nicely while warming up - this doesn't say it will make more power when started up does it.

 

This is the sort of product that was used.

To which later was encased in a thin wall alloy tube. As the fins were getting damaged while being under the body. Should note that the vehicle that had this fitted was mostly a track car. Everyday operations may hinder its longevity. Speed bumps and what not could damage it, if it wasnt tucked nicely away under the body.

Here is a link to some other similar products.

http://www.indiamart.com/geiindustrial-systemsltd/products.html

Feel free to discuss or debate the product. Personal attacks are not required. Thankyou Brisz.

 

Nice hand waving and use of some big words, now tell us what the benefits are in more precise detail since your understanding of thermal dynamics is such, please enlighten us and how it relates to our cars, primarily street with some reference to race setups.

 

I have been thinking of doing this, I had to pull the fuel pump out of the car after driving for about an hour on the freeway and noticed that the fuel was pretty warm in the tank. That was a full tank too so could imagine the fuel would get hotter with less in the tank. Here's a pic of the UAS slotcar's fuel cooler under the car (left of photo)