An Interesting Idea....

[Rdkill]

Well I was thinking today about getting some extra power in our cars, and I came up with a somewhat original idea....and I can tell you this, its not going to be a godsend or anything, but I dont think anyone has tried it yet...so here it goes.

Ok so theory has that the cooler the air entering your engine, the more fuel you can burn and thus the more power you can create. So how does one get cooler air? Well if you have a turbo, thats an intercooler, but turbos/superchargers are expensive so the next best thing is a CAI right? Now that only brings air temps in at outside air temp, so its a lot cooler than engine compartment, but we can get it cooler still. So heres my idea a built in intercooler :-). Its simple really, based on my computer knowledge (some extreme OCers use this for cooling) the best part is its cheap.

Whats going to cool the air? A Peltier chip....google it if you dont know what they are. They basically create a temp difference between two surfaces, aka one side can be 0F while the other is 120, depending on efficiency. So heres what happens. These are new to the public, and are just startig to be used in products. Good thing is a 150W peltier chip can be bought on ebay for around $30. And they run on 12V! So far its perfect. Now my plan is to get a pair of these, so around 250-300W of cooling power. You would then couple some heat sinks to them, one for the cold side, one for the hot, cold side goes in your intake, hot on the outside, warm air flows over the heat sink, cools down. In theory we could get air at the peltier temp, which can be way below freezing, that wont happen but its still going to be cooler.

Ok so now this is what can happen, get a good heat sink and assuming the air outside is warm....72F lets say, and when flowing over your cooler, it drops the temp 20F so now you have 50F air flowing into your intake. I'm not a mechanic or anything but an online calculator for horsepower vs temp tells me that you will get 2.5% or so more horsepower with a 20F temp drop. So our rollas have something like 125HP(?) correct me if i'm wrong...I think I am. So a 2.5% increase will give you...128-129Hp. Nothing big, but you see where I'm going. It has potential, tell me what you guys think, input questions etc.

Short on cash currently so this is an experiment that will have to wait...but I will do some intake temps on my car today.

[FAHQ]

Your not the first person to think of using TEC's (thermo electric coolers)

One problem with this idea is that you will struggle with condensation which will form on the peltier as the warm air comes in contact with the cold surface.

This condensation will then introduce water vapour into your engine and give you all kinds of problems, that will negate any benefit in it being cold.

Again thats just one problem you will face, there are plenty of other issues that would make such a project not worth doing, with the eventual reason being that all the effort put into perfecting such a system wont result in much gains.

[Rdkill]

Appreciated...I will ponder the application.

BTW took some intake measurments

Outside air temp : 23F
Intake Temp : 33F

[Woot]

Your better off spending that money on a cold air intake and a exhuast system, and youd probly get better gain too.

[gideon1331]

Also, peltiers draw a significant amount of power. To remove 150 watts of heat (512 BTU) you're looking at an 18 amp draw. Any potential performance increase is going to be at least offset by the increased load of the alternator.

2 of those peltiers, having your highbeams on, and normal car operation will likely draw more than the alternator can put out, leading to potential damage of your alternator and battery. While these cars do have Denso alternators, even a Denso isn't designed to be run at or even near full capacity all the time.

[REN69]

for the extra 1hp that this idea would make over say.. a CAI, do you really think it's worth the trouble?

You want cheap and easy HP, make your own turbo kit.

[Rdkill]

I agree with your trouble/hp gail but I already have a CAI, and I am MUCH better at electronics vs. Car hardware, so No exhaust, no custom fit turbo. Now the Alternator load will be offset by the fact that I can wire the Cooler to a relay switch, so during the day it can be on, when the headlights are off, at night (I do use my highs around here alot), they will be off. The chip I plan on getting will be rated 168W or so. Plus I just like fiddling, so this is my experiment :-). Anyways I did some tests tonight as I found an old car cooler that uses a peltier.

Heres the results, I tested time vs. Temp so far. When I get a better setup I will test Temp vs. CFM.

Chip Rating : ~68W
Ambient Temp: (Indoors) 73F
Humidity: %32-35

Data
Time Elapsed | Temp At Cold Side (Heatsink)
----------------------------------------------------
05 Min | 65F
10 Min | 60F
20 Min | 50F
30 Min | 45F
40 Min | 42F

So its around a 30F drop, for 68W, one would expect more with a more powerful chip.

I know the gains are small, but I like the concept :-p