Snorkel for intercooler?

This is rather interesting, using a precision barometer to measure pressure drop across a vehicles surfaces.
http://www.gcdataconcepts.com/carairflow.html

One could imagine getting some empirical data on what is actually happening by applying it to the bottom of the car, at various elevations inside the engine compartment and at various points across the engine cover at various speeds over the same route on the same day.

I suspect we will find there isn’t as much flow through the engine compartment as some may think given the number of covers at the front of the engine bay, the limited flow under the car and the relative low pressure over the top of the engine bay. That’s my opinion but one test is worth all of our opinions or the other saying that opinions are like a**holes, everyone has one. :)

It might also be interesting to get ahold of a anemometer to measure actual airflow speed in various parts of the engine bay. These are very cheap on various sites and if you find one that hold data for at least max min flow it would be worthwhile.
 
Bobkat said:
Just by looking at the shape without doing any CFD analysis I would say with the abrupt windshield and the drop off to the rear of the roof that there is a lot of air stalled there. I imagine that the a side scoop would have much more clean fast air.
Click to expand...
Although, the windshield is very laid back/flat at a much greater rake than most cars, the roof height is quite low, and given the short tail section behind the rear glass, the air pressure above the engine cover may not be all that low.

In a prior thread someone attached a bunch of strings to their car to try and see air movement. If I recall correctly it was rather turbulent all over the place. And another person reported that if the engine lid was not latched it would rise up (however with the spring on the lid it would not take much to make it bounce up). Based on these findings, I speculated that perhaps there may be something of a reverse air flow hitting the engine lid due to turbulence, pushing the lid open (rather than a lot of low pressure pulling it up). Something like this:

fiat-bertone-x1-9-orange-stripes-monkey-crisis-on-mars.jpg


While that could create some decrease in the pressure over the lid, the turbulent reverse flow could actually increase the pressure in that area as well (depending on how it hits the opening).


kmead said:
getting some empirical data on what is actually happening
Click to expand...
Absolutely, everything else is purely speculation. But until then I completely agree with your comment:
"I suspect we will find there isn’t as much flow through the engine compartment as some may think given the number of covers at the front of the engine bay, the limited flow under the car and the relative low pressure over the top of the engine bay."
 
Last edited:
Regarding a snorkel, I saw a couple pics of a 60's Alfa racer with a cool looking one (sorry for the poor image quality):

005.jpg
006.jpg
 
And if you really want the air to flow through the engine bay, into the trunk, and out the tail of the car, then you can create a really low pressure area this way:

hqdefault (1).jpg
 
mkmini said:
make an exit to the rear end
Click to expand...
To allow air to flow from the engine area through the trunk and out the rear taillight panel, a rear grill can be either small or large. Here are two examples...

Small grill area:

tn_IMG_0486 - Copy.jpg


Large grill area:

002 - Copy.jpg

Ferrari-F355-Racing-Red-Rear-st.jpg
ferrari-355-02.jpg
 
motoTrooper said:
video on Gordon Murray's new T50
Click to expand...
Very cool indeed. The fan at the rear working with the diffuser reminds me of the "blown diffusers" in F1, where the exhaust gas flow is used for the same effect. And this video references the same Alfa racer shown in the earlier post.

Murray's T50 also features another design element that I'm considering. But that will have to wait until I decide if I really want to do all the work to achieve it.
 
how about the snorkel, with the intercooler at the back of the snorkel, with the back cut out. (maybe even blocking the flow to keep it going to the engine) here is a VERY generic drawing. Blue would be the intercooler, it would have to be a longer not wide one. and the yellow would be air flow. I was thinkign about dunebuggies I have seen that have a long thin one going widthwise right at the rear of the roofline. which I also think would work, but wouldnt be that good looking.

fiat-x19side.jpg


Odie
 
autox19 said:
how about the snorkel, with the intercooler at the back of the snorkel, with the back cut out
Click to expand...
That's basically what they have been doing with air-cooled VW off-road cars for ages, but for the oil cooler. Here is what they use:

51XSngIVtLL._SX425_.jpg
ab-crestfallen-2.jpg
1972679-34256-1970-volkswagen-beetle.jpg


It would have to be a rather large snorkel to house a decent sized intercooler. And you may be facing the same issues of not enough airflow when the car isn't moving - or at least not moving fast enough for sufficient air movement across it.
 
autox19 said:
how about the snorkel, with the intercooler at the back of the snorkel, with the back cut out. (maybe even blocking the flow to keep it going to the engine) here is a VERY generic drawing. Blue would be the intercooler, it would have to be a longer not wide one. and the yellow would be air flow. I was thinkign about dunebuggies I have seen that have a long thin one going widthwise right at the rear of the roofline. which I also think would work, but wouldnt be that good looking.

View attachment 28943

Odie
Click to expand...

Now this would be a good placement for the long thing air to water intercooler radiator. Still think the side would be better clean cold fast air.
 
For me (personal opinion only) the air-to-water intercoolers add to much complexity to a very cramped vehicle. And I've seen mixed views about them for some applications. It will depend on the system design, but for a normal road car - stop and go traffic, etc - some have found they can't keep up with the demand and heat soak overcomes them. The cooling water cannot dissipate the heat fast enough and the small electric pumps that circulate the water are actually very low volume. Physics tells us that every exchange in heat in a system loses efficiency (no such thing as perpetual energy), so you will need to overcome that as well. In order to get a large enough capacity system to maintain the desired temps you will quickly run out of room on the car to mount everything.

I'm not saying a air-to-air intercooler is perfect either, but a lot less complex. For my build the intercooler is being mounted horizontally above the transmission area. It is as large as I could work with and therefore needs to sit a bit high in the engine bay to clear everything; the top of it is actually just above the level of the engine lid, so I'm making a custom lid that is extended up accordingly. This also allows room for a large fan under the cooler. That location should get it into the cooler air flow as well. I realize this isn't exactly "unmodified", but I think it is a lot less modification than working a air-to-water system in there.

I should also mention I am retaining air conditioning on my build, so adding another water radiator for a air-to-water intercooler won't fit up front. But even without the AC, the placement/airflow of the IC's radiator has the same issues we've been discussing for locating a air-to-air IC...getting enough cool air to flow across it. So it's like you are exchanging one hurdle for two more.
 
The FAZA snorkels are pretty skinny up there so it's not practical without widening it which would really start to block rear vision.

If putting the radiator in the rear trunk works then why not put the intercooler back there too?
 
carl said:
then why not put the intercooler back there too?
Click to expand...
One potential problem with that is the connecting pipes to reach back there get longer than is ideal. It will work, there are some turbo systems made for American muscle cars that locate the turbos at the rear of the car and extremely long tubes to connect them. But it creates a lot of lag time, increases resistance, and loses efficiency. The shorter the pipes the better. That was one reason I'm mounting my IC above the transmission; it allows very short direct connections at either end from the turbo to the intake manifold.

But that may be a good location for the water radiator for a air-to-water intercooler system.
 
About radiatior in the trunk with UT engine, when I got in the traffic jam, was worried that I don’t hear fans working, got out every 5 minutes to check isn’t coolant boiling. everything appeared to be okay. It was vw passat radiator with belt driven second fan with 4 speeds, it turn on only once for few seconds on first speed. Engine and trunk lids at that time was stock. I hope this summer will tell You, how it works in summer’s traffic jam. Fans pushed air from engine bay donwards at the time, now direction is changed-pusges air upwards.
 
mkmini said:
It was vw passat radiator
Click to expand...
I use the same radiator (VW Passat) as a upgrade for my early Mk1 VW's. The Passat radiator is much larger and it has two rows (vs the Mk1 being 1 row). They are a great radiator in my opinion. For the X1/9 this would be a very substantial upgrade over either the stock or any aftermarket radiator made for it. To put it into perspective, if you go back to the threads about upgrading the stock X rad with a VW Scirocco unit there was a significant improvement in cooling capacity. The Passat radiator is MUCH larger than the Scirocco radiator, so do the math.

The increased capacity of the Passat radiator in Janis car may be why the fans don't need to come on often. There is enough heat exchange just due to the size of the rad's surface area.
 
Dr.Jeff said:
That's basically what they have been doing with air-cooled VW off-road cars for ages, but for the oil cooler. Here is what they use:

View attachment 28948 View attachment 28949 View attachment 28950

It would have to be a rather large snorkel to house a decent sized intercooler. And you may be facing the same issues of not enough airflow when the car isn't moving - or at least not moving fast enough for sufficient air movement across it.
Click to expand...
That is exactly what i was thinking of. I found this one. Looking at how tiny the ones in mr2 has on the side i think square inch this has the same or even more. Putting a fan on the back would fix the not movin issue. I am not sure how much on an issue you would have as normally they are in front of radiators that dont have air moving past them unless the coolant is above x degrees. Personally i am still thinking the side is what i may still go with but saw this as an option
Screenshot_20200129-185134_eBay.jpg


Odie
 
mkmini said:
radiator in the trunk above the muffler is not a problem even in rushhour, tested it that one day when car was on the road
Click to expand...

I'd tend to agree with Ulix. I really can't see a rear mounted radiator working, especially for a turbo application. The real test isn't so much rush hour as when you go from spirited driving to stopped (like hitting traffic on an autobahn). You could attempt to compensate with some large fans, but you would be sucking hot air from the exhaust. Still, I wish you luck. If it were to work, we wouldn't have to worry about rusted coolant pipes running through the tunnel ;)
 
dcioccarelli said:
I'd tend to agree with Ulix. I really can't see a rear mounted radiator working, especially for a turbo application. The real test isn't so much rush hour as when you go from spirited driving to stopped (like hitting traffic on an autobahn). You could attempt to compensate with some large fans, but you would be sucking hot air from the exhaust. Still, I wish you luck. If it were to work, we wouldn't have to worry about rusted coolant pipes running through the tunnel ;)
Click to expand...
I definitely will give a feedback how it will work out.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top