[Aberdeen Al]

Has anyone fitted the GTT (or any other type) intercooler spray to a GRS intercooler?

If so can you share with me how you did it?

Cheers,

Al

[ScottyBoy]

Im currently in the process of doing this Al...

but ive read on another forum from searching google that the bit that sprays the water needs to be a fogger or de-misster type of nozzle.

If you get one that sprays a fan or a jet of water its basically pointless as this will just drwon the intercooler and not be anywer nears as efficient as a de-mister.

The guy who put all the info up has a degree in some sort of science thingy and put up a load of equations in there.

in short words think of being stud in heavy rain and then think of being stud near this....


which would be cooler on a hot day?

Scott

[ScottyBoy]

But a how to,

You can either have a seperate bottle that you mount in the engine bay yourself or tap into your headlight washer bottle thats has been emptied and with distilled water in there.

1, Mount the new washer bottle in the engine compartment.
2, Mount a windscreen washer bottle pump lower than the bottle so the water feeds to the pump.
3, One tube on the pump goes into the bottle.
4, One tube goes to were you want to position the sprayers, use a T-peice to seperate the tube into two.
5, Wire a switch to the pump, a simple rocker switch will work, the pump will have 2 spade connectors on the bottom, + & -
6, Screw on the fogger's and mount on the intercooler etc.

One thing came up on another thread that "what if the water freezers" well the answer was use a very very slight mix of washer fluid in there, not sure what peoples thought on that are but i guess a very weak mix wont do no harm.

Edit, this is what im going to do as soon as i find some decent fogger nozzles capable of doing this!

The reason i am using a seperate bottle is, i dont want to use the windscreen washer bottle because id rather have that strong mix for my screen, and the headlight one only gets used every few times i think.

i.e you have no control on turning it on unless you have a switch and a seperate pump.

[ScottyBoy]

Long post but this is the thoughts of this guy on suggesting a fogger is better!

Quote: Originally Posted by Alun (original)

Let me start by stating that it has been a long time since I did any Physics (but part of my degree was in Physics, so I don't think I'm talking complete nonsense either).

I'm going to go step by step so that if anyone disagrees they can say at which step (I hope I get past step 1)

1. The idea here is to get heat (energy) out of the intercooler faster than the turbocharger can put it in, hence reducing the intake charge temp.

2. One way to extract energy is to transfer it to another substance (water), thus heating it up. Another way is to cause a substance to change state (melt, evaporate or sublimate).

3. To heat up 1g of water by 1 degree C takes 4.186 Joules of energy. So to bring 1g of water from freezing (0 C) to boiling point(100C) takes 418.6 Joules. At this point it takes an additional amount of energy to make it evaporate (and effectively be removed from our system). This energy is the latent heat of evaporation and for water is a comparatively whopping 2272 J per gram. i.e it takes over 5 times as much energy to evaporate water than to heat it up from freezing to boiling point (this is why a kettle can stay boiling for a long time before all the water is gone).

4. So knowing that we can extract more enegy from the IC by causing water to evaporate over it, how do we make sure that the water does indeed evaporate and not just sit on the IC slowly heating up (not to mention dripping through - remember, potentially every drop of water spilled on the ground is energy not removed from the IC) ?

5. The rate of evaporation is related to surface area. A glass of water spilled on the ground will evaporate more quickly than if left in the glass -right ?

6. So to reduce the time it takes to evaporate our purely arbitrary 1g of water we must maximise its surface area. How ? By making it into a very fine mist. 1cc of liquid broken into a fine mist of 100,000 spherical droplets has a surface area almost 50 times greater than a single 1cc spherical droplet.

7 At this point our 1gram of finely misted water will 'flash evaporate' nearly instantaneously. Working out the exact time it takes to evaporate is tricky because there are a few variables we don't know and are also self changing (temperature, airflow, humidity etc.), but its real quick, especially at the temperatures found near the IC. Boom, hey presto, 2272 J of energy sucked out of the area around our intercooler in next to no time. I don't know the mass of the WRX intercooler but in ideal conditions (which these are not), -2272 J translates to about 2.5degrees C drop in temperature for 1kg of Aluminium.

8. In contrast, heating up a single 1gram 'blob' of water from 0 to 100 C would take a lot longer ( again, exact time depends on different variables) and only liberate ~419 Joules from the IC (in perfect conditions), the subsequent evaporation would eventually also transfer an additional 2272 J from the IC area too, but it would take longer (smaller surface area than droplets).

9. Since the IC is constantly having energy put back into it by the turbo, the faster we can transfer energy out of it, the better chance we have of keeping it cool.

That's why I think fine mist beats cold water soak in terms of cooling efficiency. The energy transferred per unit volume of water in a given period of time is greater (this is how those cooling mist sprays at places like Disneyland work). Not to mention the practicalities of carrying around ice-cold water in a hot engine compartment.

Apologies to the metrically challenged, I'm British and was taught that way (plus Physics is a lot easier in SI). Now I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's a flaw somewhere in my thinking (there's certainly some assumptions -spherical droplets ?), as such, I'd be happy to hear from anyone with a physics background who can show me the error of my ways.

Cheers

Alun

[Ant FR]

i'vge never bothered, as i would only want it for use on the qtr mile, and you are not allwoed to use em anymore up the Pod

A better Idea would be to use a nitrous Halo kit to cool your I/C down, can even use Co2 which is a lot cheaper, very simple to plumb in, just need to lose a little of your boot

[Richard Crofts]

A fan will be fine...as long as the fan it creates makes the water mist enough. Yes a fan that sprays big drops like a fan on a hose pipe will not be that good. Its all abou surface areas and evapoaration times etc etc... but a very fine mist fan will do just as well. From a very basic setup a friend has logged apparent 3-4 degree inlet temp drops upon spraying.

Just think hard though...there are liquids far better at evapoarting than just water Also if its instant temp drops you want then its worth considering stuff that physically cools the IC ... I'm not totally sold on cryo units but its possible they will give a higher instant impact...but more expensive!

[BigShow]

Cooling... Cheap... Easy to install Carbon Dioxide Fire Extinguisher mounted inside the car with a nice long tube fed through to the intercooler?? Quick burst on the line then drop the clutch

Surely that would work

[Alex5]

I remeber reading about the CO2 rings previously either here or on NAM - care has to be take to prevent the vented CO2 from being drawn into the air intake for obvious reasons.
How safe is spraying NOS under the bonnet? OK if into the engine (!) but again could cause issues if drawn into the intake, albeit perhaps slightly more positive than the CO2! Could get interesting if it got drawn into the cabin air intake

[Cooooooperslad]

I'm going to wait for a properly tested and used intercooler spray thats automatic by working off a thermostat in the IAT.

don't want to have to be looking at my scangauge then spraying myself, and waiting for the IATs to drop, want it full automated with possibly a manual override.

[MINI-Morgan]

Personally the best design ive seen yet is this one Turbobits online shop - elabtronics intelligent intercooler water spray

You want atleast 4 water jets providing a fine mist at high pressure as a car travelling at even 30mph will cause the mist from one jet to just get sucked straight through the intercooler and only cover a small surface area.

Or the alternative is a CO2 spray bar with lots of jets! But... yes theres a very big but to CO2! Because its extremely hard to stop the CO2 from then entering the intake which will rob you of valuable HP its often not the best solution unless you are stopped with the cooling fan on and you want an instant cool e.g. drag strip. Also these jets will block some surface area of the intercooler too so how much effect does that have? Personally why not use NOS instead? more expensive but im sure it will be used rarely and if it gets sucked in then its more HP in theory. Or use it properly and inject it into the charge and experience a drop of temp and pressure increase that way.

Well must my thoughts anyway.....

[Richard Crofts]

I am of the same mind as george on this... automatic off sensors is the way to go. Far easier than an actual switch (obviously I'd fit an override for if I was motorwaying/normal driving and didn't want the auto unit spraying all the time for no real reason other than the temp sensor demanded it.

[Cooooooperslad]

MINI-Morgan that kits looks right to me!

Whos going to be brave enough to test it out first?

I vote Rich :P

George.

[MINI-Morgan]

Quote: Originally Posted by Richard Crofts (original)

I am of the same mind as george on this... automatic off sensors is the way to go. Far easier than an actual switch (obviously I'd fit an override for if I was motorwaying/normal driving and didn't want the auto unit spraying all the time for no real reason other than the temp sensor demanded it.

Yeah im betting everytime you stop at some lights for 30seconds it will spray....

[Cooooooperslad]

Just need an arm switch then, when you think you are about to start giving it some give it a flick, also it would probably be quite annoying sat in traffic hearing the water bump going "mmmmmm" every 30 seconds, like when you can hear your washer bottle pump.

[Bhozar]

Tie the IC spray controller into the injector duty cycle to prevent it spraying when not needed, such as when stopped at traffic lights. There has to be some metric that you can monitor and only allow spraying when a certain condition is met.

[Lucky Dave]

I have a fully automated device fitted, which runs off the cars standard boost sensor, its adjustable for what boost you want the spray to come on at, it also is adjustable for how long a shot you want to give and there is adjustment for an inhibit time before it comes on again to stop you drowining the intercooler.

Its also got a low fluid warning which stops the pump running dry! it a nice bit of kit if I say so myself.

In testing so far the spray of water will drop the intake temps by 3-4 degrees within about 5 seconds and a 3 second spray lasts for about 40 seconds.

You could run a mix of 10% meths without any problems.

Bhozar your correct I use the boost pressure and could also link in speed as you would not need the spray on a long motorway drive

[Aberdeen Al]

Quote: Originally Posted by Lucky Dave (original)

I have a fully automated device fitted, which runs off the cars standard boost sensor, its adjustable for what boost you want the spray to come on at, it also is adjustable for how long a shot you want to give and there is adjustment for an inhibit time before it comes on again to stop you drowining the intercooler.

Its also got a low fluid warning which stops the pump running dry! it a nice bit of kit if I say so myself.

In testing so far the spray of water will drop the intake temps by 3-4 degrees within about 5 seconds and a 3 second spray lasts for about 40 seconds.

You could run a mix of 10% meths without any problems.

Bhozar your correct I use the boost pressure and could also link in speed as you would not need the spray on a long motorway drive

What kind of fully automated system do you have ftted? Did you fit it yourself? Was it easy or difficult? If you don't mind me asking was it expensive?

Sorry for all the questions!!

Cheers,

Al

[robbo mcs]

Quote: Originally Posted by Cooooooperslad (original)

I'm going to wait for a properly tested and used intercooler spray thats automatic by working off a thermostat in the IAT.

don't want to have to be looking at my scangauge then spraying myself, and waiting for the IATs to drop, want it full automated with possibly a manual override.

Hi,

I have had that for 4 years. It works quite well

Temp sensor works of the intake of the intercooler and sprays (mists) when it hits a certain temp.

It is properly tested and works well However, the benefit is marginal, but every bit helps

Cheers

Robbo

[Richard Crofts]

Daves is the culmination of hard work and testing by himself. He is a car electronics whizz and does a lot of work on MINIs and uses his own S as a test bed. I saw the system while it was being developed (before it was linked to an automatic temp and boost pressure system)

[Smilie]

Quote: Originally Posted by Ant FR (original)

i'vge never bothered, as i would only want it for use on the qtr mile, and you are not allwoed to use em anymore up the Pod

A better Idea would be to use a nitrous Halo kit to cool your I/C down, can even use Co2 which is a lot cheaper, very simple to plumb in, just need to lose a little of your boot

This what the previous owner installed in mine. The tank is mounted to the rear of the passenger side of the back seat. So when folded forward you can open the bottle, at will, from the drivers seat. I've yet to try it.