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Project intercooler spray is coming into fruition: 
Pulling out the intercoolers has surpirsed me. First of all they are so small! I've seen bigger IC's on little ET turbos and Micras! Very average, Nissan. However, what really shocked was the fact that almost no consideration has been taken into making them FLOW. Behind each intercooler there is either a big water bottle (2+2) or the radiator overflow tank plus a whole lot of other junk on the other side. Even if you have a 2 seater and are minus the water bottle, all the air on that side hits is the back of the wheel well. This is pretty piss poor design if you ask me. The air just hits the IC, can't go anywhere, creates a high pressure pocket causing further air to bounce off, which just reduces efficiency. I think a genuinely useful mod would be to somehow increase flow. Since not much of the stuff cannot be moved out of the way your only bet is to put holes in the wheel well guards. However, then you have the problem (as Wykked pointed out on the phone) that the wheels will just throw mud at the back of the IC, clogging it up. Some louvres pointing down or to the side might work, accompanied by some mesh to back it up. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? While Stillen/Greddy stock location replacement IC's won't solve this, a front mount would (combine with a vented hood to suck the air out and now you're talking). Would this benefit outweigh the cooling problems etc. that front mounts cause? Thanks go to Wykked. When I was putting the 2+2 water bottle into my 2 seater I called him up on the mobile to find out how it was located in his 2+2. Pete pulled over, got out, popped the hood, ferreted round and had a look to see what it should be like in what sounded like a very busy location. What a champ. On to topic number 2. The water pumps are getting too hot :( I ran it for about 4 minutes to see how much water would be consumed with two nozzles per pump. Very little was used (the nozzles don't let much through but vaporize real nice) however after 4 minutes the pump was so hot I could not touch it! Not good if this thing's only going to give me 2 laps of use before I have to shut it down. I thought it might be a matter of putting a lot of load on the motor as the reduced flow means higher pressure and it has to work harder. Pulled off the nozzles, let the pump cool and got ready for a test. 1 minute of use and it was completely empty. Unrestriced flow is approx 10+ times more. I guess having two pumps is not the big bonus I thought it was.... one will more than suffice.
Putting your hand in the spray you can feel that it is being cooled..... adding methylated spirits or some other form of alcohol should make it work great. I will be using a minimum of two nozzles per IC as they were not flowing much. More than that might just douse the IC, but I've been in contact with a WRX owner who has done some testing with an IC spray and an intake temp guage, and he has found that cooling is pretty much directly related to the amount of water consumed.
Wonder what I should do. What I want to know is, how can I reduce pump temperature. Ideas: T the nozzles so that most of the water reflows back into the reservoir, that way it can flow to full potential but the tank doesn't go empty real quick. Will this work or does it mean the nozzles will get no pressure? The other idea is to reduce the voltage going to the pump, but I have no idea what resistor to use or how to calculate it. Any ideas? What else can I do to reduce pump temperature? (and anyone who suggests using a spray to cool it gets mail bombed ;) ). Finally: The other day while working on another Z I turned the key on with one of the corner blinkers disconnected. This almost instantly flattened the battery! Be warned! I was skeptical but Wykked also claims to have done it before to his Z. Got a multimeter and sure enough, 10.5V! Charged her up and some reluctant cranking got the car going. Is he right? Why on earth is this? Anyway, thanks for reading all this ;) Ben
Australian 300ZX Owners Association |
Three unrelated topics of discussion in the one post - 
11:00:30 01/13/01
