I just hope med students don't have to know too much about physics.

 

Since it appears that amibient air is not exactly gushing-out the bottom of our ICs, then we don't need to make then so thick or deep. That is if only the surface or primarily the surface is doing the brunt of the work, more is not better, and could be worse given the real estate its consuming...

More space below would be beneficial, including, as I mentioned above, for a small fan or two to suck that "cold" air all the way down. Sort of gets us back on topic

It would be great if we could get some temp deltas from top to bottom of the IC. Heck, maybe the compressed air within is primarily at the top layers anyways, and with that, surface cooling is quite adequate, all things considered...

 

They need to know more than you might think. Oh, and trust me: I know my physics.

 

Actually ambient air IS gushing out of the bottom of the IC when the vehicle is in motion. That's why there is a hood scoop. That's why there is a little scoop molded into the IC cover. That's why there is a hood scoop in the first place. That's why the bottom surface of the IC isn't welded shut.

It may not look like it, but the MINI engineers did an AWESOME job with the packaging constraints they were given. Efficiency numbers in the 70% neighborhood bear this out. I'd be happy to try covering the bottom of my IC to test ingsoc's theory, but that strikes me as akin to taping over my headlights at night to see if they actually emit light, or rather light up the road via some other method.

 

Absolutely true. I invite anyone with the time to test the flow.

PS: Andy, for air to travel over the IC, it does not have to pass behind. It flows around in every direction it can [meaning the sides are outlets]. There is plenty of room around the side of the diverter, hell the IC only takes up about 2/3 of the width of the IC!

 

They most certainly did. I love my car and have much respect for its internals. But, improvement is always possible!

PS: Get me some BIM-COMage and I may find some time .

 

So, the IC is only 2/3 the width of the IC? The air can travel every which way, despite being blocked from going around the sides or out the back by the foam seal?

Out of curiousity, since you brought it up, which physics/fluids/thermo/etc courses have you taken? :impatient

 

I was pre-med once myself. I switched to chemistry, physics and calculus later because I really enjoyed going deeper into those subjects. Med-student physics used to omit most of the math involved which I really enjoyed. Maybe it's changed now.

Steve

 

SRT: I took through diffEq in high school, then did post-calc work in undergrad.

Physics in high school and college. calc-based in college.

Maahir

 

Then I guess I don't understand your position and I'll leave it at that.

Steve

 

"...lip of a raised scoop poses an essentially infinitely higher resistance to movement over than the stock one [that does not divert much air because it does not impede laminar flow, as I said above]. Since the scoop doesn't move if anchored in the hood [ie, approaching infinite resistance in its vicinity, ie AIR DOES NOT FLOW through], it FORCES air to follow new paths of least resistance.

i have infinite respect for phsyics, and that ain't it. maybe there is a language issue...substitute "infinitesmal" for "infinite" at least. bear in mind that there are several on this forum with advanced degrees in math, physics, engineering, who are regularly preaching their BS...oops! MS.

Tony: are those your white knuckles, a clear pre-sign of a kidney stone!

 

Andy, this is what I originally believed to be true, especially prior to this thread. And I still do now... The seal formed about the IC is certainly not perfect though, and with the GRS I see a few areas where pressure escapes, and I plan to address those. With such straight outlets or paths available (more desirable then bending downward), knowing how much air that actually gets through (down and out) the IC has always interested me. So when ingsoc postulated as he did, entertainment of the idea and the pondering of it was easy for me to consider...

As those files that I shared reveal, I too find that the stock IC to be very effective. This line of discussion was simply steering us in a different direction as to how it's being effective. Being that I've done a few things to form a better air seal around the GRS IC, and that I've been constructing a lower diverter (it lacks one, unlike the stock and Alta), I'm with you on the relevance of diversion...

ingsoc insists the cooling is a surface thing though, and this would seem pretty easy to prove or disprove... I provided that earlier photo of the Forge unit, and serioulsy, it might serve as our testing point for this!

I think a couple folks asked about that photo. You might want to check-out this thread:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ght=forge+moss

jlm, I'm guessing the white knuckles you are referring to are in that photo? No, not me as that's not my photo nor me in it. I'm still with the stone though, and NAM is keeping me sane, along with the meds

 

I went out and tried to put my hand in my stock scoop only to find there's no way either that I can get my hand in there nor that I can reach back to test the seal of the foam. I did try to bend the foam, and I believe that it is within the realm of possibility that the foam will bend enough to let air through. There is still the issue of possible escape out of the front, too, which has no foam insulator.

I remain curious. I do not have the tools necessary to test, nor the time. I'd love it if we could figure this out. Thanks to all for their input .

 

If there is essentially infinite resistance in front of something, which is what I tried to say, then air will not air flow through. It seems self evident that air will not flow through a solid scoop :smile:.

 

I work with a Thermo Engineer that has 25 years of experience designing forced air and natural convection products. Some of our products have heat sinks and others do not. Our IC is a glorified heatsink, in how it works in principle. I have to make modification to the airflow when we have failures of a fire test that we have to perform. We pump up to 9 Liters of Methane into a box that is only 1 3/4 inches in height. It is supposed to contain the fire withing the confines of the unit. I realize that some of you might not believe this, but I can see the airflow by just looking at it. I make the changes and then the thermal engineer models it and 95% of the time it is what I expected. Since I have been doing this for the past 7 years, I believe I understand airflow fairly well. I also understand how heatsinks work and more importantly, how their mass affects airflow at different velocities. I am working now on a mod for the intercooler area and are well aware of the dimension of that enclosure. That oversized IC is not something I would buy for my MINI. You might as well close the scoop at high speeds. That is the equivalent of a planes' wings in the brake position, versus the fly position. I am off the soap box and going to bed....

 

I must agree w/U' about that over sized IC, if it was located somewhere else i would invest- but till then... see no point in doin' such 'mod' myself.

 

I believe you can see the airflow. It isn't difficult, because at velocity any particles in the air will clump together, thus defining flow. I still think that our IC's act like heatsinks, and not much air passes through them. I really wish someone would test it. One way or another we will benefit . I'm off to bed, too!

 

from what sense I can make from ing's arguments, he would be better served by improving the essentially infinite resistance of the scoop lip and focusing on extracting air from the intercooler bottom side. His idea that the intercooler acts as a heat sink would imply that more surface exposed to scooped air is beneficial, so look at all that surface inside the vanes!

 

Isn't it contradictory to say that a larger IC is just a larger heat sink and doesn't help and yet say that the IC is surfaced cooled only. The larger surface area of the larger IC would provide more cooling wouldn't it?

And given the fact that there is agreement that the BMW engineers did a good job why wouldn't they have created an IC that was thinner and wider with flow tubes only at the upper surface?

I'm also with TonyB on playing around with the flow.
Some clever fab guy needs to make a shield for under the IC that provides a more smooth flow path. Eliminate all the eddy current mess that must occur as the air leaves the IC and tumbles around all the obstructions below it. Taken one step further you could run drop tubes down to the airflow under the car and take advantage of the siphon effect of faster flowing air running over the opening of the tube.
Just like the old crankcase vents

Unless of course ingsoc is right. Then we could just seal off the bottom of the IC and make it like a cake pan. Then occasionally throw a glass of water in the scoop to keep the pan full and let evaporation do it's magic.

Of course if you hit the brakes hard you're car would look like someone with a snotty nose sneezing. But hey, all in the name of better performance

 

:impatient OK people.......All i asked was, " what do you THINK about an IC fan design"

Not for you guys to figure out how to split the universe.
All this mathmatic crap is b.s and it seems like everyone is just trying to show off with how many technical words and equations you can throw out there which isnt helping the other people on here who dont know much about cars.

What you guys dont know is..... A few of my friends were the FIRST ones to mod these cars back in 02' ( look at PROMINI's silver car, that was my friend Jeffs ride b4 he sold it to them and the grafik's are from my friend Phil....Another friend of mine is ( ROHR Autowerks ) who is the one that started Wiseco Pistons to make a set pistons for our cars ( after taking his engine apart at less than 3k miles to see how it ticks ) & Promini for half of there engine parts that are out now and so on. This stuff isnt new to us but it amazing how people will hypothesize half of there statements with nothing to back it up besides fancy words useless tests ( unless your on a dyno comparing this to that, these tests mean sh*t ). Im not trying to be mean or **** anyone off ( cuz i will say, half the sh*t you guys say about this n that test boggle my mind and i feel dumb when i read how you guys test these things and im very amazed on how smart you are in your tests ). Hey....maybe i know nothing and you guys are smarter than me.

Flame on!

 

Hey Guys I'm sure some of you would be interested in reading this article http://autospeed.drive.com.au/cms/A_0527/article.html its a water spray control unit, which reads ambient air temp, intercooler core temp and injector duty cycle. I have one fitted to my other car, But I'm going to steal it and put it on the mini.


You might have to sign up for a trial membership to get past the first page. Its worth doing.

John.

 

wow....no one yelled at me yet.

 

i think most of the heat was in response to INGSOC's ideas.

how is Jeff doing, by the way...if I ever get my rig built, he may be the one to drive it in the 12's

 

Hes good.....I hate him for it but he sold his Viper and is now pimpin a 996 last time i saw him. He doesnt come around as much as he used to so i dont know what he has planned. You know him, im sure hes coming out with something sick. i tryed calling him a few weeks back but he wasnt at the shop.

 

I taped a piece of cardboard under my IC last night to completely prevent airflow from going through it. My intercooler efficiency improved by 20%! I recommend that everyone go out and do this mod. I suspect it improved the airflow over (but not through) the intercooler, over the sides and back (the parts that are sealed with foam). Then, the intercooler underwent a phase change that extracted heat from the charge air as the aluminum turned first to a liquid and then to a gas.