Ok, here's a question...

I'm ready to test this now, my oHP values are coming back pretty consistantly at ~132 which is good enough to see differences with and without thermal insulation...

But, I have relatively limited windows for testing. Mornings are good or later evenings are good for temperatures. I'd sort of prefer daytime for safety reasons. So I'm guessing during the weekend in the wee hours of the mornings would be good...

That said, given heat soaking expectations, what is the logical order for testing this with and without insulation?

1) Test with insulation first, then test without...

2) Test without insulation one morning with a relatively cold engine, then test with insulation another morning, also with a relatively cold engine. Live with any environmental differences from one day to the next.

3) Test without insulation first, then test with insulation.

It occurs to me that intakes must be terribly difficult for the manufacturers to test for performance improvement, because once they are hot, they are hot for hours along with the rest of the engine. You can't do calibration runs because they heat everything up. You almost have to wait for the engine to cool completely after each test before starting the next, and by that time you're going to be running into significant environmental differences between the tests.

What's a mother to do???



Best,

-- Don

 

Perhaps I'm not on the same page but if you are testing CAI insulation effects and you are testing cold then how does it come into play? Insulation is to address heat and if you take that out of the equation, I'm sure what you are measuring?

Aren't you really trying to see the offset insulation offers to heat and heatsoak?

 

I think you are going to need two completely different cold runs. Since it is heat soak to HP that you want to measure you have to give each system the same starting point.

I guess if you wanted to do it on the same day you could start by getting the engine up to operating temps with the insulation, take your numbers, then remove the insulation since after you remove it you can still measure the heat soak.

 

I like to test the motor in a warm, but not too hot, condition. I run a loop on the freeway at 70 to condition the car, and then do a test run. I also monitor heat soak so that I can make sure that I don't wait too long, and as long as IATs are within about 5-10 deg C of steady state after conditioning, the HP repeats to 1%-2%.

Now for heat soak effects, you might want to run a conditioning loop, then stop, let the car idle, and measure IATs vs time. A better insulated system should raise more slowly.... For recovery, you can look at how the temp drops vs time with by pulling away and stablize the car speed and RPM. To get the early recovery and get good resolution, don't go too fast, slower speeds will amplify differences...

To trust the results, they have to be repeatable, so you have to do enough "measurement loops" to get good statistics. I find 3-4 good runs is good enough per state. Statistically, it's a bit of a low number, but if you don't want to spend all day testing, you have to stop somewhere....

Also, you can get rid of some of the ambient effects by looking at deltas from ambient. Not perfect, but it helps.

Hope this helps....

Matt

 

What he said

 

Thanks for the response, Bart, maybe we're saying the same things in different ways...

My biggest concern with these questions is not wanting to prejudice the results of one test with the heat created by the previous one. And, at the same time I didn't want to have the environmental factors change too much between the two tests.

So to avoid having the first test's heat affect the next test, one of my suggested options (#2) was to allow complete engine cooling to occur between tests. Because I'd prefer to do the tests during the day when temperatures rise, that pretty much says do it in two different morning time slots...

Another suggested option (#1) -- this one for testing in one day -- was to test with the thermal insulation first, then test without it, assuming that even though things will get hot with the test with thermal insulation, they won't get as hot as during the later test without thermal insulation, so the 2nd test would probably still produce accurate results. This is also what Shank is describing in the 2nd option in his response below...

Thanks for the response Shank, I think for convenience and for keeping the environment as unchanged between tests as is possible, I'll go the route of testing in the same day, testing insulated first, then testing without insulation. I'll try to time it before 7am here, the temps should be pretty nice and not rising much if at all yet. If this still produces questionable results, I'll do cold tests in subsequent days...

I think it's reasonable that the #3 option, testing without insulation first, then testing with insulation, would prejudice the 2nd test with heat from the first, possibly skewing the results.

I had opted to go with a performance computer instead of dyno visits because I felt that doing real runs does testing in a more real life scenario, which seems especially important for CAI heat related tests... I still feel that way, but I'm lately struck that either method, performance computer or dyno, still has so many variables in execution that their results cannot be considered 100% reliable. That's been discussed here before, but now that I'm in the midst of the fray, it is very obvious.

Despite that, these methods are better then butt dynos!



Best,

-- Don

 

Thanks Matt, it does, however it reveals a part of testing that I haven't addressed at all yet, that being the IAT device(s)...

What do you use for measuring temps? Sources? Approximate costs? Where/how do you locate them in the car? (I'll review early in this thread to pickup what I can...)

Thanks!

Best,

-- Don

 

is to get a OBD-II data logger, and just plug into the diagnostic port by the steering wheel. This will give you the temp and pressure of the air in the intake, same as the ECU uses for the speed density calculations.

If you want to measure the temp of the air after the intake but before the SC, then you have to get your own thermometer. There are some from Edmunds Scientific, but they don't log data....

If you have tons of money, Omega makes temp loggers... www.omega.com

For low cost data logging, there's www.dataq.com

Matt

 

Hmmm, looking at page 3 of this thread, Ben, you're using the Craftsman setup and electric tape... Maybe I should get one of those multimeters. Where does one get the probes? Do you remember the ballpark price?

Matt, weren't you using an outdoor thermometer? Or am I getting confused?

Best,

-- Don

 

but it's not fast....

http://scientificsonline.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_3105400

Matt

 

The Sears by my place has both the thermocouple and the multimeter.

Multimeter was $30.
Thermocouple was $12.

$42 dollar testing rig... not too shabby. Only, no logging, unless you do like me with a camera recording the reading while you scream out speeds.

 

I was using one for simple under hood temp checks.
I use the gauges Matt has linked for my inlet/outlet temp checks. They work well.

Here's the Sears info My brother uses one of these as well. Works well.

 

i have real doubts that the dfc and the ic airflow mods going on are going to make a big difference.

why don't we try to convince these guys

http://www.bodymotion.com/

(see the mini power section stage 3 for a mention)

to produce this for street use

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...00&ppuser=4821

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...00&ppuser=4821

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...00&ppuser=4821

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...00&ppuser=4821

 

Thats fun to look at, but I really don't think that is the point of this thread and/or the IC airflow thread.

We're trying to find low cost methods of lowing internal temps. Whether or not that produces HP is besides the point. A cooler CAI and a cooler IC equals a happy engine. And happy engines are what we're all about.

I don't think $3999.95 is really "cost effective".

 

$ $ $ ...i think that's the price of their stage 3 kit, not the front i.c. i just pointed it out in that area as a mention of their being fabricacators of the nuzzo front i.c.

but looking it, couldn't you picture building it yourself out of clamped together elbows and a standard i.c.? the only really custom parts would be where you matched the bullhorn attach points.

"whatsamatter? you chicken [mcfly]?? "

 

I was quite surprised how well the offset scoop worked.
The rest for me is just "what if" tinkering.

What I'm really waiting for is the DFIC results so I can see how well my tinkering and that unit compare.

 

Basically what he is saying is that we're looking to create a design using under $100 to poke fun of all the boys who spent $800+ on their DFIC.

 

Nooooo

That would be inflammatory and potentially argumentative.
I would never do something like that.








Ok.... I can't keep a straight face

 

duh, i'm not machiavellian enough to have seen that. well then, by all means carry on as you were!

i thought we had a new paradigm for all this ic and offset scoop stuff: smaller might be better.

 

Well in this small (get it ) instance smaller may be better. I really did measure lower IC temps with the modded scoop. It presents a smaller opening than the stock unit but I would argue that the effective opening is closer to being the same. Joel's scoop does have the raised upper lip and I do think the flow into the IC on the drivers side is better directed than the kludge that is the OEM and some aftermarket scoop/diverter combos.

Now if I could just sneak my car into the full scale wind tunnel here at work........

 

I've just completed doing two hot-weather overall horsepower (OHP) tests, one yesterday and one today. The procedure was:

1) Have thermal insulation installed in CAI airbox.
2) 10-15 minute light warmup...
3) Do a "Timed Run" to measure peak overall horsepower.
4) Then, have thermal insulation removed from CAI airbox.
5) 10-15 minute light warmup...
6) Do a "Timed Run" to measure peak overall horsepower.
7) Cool off.

The "Timed Run" consists of a run up in 1st gear to about 25 mph, then taking 2nd gear fast and hard up to the start-test point of 30 mph and then through the end-test point of 60 mph. This allows the GT1 to collect enough info for an OHP reading.

I did this first yesterday at about 102 degrees, then today at about 103 degrees (OBC readings). This is after I had established a process that would produce consistent OHP values.

The results:

7/13/06@16:17 102(f) 132 OHP (with insulation)
7/13/06@16:32 102(f) 121 OHP (without insulation)

7/14/06@13:20 103(f) 130 OHP (with insulation)
7/14/06@13:42 104(f) 120 OHP (without insulation)

I was surprised, I was not expecting that much difference, especially in hot weather. My butt-dyno didn't register that kind of difference, but I think the GT1 testing method is pretty sound now. I'll test in cool morning temps this weekend and post more results as soon as I have them.

I'll want to take some time to think about these results, but at the moment it reinforces my impression that a metal CAI airbox needs to be insulated before it can produce all the performance improvements that it was designed for. This effect may be accentuated by hot weather, I'll find that out this weekend.

Best,

-- Don

 

A friend who is using the black prototype thermal padding that I was originally using did a dyno run at a local Dyno-Day yesterday...

He was first to dyno for the day, and his first run was his highest; it also was the highest run of the group of 15 MINIs with modest or no mods...

Here's a reference at SCMM for the Dyno thread where it starts getting interesting (page 10)...

http://www.clubscmm.com/board/index.php?topic=2932.135

Down a couple of messages is a handwritten results list with Lex at the top with 178.8 whp, then down further is Lex's Dyno report.

(Btw, the last result in the results list, the one at 253.6 whp, is evidently a special case -- possibly a typo or joke, otherwise it is extensively modded.)

Not definitive, but interesting given the testing we've been doing here.

Best,

-- Don

 

Can't read it without becoming a member. Can you cut and paste the good stuff?

 

I think so, let me double check with them...

 

Here's a couple of pics of yesterday's club Dyno run.



Please take into consideration:
1) I was the first to do the test - I was the only one tested in 4th gear
2) the person after me tested in 4th gear for the first 2 runs - he got 168 I believe as his highest..before they decided to switch to testing in 3rd gear..he reran later on and posted 173.6.
3) I have a '06 MCS with 15% pulley and Alta CAI - no other engine mods

I believe since I was tested in 4th gear...the drop from my base run was due to heatsoak - since the engine has more stress to get up to speed in 4th gear.

To see more pics (or even larger ones)...you can check out my flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lexster...7594201484383/