High Revs

Ok, I'm sure someone has asked about this. I'm driving around on a hot day with the air conditioner cooling off my toes and I thought, why couldn't you run a separate air duct to the cold air box. It looks like there would be enough room along side the battery. Hey, turn the fan on high and have a mini supercharger.

villain2000

Yea, why not?

Incubus

The law of conservation of energy says that you cannot create energy. You are trying to take a system (Honda S2000), and create power. If you alter the S2000, as a system, to work as you've described, you would have no advantage over an S2000 with the A/C off...you may have a disadvantage.

Ford created a prototype that would, over time, cool a tank of air (I'm pretty sure that's what it did), then, with the press of a button, the driver would discharge this cold air into the intake system.

...come to think of it, the S2000's compressor shuts off when the engine sees a high load.

godmachine

i think you are talking about the thing where it cooled the collant in a tank and released it into the bottom of the supercharger (was supposed to be on the new lightnings but they never came)

High Revs

And I thought all I would have to do was divert the passenger side air flow. They don't need no stinkin air.

UT-RTFM

I don't believe this is a conservation of energy issue -- the point is to cool the air & suck in more gas. The added power comes from the added gas, and the power required to cool the air vs. the added power from the added gas aren't comparable in a conservation sense (just in a performance sense).

I haven't worked out the calculations, and probably won't, but I'd expect the real problem to be that the air conditioner can't cool enough air far enough to be of any value. An engine sucks a lot of air, and I doubt the compressor can cool that volume enough to make much difference.

Barry

RazorV3

High Revs

If this was possible, all I was thinking of doing was adding another passage to mix in some cool air with the existing air coming in from the front. If your already running the air conditioner on a hot day why would you be using more energy.

SilverKnight

they do have that thing where you add like super cold stuff to your intake or some people actually put there intake in the freezer the night before they go to the track.

TelosHedge

Doesn't make much sense to me.

Let's say you did run a duct to your airbox. It's very obvious that
you'd need a relatively steady flow of air to the filter to keep things
cool enough to make a difference - but wouldn't you need the power
robbing condensor on all the time to make that work?

I understand that as soon as you go WOT the condensor will shut off
and, for at least a little while, you'll get that extra 'free cool air' running
through the vents anyway, but all this clicking on and off of the A/C has
to count for an added load to the motor.

Don't forget too that you wouldn't really be able to just crank up the A/C
when it's time for a race at a light or something - you'd probably need
at least a few minutes to let the system start kicking enough to have
your airbox get chilly.

So, to sum up my opinion....

A few minutes of 'cool down time,' an increase in fuel consumption,
tedious work to reroute a stock ventilation shaft (or the paticnce and
parts to add an extra) - just to get a few seconds of a slight
boost of power? Not for me.