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Followup To Thanks. Our cowling (engine cover) is made that the headers are outside of the engine compartment and I presently use a 1 inch phenolic spacer between the intake and carb.Last thing Dan, I tried the cool can a couple of years ago, it was an old moroso made of cork. When the race was over the ice had melted and it was hot. What should be put in the cool can to cool the gas. thanks again. Bruce.
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Followup To Wow, good ideas. How can i cool the incoming air I,m presently using a ram air system. Secondly, where should I put the heat shield, between the intake and carb? What material should the heat shield be made of? Thanks again.
Bruce.
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Hi Dan, last time I asked you a question on crankcase evac system, this time its concerning my intake manifold. I race a basically stock 305 chevy engine and our rules permit us to block the heat riser from the head to the manifold.This is done with gaskets made especially for this. This cools down the intake somewhat. I read in my SBC performance manuals and they say that this disturbs the idling somewhat but improves performance at high rpms. I wish to improve on this by drilling the intake on both sides of the heat riser passage and instaling fittings and passing water(I say water because I race a hydro and the lake water cools the engine) in the heat riser. The heat riser is located right underneath the carb. My question is , can the intake manifold be to cool. My thinking, or what I always been told is cool on top, hot on the bottom.
Thanks again.
Bruce.
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The best answer I can give you is by example: Many drag racers run their fuel through a 'cool can' which consists of a coil of aluminum or copper tubing inside a container full of ice- - -or even dry ice ! It makes a big difference.
So no, running lake water through your intake heat riser would not be too cool. It's a good idea !
Have you noticed that your car runs especially well on a cool day ? That's cuz the air is cool and dense. If you can also somehow chill the incoming air before it gets to the manifold that will help even more. A case in point is turbo engines benefit greatly from an intercooler, so do big diesels.
In our race cars many use an insulating header wrap to hold in the heat , and isolate it from the intake. The stuff keeps so much heat in though, that it destroys the headers prematurely. I wrap the intake manifold instead, and have rigged up a heat shield as well.
Hope this is a help !
Dan Liddy
Sarasota, Florida
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OK with a ram air, you probably have all you're going to get unless you can re route it to naturally cooler air. Closer to the water maybe.
Since you are running a V-8 the heat shield if any would be placed between the headers and the intake area. Might not be real practical for what you're doing , but then if you look at your engine bay you might find a way to segregate the hot exhaust from the intake source. That or perhaps, find a way to vent the exhaust area so the heat is moved away from the engine area.
Dan
WE also place an insulating block between the carb and the manifold to absorb heat coming from the block surface to the manifold. Every little bit helps.
AnswerYou can try dry ice, but if there's even a hint of moisture in the gas it will freeze it. Dry ice is something like 100 degrees below zero- - -it's frozen CO2 . The other thing would be to get a bigger cool can, or mount it in a really cool place. You could also rig up a way to cool it with the lake water, on the intake side of the cooling system.
Large displacement boats, like trawlers , use keel coolers for engine coolant. Nothing more than a pipe that runs along the bottom of the boat for a ways. They also cool engine oil in that way. Not practical of course with your requirement for a really smooth, low resistance hull.
For many years I was friends with Rich Sutphen who fielded the Unlimited, "Spirit of Sutphen" or some such damn thing, it was 2nd in season points for a couple of years. His withdrawal was due to the fact that even though they were second in the world, they couldn't pick up a full sponsorship. After dumping about $5,000,000.00 in 3-4 years he had to give up. They still do a lot of offshore racing. Sarasota, where I live is one of their stops. One of my sons has done the graphics on MOST of the offshore race boats. Small world ?
Dan
