Project Cool banana :P

[greenfoam]

Team Mace my manifold is comming off this week, I'm going to do some messurments but basically do you have any insulation in this thickness, I'm sticking a oil spash sheild in also and hope to wedge it under the manifold so I'll need to do some messuring first to see just what thickness I need. I'm not sure how to best resist the transfer of heat through the bolts yet but I'll think of something. The potential power gain from keeping the heat out is just too much for me to not attempt to fix it.

The head is from the engine masters challenge the guy was obsessed with insulating everything and it made 680hp so he did something right

[MACE]

Team Mace my manifold is comming off this week, I'm going to do some messurments but basically do you have any insulation in this thickness, I'm sticking a oil spash sheild in also and hope to wedge it under the manifold so I'll need to do some messuring first to see just what thickness I need. I'm not sure how to best resist the transfer of heat through the bolts yet but I'll think of something. The potential power gain from keeping the heat out is just too much for me to not attempt to fix it.

The head is from the engine masters challenge the guy was obsessed with insulating everything and it made 680hp so he did something right

Ah nice

Given your request we should have something in stock, however I would honestly consider machining the head face (easier to do on a mill) or the manifold face it's self (or both) so you can at least install a 6mm insulator.

As for the bottom of the manifold, the oil splash cover is also an excellent idea, however I would also consider lining a section of this material underneath. This might require you to grind away the webbing in the bottom of the manifold which is no biggy.

As for reducing the conductivity between the bolts and the manifold (Heat transfer due to the bolts won't be high enough to worry about IMHO) you could enlarge all of the existing bolt holes and press fit insulation bushes which should do the trick.

Also if you could mount the thermostat remotely, and plumb fitting out the side of the manifold, bypassing the existing passage it would be a bonus.

That lump of ally with its long runners sadly does a good job at interwarming So any improvements you do will be a huge bonus

Should be good to see

[greenfoam]

There some good extra ideas there, I'll update this once I have the manifold off, I think we can do something a bit special. I wont be able to do everything this time around since I only have 3 weeks till the first race but I'll see how I go

[immortality]

seen a guy advertising oil splash shields on ebay. can make em to suit what ever engine you want. has definitly been done before.

i still think you need to get the intake HPC coated. will reduce the temps even more with all the other suggested mods.

remote mounting the thermostat is definitly a interesting idea

[greenfoam]

I'm kinda hoping to fill up the gap at the front and rear of the manifold left from the thicker insulators with the splash sheild :0 it works in my head at least but may or may not once I have a better look at it . Making the sheild from stainless is no problem for me I've got all the tools/skills to do that, that's the least of my problems, I'm going to have it overhang the block and "clip" on the outside of the block with a tab, if that makes any sense and have it cut out around the pushrods so it's 100% oil proof, I also want to weld a rod or half rod under it down the full length in the middle as a drip rod for the returning oil so it lands on the cam. But yeah the sheild itself is no problem, the rest of it needs some working out

[MACE]

HPC coating would certainly help, but it depends on how much $$$ you want to spend.

Please keep us posted

[Tsunamix]

Couple of Tips :-

Thermal Insulation is available in all sorts of thicknesses from 7 thousandths of an inch up. MACE might still have my number somewhere so I can find some specialty stuff for him.

1.6mm, 3.2mm, 6.4mm are all available, although not common in some very high qualtity grades of material based on glass (hell on machine tools) silicon or even mica.

Below that is some real exotic stuff I can point you in the direction. Most people know what Nomex is ? Well there is some 3 layer Nomex-Kapton-Nomex laminate available with thicknesses as low as 2 thou per layer, up 7 thou per layer for specialty electrical / thermal work. NKN tops out at 180 degrees operating temperature. Kapton is a specially thermal barrier.

it could be used for gasketing type applications, but its primary purpose is electrical insulation at high temps. It's thermal side is kind of secondary.

I can point people in the right direction but I am not a machinist or a business, while MACE is, and is in the industry this stuff comes from.

Another thought I had was if you put shallow grooves in aluminium, you can slot copper sheet (or even square copper tube) into it. Add some standard heat sinking compound - or silver solder if you can make it take to the aluminium, and you have heat sinks on your ally componenents, or even a water cooling set up. Using something like the VLS system from a raptor, you could conveivably water cool an inlet manifold.

The sides of the plenum on an ecotec are almost ideally shaped for this......

[Tsunamix]

Oh and thermal efficiency is a HUGE thing in an engine. If you can get your air coming in at zero degrees celsius, you will get a a flow volume some 35% larger than air coming in at 25 degrees. Air density decrease THAT much with temperature.

Have a bit of fun with this. Blow on a thermometer for about 2 minutes, and measure the temperature of your breath. It will probably be around 33-36 degrees. Blow up a balloon With the balloon in a small cardboard box. Blow it up until it just touches the sides. Throw it in the freezer for an hour. When it comes out, have a look at how much smaller the balloon is. Thats temperature effect on air density.

[Tsunamix]

You know how Oxygen from an oxy bottle is freezing cold as it comes out of the taps, I've often wondered if shooting Oxy dtraight into a manifold would give a 2 fold increase in power, indiretcly through intercooling and directly through a better / hotter burn because of higher o2 content.....

[stocky]

You know how Oxygen from an oxy bottle is freezing cold as it comes out of the taps, I've often wondered if shooting Oxy dtraight into a manifold would give a 2 fold increase in power, indiretcly through intercooling and directly through a better / hotter burn because of higher o2 content.....

i think thats where most people would use nitrous

[50LTRv8]

O.k. I know I sound stupid, but is there any benifit to running an intercooler on a NA engine to lower the intake temps?, or does the air flow depend on the turbo blowering the air through it?

Foamy, what you say all makes sense to me, will be keeping an eye on this

[Tsunamix]

Nitrous is illegal in street setups - at least in Qld. As far as I know, theres no legal issue with oxy.

[greenfoam]

I'm investigating this whole Ford manifold onto Holden engine tech, could kill a few birds with half a stone. Since they are narrower (don't know how much yet) and that gives room for spacers. But stainless steel valley oil cover, I might be starting that tomorrow.

P.S. Tsunamix the toll truck just left

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

Just chuck dry ice in the air box....

[Tsunamix]

Except dry ice devolves into CO2 gas, which is a filler in combustion, not used, so it just takes up space that oxygen or fuel could be using.

Hey Foamy - Any chance you could slam me the bag number so I can trace it ? It's supposed to be overnight but didn't arrive.

Cheers

[Reaper]

seen a guy advertising oil splash shields on ebay. can make em to suit what ever engine you want. has definitly been done before.

i still think you need to get the intake HPC coated. will reduce the temps even more with all the other suggested mods.

remote mounting the thermostat is definitly a interesting idea

Funnily enough I have one of them - nice and shinny - Bought it off a HRT mechanic who was experimenting with it but never quite made it on the car. Gimme a yell if you are interested.

Reaper

[immortality]

You know how Oxygen from an oxy bottle is freezing cold as it comes out of the taps, I've often wondered if shooting Oxy dtraight into a manifold would give a 2 fold increase in power, indiretcly through intercooling and directly through a better / hotter burn because of higher o2 content.....

lets think about this for a moment, when using N20, your injecting a substance that is only 33% oxygen in a liquid form as well as all the extra fuel that is needed to control the combustion process and stop things from melting because with N2O you have already have greatly increased combustion pressures and heat. now triple that effect with pure O2. i'd imagine that engine life under those circumstances would calculated in seconds......

David Vizard explains it very well in one of his engine books.

[ScoHar]

do you not want to make a manifold from scratch? something with less material in it?

[Tsunamix]

I see your point imoortality.

I was thinking introducing a little O2, maybe 10cfm, usingthe expansion principle to cool the charge, and increasing oxy content of the mix from 18% to 25% or thereabouts.

N2O degenerates (when catalysed) at about 1300 Deg Celsius into nitrogen and oxygen, so it actually provides oxygen late in the combustion cycle. I am wondering about smaller amounts of oxygen earlier to increase flame front propagation, as well as intercooling.

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

If this was a feasible option, do you think you are the first person to think of it? I'm not being sarcastic, but if it worked, wouldn't O2 be used instead of N2O?

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

Why not use Oxygen (O2) injection instead of Nitrous Oxide (NOS)

Here you go. Very interesting. I had an idea as to why N2O worked, this clears it up and explains why O2 wouldn't.

[Tsunamix]

Liquid Oxy is available you know - LOX. Check BOC gases website. Oxygen | BOC Gases.

the question of heat and melting is relevant only if the percentage of oxygen would be the same as the percentage of O2 generated by NOS breakdown.

Conceivably, you could even use hybrid medical gases, like Oxygen and something denser like Argon, Krypton or heavier, as they will take up less physical space in your inlet tract.

Not saying it doesn't have problems, but advances in cryogenics have made it possible to supply LOX.

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

But at what cost...

[Tsunamix]

See this is a thought experiment, not really worried about costs. learning about how it works and having holes poked in ideas is what challenges people to come up with new ones

Like turning your manifold into a heat sink.

By the way - removing the rear rubber from the bonnet to allow warmer air to be pushed out. Does it really have any noticeable effect in colling the engine bay ?

[Tsunamix]

you know, I keep thinking about this.

With the advent of SIDI, fuel isn't added until the compression cycle, and only directly into the combustion chamber. This reduces the chance of pre ignition, should the inlet gasses be oxygen rich.

SIDI would also reduce the chances of pre ignition further, as after the exhaust cycle there is very close to zero unburnt fuels remaining in the cylinder to support pre-combustion.

What would happen if we controlled the O2 content by directly injecting LOX into the combustion chamber after the fuel was injected SIDI style ? I think there would be limited inter cooling effect so that big bonus might dissappear.

Intercooling by lox injection in the head might work. Directlly port inject LOX as close to the start of the compression stroke as possible, to limit cold O2 going out into a hot exhaust system. Flame front propagation would be much faster, so you could retard the timing quite a bit - in fact it would be necessary. Pre ignition could be dealt with if the incoming charge was cool enough, and the LOX injection was late enough.

Still it's an awful lot of engineering to achieve a similair result to NOS.

I stil think that small amounts of oxy would be interesting. Increase percentage in the atmopsphere by a couple of percent, retard the timing and you should be ok, in a port injected or SIDI engine.

The problems of O2 injection really only become insurmountable (at least to my mind) when you have very rich burns, over advanced allowing the flame front to actually propagate past the valves, or pre ignite mid compression stroke.

Oxy doesn't cause combustion, it's required to support it. More oxy will make all fuels burn faster and more completley. Just have to match the burn characteristics to the engine.