just plumb the intake into the aircon system or rig up something similar.
Believe me, I've looked into it.
I don't think that the aircon system delivers enough cold air to make much difference to the airflow; not to mention that I'd be using more energy to have the aircon on, and maybe not even getting that much back.
I haven't given up on the idea totally, but the air plumbing would be a bit more complex than I'm currently willing to do, going through the firewall etc.... I will investigate one day.
Would love to hear from anybody who has successfully done this, BTW!
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However, the exposed aircon plumbing in the engine bay does have some "waste cold" that I looked at using, trouble is the coldest part is on the other side of the bay.
(I know that there's no such thing as "cold" only heat, but using the term makes discussion less clumsy, so bear with me)
Options were to either
(a) extend the intake airbox to a ridiculously large size to encompass the cold plumbing (moving the intake box not practical - it's a Growler which takes its feed from behind the headlight) or
(b) transfer the "cold" from the plumbing to the airbox by use of (1) an air-air intercooler, with some additional air pipe and some sort of air pump or (2) a water jacket around the cold plumbing, and a water pump with some cooling coils in the airbox.
Option (a) - crazy, with unknown ramifications on airflow
Option (b1) - expensive and too difficult to implement with the Growler
Option (b2) - would probably work, but a bit complicated for a max 6% gain in power (figured on 10 degrees C drop = 3% power), given that, when moving, IAT is 2-4 degrees above ambient anyway, and currently ambient is about 22 degrees.
There was a US company which made packages to implement option (b2), but they seem to have gone out of business.... so maybe it wasn't that great an idea.
The auxiliary cooling fan was a cheap and easy compromise which seems to have solved the main problem - heat soak when stationary.
I'm going to put in a thermal switch so that it only comes on when necessary.
And I insulated the exposed "waste cold" aircon plumbing - this seems to have made the aircon a little more efficient, oddly enough giving a flow-on effect to the engine coolant radiator (which is right in the airflow path of the aircon radiator), dropping my normal coolant running temperature by about 2 degrees.
Yes, a lot of mucking around for little gain, but a man needs a hobby.