Are intercoolers banned?

[Conceptual]

No turbo, just intercoolers. Is it against the regs to fit one, or is it just not used due to packaging constraints?

[Sawtooth-spike]

I belive the rules say the engine must be Naturally Aspirated.

Edit: Sorry miss read what you wrote. But i did find this

5.11.1 Other than injection of fuel for the normal purpose of combustion in the engine, any device, system, procedure, construction or design the purpose or effect of which is any decrease in the temperature of the engine intake air is forbidden.

[Giblet]

An intercooler would negate the ram air effect that the intake provides, would it not?

[berujio]

Yes, it would.
But the more important reason is, there is no real need for cooling. Unlike with a supercharged engine the air arrives at ambient temperatures, you would need to use some active component (refrigerator ) to cool it to even lower temperatures. I'm not quite sure about the intention of the quoted rule. You could use an additional fuel nozzle to cool the air right at the entry of the the airbox, but as there are no restrictions in diameter (that I know from) I can't see the purpose of this.

[Conceptual]

I think that the first reply pretty much proves that it is NOT a legal thing.

I was more looking at the air-to-liquid intercoolers that are making big power in drag racing now...

I have an idea on how to super-cool the intake air, and since I was told before that the work to compress a cylinder is directly related to the temperature of the intake charge, I thought it might free up some HP for very little investment...

Thanks for the answers!

[Shrek]

i just thought of this:
lines of water around the intake tract even though i don't know how to cool the water without another radiator

[machin]

I haven't checked the rules but I guess both of you (Shrek/Conceptual) are thinking of using a compressor and refrigerant (another raditor on its own wouldn't help as it would only be using ambient air to cool it, therefore wouldn't be any cooler than the ambient air whcih the engine is sucking in) you then circulate the refrigerant around the air intake pipes to cool it, or to cool the fuel which, when it is sprayed into the engine intake, would absorbe heat from the combustion air... which I guess would work but... There is probably a rule on the use/carriage of refrigerants? Also you'd have to see whether the energy required to power the compressor would be lower than the power gained from the charge-cooling.....

[Conceptual]

I had a different angle, but since it isn't allowed, it doesn't matter.

I have a local friend that is building a TDI... Maybe I will pick up the parts and see if I can get it to work for his machine.

[flynfrog]

water methanol injection is used on NA cars to cool down the intake charge. I cant rember what car it was I belive a for prototype mustang used the AC compressor to chill the water before injection. They might have also used this on a Euro spec focus. Its all a little hazy right now.

[astracrazy]

I think though that if there was any legal way to additionally cool the intake, they would have done it by now?

[Fil]

i wonder if this area could be opened for development for the new engine rules in a few years time. particularly with the potential for forced induction to return..

Conceptual, what was your idea?

[xpensive]

An intercooler would negate the ram air effect that the intake provides, would it not?

The "ram-effect" can never be more than the dynamic pressure from the air-speed, rho * velocity^2/2, which at 70 m/s or 250 km/h is 3000 Pa or 3% of the atmosphere.

Increasing air-density by cooling should give a lot more than that. If it was legal of course.

[qw56q]

An intercooler would negate the ram air effect that the intake provides, would it not?

Doesn't the intake suck the air in using a venturi effect?

[autogyro]

water methanol injection is used on NA cars to cool down the intake charge. I cant rember what car it was I belive a for prototype mustang used the AC compressor to chill the water before injection. They might have also used this on a Euro spec focus. Its all a little hazy right now.

Interesting idea but I think you will find that the water/methanol injection simply adds an oxygen dense source, water and a dense hydro carbon based fuel methanol, into the cylinder without upsetting the ordinary fuel air mixture much in the same way as Nitrous plus extra petrol.
Cooling the air going into an IC engine will use a huge amount of energy, because there is a very large and continually changing volume of air (mainly Nitrogen) to cool.
Air intake design only becomes really critical if the air sourced is at transonic speeds (as in some aircraft).
There is of course an induction 'pulse' advantage to be had from tuned length intake trumpets. These can be moved to increase or decrease the length to balance the intake pulse characteristics of different camshaft designs at different rpm. This is similar to tuning exhaust headers.

[Edis]

water methanol injection is used on NA cars to cool down the intake charge. I cant rember what car it was I belive a for prototype mustang used the AC compressor to chill the water before injection. They might have also used this on a Euro spec focus. Its all a little hazy right now.

Water and methanol provides cooling mainly by their high heat of vaporisation. That means chilling the liquid has little effect on the cooling provided by the liquid. It also means that the cooling provided below the boiling point of methanol will be small.

A 'boost fluid' is mostly effective at cooling the charge and the engine itself inside the cylinder. This reduce knock and higher boost pressures, higher compression ratios, leaner fuel mixtures and/or more ignition advance can be used.