Icing down the engine

ricardoa1

Registered User
How much can one expect from Icing down the IC and supercharger?

Has anyone seen how much HP or TQ this can make on a back to back dyno run?
 
I'm not sure about dyno pulls, but I've seen gains at the track equating to a couple of tenths.
 
I put 5lb bags of ice on the blower and IC for the second and third pulls when I got my car dynoed and it still made significantly less power. However I have a stock intercooler.
 
You'll warp the SC casing and possibly crack it, ice on the IC will help to get a few more degree's of timing.

reducing temp helps by
-making the SC work less
-letting you run more timing

cooler air does not make more power it gives you the opportunity of doing the things I said above, all this crap about extra oxygen molecules, they won't just appear or disappear by cooling the air charge

I'm running a water setup and you can barely hear blower whine when the water is at 40F, the hotter the air, the louder the blower. In my setup I lose about 10-12* of timing between hottest and coldest air temps that's about 25 WHP loss.

my 02
 
By icing down the IC etc, you're keeping the ACT's down which in turn prevent timing from being pulled both by the act's being high and getting high enough to cause detonation.

Stock tuning has timing being pulled starting at 120F and by 180F will have 8 degrees pulled. From the datalogs I've seen of several cars, the knock sensor starts kicking in by pulling timing at around 145F, and if its severe enough you lose a full 8 degrees.

Cold air is denser than hot air, so you get more O2 in a cubic foot when the air is colder, which means more power. I'd say you would be taking a very big risk by adding timing based on how much you have iced everything down.

Ricardo, I don't think your going to gain anything on a dyno by icing the motor down, unless you have a way of colling the ACT's down to like zero degrees before the pull, and keeping them there, which has no benefit anyway because you wouldn't be able to run that tune on the street.

Fraser
 
I think it would help the motor to make more power on the first pull (10-15 rwhp) than if just strapped down hot, straight off the road. It should also be similar to the power it makes at the track when the car is cooled with ice between rounds.

David
 
Last edited:
By icing down the IC etc, you're keeping the ACT's down which in turn prevent timing from being pulled both by the act's being high and getting high enough to cause detonation.

Stock tuning has timing being pulled starting at 120F and by 180F will have 8 degrees pulled. From the datalogs I've seen of several cars, the knock sensor starts kicking in by pulling timing at around 145F, and if its severe enough you lose a full 8 degrees.

Cold air is denser than hot air, so you get more O2 in a cubic foot when the air is colder, which means more power. I'd say you would be taking a very big risk by adding timing based on how much you have iced everything down.

Ricardo, I don't think your going to gain anything on a dyno by icing the motor down, unless you have a way of colling the ACT's down to like zero degrees before the pull, and keeping them there, which has no benefit anyway because you wouldn't be able to run that tune on the street.

Fraser
Question; when you say stock tune starts to pull timing at 120° do you mean act or engine temp? I'm guessing act and so I am basing my next two comments on that.

I don't see where you say you can keep the act's pretty low on the dyno but not use that tune on the street. Or did you literally mean "zero" because keeping the act's under 120° is doable.

So then at what point does icing down become redundant? At what act's is it no longer a benefit? I am able to keep the act's pretty reasonable but I still ice at the track primarily because everyone else does. But I've never measured what exactly it does. Am I wasting my time or what?

Ira
 
Last edited:
I am looking for people that actually had an improvement when they did a back to back comparo. I now feel that the beenefits of it are very short lived and by the time the car moves enough air, over 4500rpms the bennefits of it go out the window.
 
Question; when you say stock tune starts to pull timing at 120° do you mean act or engine temp? I'm guessing act and so I am basing my next two comments on that.

I don't see where you say you can keep the act's pretty low on the dyno but not use that tune on the street. Or did you literally mean "zero" because keeping the act's under 120° is doable.

So then at what point does icing down become redundant? At what act's is it no longer a benefit? I am able to keep the act's pretty reasonable but I still ice at the track primarily because everyone else does. But I've never measured what exactly it does. Am I wasting my time or what?

Ira

I mean the ACT's, and yes I was literally talking 0F ;).

I'm going to use my car as an example here since I have hundreds of logs including alot from the track. The one prominent thing I've noticed is just how much ACT's climb per run and that seems to be pretty constant, no matter the starting temperature.

For instance, with the DIC setup I have now, I see on average about a 25 degree rise on each pass. That doesn't seem to change with starting out at 110F or 100F or 120F.

Allowing the car to cool down and helping it out by icing it down can help because the starting temperature can keep you out of the zone where timing gets pulled and/or detonation kicks in. How much of a difference in the ET's will it make between starting out at ambient temperatures say 75F or 100F, that I don't know.

I don't ice anything down, I'll usually let the car sit for 20 minutes or so, and maybe run the IC fan for a bit to cool the IC down quicker.. but I'd rather be racing more and seeing how consistent the car can be. I'm not scared of running several back to back runs where I see my ACT's drop down to about 100 or so in the staging lanes and seeing it go to 125F down the 1/4. You've seen what I average :).

If I was to completely ice the car down and let it sit for an hour and a half I might nab that 13 but thats not really telling me the truth of what my car can really do, in my mind anyway.... I'm a driver, not a sitter :D.

Sitting on a dyno, that all changes because you don't get the airflow to cool things down like you would at the track, and I was seeing temperature rises of 35 to 40 degrees on a short pull in 3rd gear.

Fraser
 
On the dyno the other day we were doing full 3rd gear pulls, I think 3 total. Im pretty sure each started at 100 and ended at 110. That was with an eaton and 17+ psi. Rico, dont you have a Big FMIC. I think mine is 32x12x3. I figure having a big fmic and a twin screw you'd make even less heat. SO, I doubt youd gain a noticable ammount on a dyno.
 
Im not using he info to analyze the most recent runs, but to analyze runs Ive made in the past where it involed me Icing the car down. I wanted to see if the ICe made that much of an improvements on previous numbers. And also if others are getting great results from it.
 
I mean the ACT's, and yes I was literally talking 0F ;).

I'm going to use my car as an example here since I have hundreds of logs including alot from the track. The one prominent thing I've noticed is just how much ACT's climb per run and that seems to be pretty constant, no matter the starting temperature.

For instance, with the DIC setup I have now, I see on average about a 25 degree rise on each pass. That doesn't seem to change with starting out at 110F or 100F or 120F.

Allowing the car to cool down and helping it out by icing it down can help because the starting temperature can keep you out of the zone where timing gets pulled and/or detonation kicks in. How much of a difference in the ET's will it make between starting out at ambient temperatures say 75F or 100F, that I don't know.

I don't ice anything down, I'll usually let the car sit for 20 minutes or so, and maybe run the IC fan for a bit to cool the IC down quicker.. but I'd rather be racing more and seeing how consistent the car can be. I'm not scared of running several back to back runs where I see my ACT's drop down to about 100 or so in the staging lanes and seeing it go to 125F down the 1/4. You've seen what I average :).

If I was to completely ice the car down and let it sit for an hour and a half I might nab that 13 but thats not really telling me the truth of what my car can really do, in my mind anyway.... I'm a driver, not a sitter :D.

Sitting on a dyno, that all changes because you don't get the airflow to cool things down like you would at the track, and I was seeing temperature rises of 35 to 40 degrees on a short pull in 3rd gear.

Fraser

Then you've answered my questions. Icing probably does nothing for me. Although I've never logged it at the track, I know that on the dyno I don't need to ice to keep my act's down. I don't see why it would be any different at the track. I was always curious. Thanks. More $$ for beer now ;)

Ira
 
Last edited:
Back
Top