New way of icing down engine when drag racing.

Mike Puckett

SCCoA Member
All year I've been carrying bags of ice to the drags with me everytime I go to help cool it off between rounds. Filling up zip lock bags of ice and laying them on the blower top and IC is a little messy. So, being an engineer I've come up with a new method. I recently got some gel packs from my son that you freeze and put in a cooler instead ice. He got them from the Honey Baked Hams store. They sell them for a $1 each, they're cheap. I put one of my spare blower tops in the freezer and layed the gel pack on top and let it freeze to the shape of the blower top. I've got about 7 or 8 of them frozen now. Now I can lay one on a hot blower top and it form fits for good heat transfer. I also froze some flat for the IC. I tried it the other week and it worked better than the ice. The one for the IC was able to be used twice, once on each side. You can even tape it in place for the race without having to worry about dripping water on the track. You can easily put a metal tube or any other part in the freezer, form the gel around it, and freeze it to the proper shape to mount on the car. With a bag of ice in the cooler these things will stay frozen for days. Also, if the plastic bag the gel's in gets punctured the gel doesn't come out, it only weeps a little water. Dry it off and slap a piece of clear cellophane packing tape over the hole to reseal it.
 
I've used those on my truck at the track to cool the fuel rails between races. The fual rails on my truck get boiling hot, specially the front passenger side #2 cylinder which is last injector to get fuel.
 
WHAT TO USE

HAS ANYONE THOUGHT TO WRAP 3/8,S COPPER TUBING AROUND THE IC TUBES.....................COVER IT AND RUN A/C THROUGH IT TO COOL THEM DOWN......................FAST FREDDIE:cool: :cool: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
 
Mercury 65 did that with some tubing and hose. Wrapped it around the blower, the tubes, and the IC and uses an ice can and a small radiator for heat dissipation. I don't know if his website still works as its been a long time since I've talked to him. www.mercury65.com I think or run a search for his name and check out the pics in his sig

Alex
 
The Pro5.0 Mustangs use a big ice/water box to hold the the IC and then circulate the water in the tank. I'm wondering if that method could adapted to ours.
 
A good air/water IC can give you about 50 hp. Have you seen the intercooler Chris Wise is using? It has a small pump to circulate coolant through it. At the track he fills it with ice and water.
 
Somehow I doubt it is worth 50 hp on our cars. If Dave is at 372 rwhp and Chris is at 390 with all the extra crap his car has inclucing extra dispoacement, I don't think the IC alone is even worth 20.
 
However on a hot day Dave has no chance of getting that 372//However Chris does..Idealy a properly cpnstructed water/air IC will be more efficient and more consistant...Running Ice water will always give you better results then an air/air IC. Water just cunducts heat better then air
 
I'm about to take out another 30 lbs or so when I swap out the drivers seat for a racing seat whenever I find a drivers side manual seat track. I'm going to remove as much of that lining that's pasted to the floor as I can as well. My goal is 3400 lbs. If I ever start trailering it I'll remove the A/C as well. I needed it today. I figure remove weight is a lot cheaper than adding more performance parts. The frozen gel packs worked great today. Only problem is they form condensate very quickly and drip profusely. If they're duct taped in place for a run you'll need a towel around them. They sweat more than I did. It was hot today. At 1 pm for our 1st time trial it was 105 in the sun and 99 in the shade, I didn't get the track temp but it had to have been 150. I ran a 13.4 on that run but got better as it grew cooler and ran a couple of 13.1's also. Speeds were high with all but one at 105+.
 
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