hey guys- does anybody know if there is an intercooler that can be used with just a cai system? the extreme heat and humidity down here in south louisiana is killing my car's performance. i'm not crazy about the methanol injection systems because if it suddenly stops working, your engine might frag because of the timing issues associated with methanol injection. any ideas? thanks!

 

The methanol injection can be set up so that if it suddenly stops the timing etc. will change saving the engine.

 

An intercooler for a non-forced induction setup would do nothing.

In a forced induction situation, the supercharger or turbo is compressing the air charge. Increased pressure = more heat (in accordance with the ideal gas law: PV=nRT). Additionally, the actual supercharger or turbo adds heat to the air charge from friction, etc...

All the intercooler does is bring the air charge temps back towards ambient temperature, but not lower. And actually with some of the liquid intercooler/heat-exchanger setups, once the heat exchanger fluid gets a little heat soaked it doesn't even to that very well.

Now, if you an air-to-air intercooler with some sort of water spray or even a nitrous or CO2 spray, you can then reduce air charge temps to below ambient temps. Likewise, filling a liquid-to-air intercooler with ice water will also allow below ambient temp air charges.

Sort of hassle for *minimal* gains in a naturally aspirated setup.

 

i have to agree with slaya. gains would be minimal <15hp and that would be mostly due to timing. i do have the snow methanol/water injection on my car with an N/A setup. i use it at the track with my race tune so i can jump the timing up some + it also keeps my intake manifold and intake charge temps consistant. dry intakes are horribly inconsistant when it comes to bracket racing. with no fuel mix in the intake charge the charge temp can raise or drop 20 degrees between runs making the car inconsistant. it really helped with that issue but i haven't noticed any real gains in hp or e.t.