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In my opinion, I have a couple issues with this product.
The concept is sound, and is a proven idea, but this application is flawed.
1) The intake charge is not in contact with the cooled surface of the tube for very long; the tube is short, and the air moves rapidly through it. Heat transfer efficiency is heavily dependent on how long the charge is in contact with the transferring medium, which is why radiators / intercoolers / oil coolers, etc. have lots and lots of surface area that contacts the fluid being cooled. Enough said.
2) The cooling coil is only housed in the outer tube. The cooling sleeve doesn't look like it's coupled with the inner tube with a head transfer medium, like if it was filled with liquid, or brazed right onto the inner tube, so it will not transfer heat out of the inner tube very efficiently.
I say the concept is proven because the usual application of this is to have nozzles squirting CO2 / Nitrous / Water onto an existing intercooler to increase the temperature differential between the intake charge and the cooler (the other thing that drastically affects the efficiency of heat transfer). Drag racers will often soak their intercoolers in ice water, or dry ice and water just before a run to accomplish the same thing, since one run may not heat soak the cooler as much.
If this product had the air flowing directly over the cooling coil, or if the cooling coil cooled a honeycomb core or something that more directly contacted the charge I might be a little less skeptical.
It does look pretty nicely made though, but if you have a friend with a welder, or if you want to try to learn to structurally solder or braze with a MAPP gas torch or an oxy-cet rig you could probably do something very similar with some copper tubing from the hardware store and try it out. You could use a brake hardline flaring tool to flare the ends to clamp hoses onto. Paintball CO2 tank and a regulator might be $75?
My $0.02.
Best,
Drew
posted by 165.124.16...
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