Compressed Air

I've been reading too much...
so I've got some weird ideas...

You know the compressed air cans? the ones you use for airbrushes and keyboard cleaning? Would adding some cans of that stuff and spraying it into the intake/filter add hp? Think about it... this shit is compressed air, it's freezing cold when sprayed, and cheap. Adding cold air into the intake adds hp, right? Would this work? Am I just stupid and think too much... :banghead:

i don't think ur stupid, but the idea of having those cans of compressed air used for performance wouldn't have any effect unless the can spray out a huge amounts of air and the container would have to be the size of a large co2 tank. also the air coming out is nessacarilly cold, but more of a somewhat cooler temp, the container would be the one getting cold. think its wiser, and more affordable to just use nitrous, or other forced induction methods, my two cents.

this kind of reminds me of a guy i knew who was thinking of an idea that was pretty strange as urs. he wanted to put dry ice near the intake as a way to cool air coming in. i really don't see how that is going to cool the air down though, but put it in water and it would give it a great fog effect for show. haha

You aren't stupid at all. Every couple of months this topic, or a similar one, comes back up and the result is a number threads about it. Do a search, you will find them. If you want the short answer, then no it won't work.

The question is if it's air in those cans and not something else?

The low temperature is because of the expansion (high pressure inside the bottle, low pressure when the gas comes outside).

The thing is that an engines consumes a lot of air. For example, and engine producing 200 hp consumes around 0.15 kg of air each second. But compressed air have been used by for example trucks to reduce turbocharger spool-up, and in WRC cars doing a similar job.

The question is if it's air in those cans and not something else?

And the answer is no. Cans of compressed air don't contain air at all. It is, in fact, CO2.

And the answer is no. Cans of compressed air don't contain air at all. It is, in fact, CO2.

hey long time no see, anyways i got curious after ur reply. checking the can of dust off which is used in keyboard cleaning, i've discovered that it contains diflouroethane. i hate chemistry, but this doesn't even sound like it even contains any oxygen atoms in the first place. maybe different companies use different gases?

hey long time no see, anyways i got curious after ur reply. checking the can of dust off which is used in keyboard cleaning, i've discovered that it contains diflouroethane. i hate chemistry, but this doesn't even sound like it even contains any oxygen atoms in the first place. maybe different companies use different gases?

That is possible, most of the ones I've seen are CO2. However, I know for sure they're not compressed air. I've even heard of people using them for huffing.

mine is 100% Tetrafluoroethane....

Thanks for the respsonse guys.

Instead of compressed air cans, how about an air compressor? My dad has one that he uses for his airbrush. Put one of those in the truck, add power, and hook the hose to the intake. That IS air. That air is usually cooler than normal (it's being blown and moved). Would that work any better? It is air...

Thanks

Thanks for the respsonse guys.

Instead of compressed air cans, how about an air compressor? My dad has one that he uses for his airbrush. Put one of those in the truck, add power, and hook the hose to the intake. That IS air. That air is usually cooler than normal (it's being blown and moved). Would that work any better? It is air...

Thanks

that is what a supercharger and turbocharger is.

Compressed air is hotter than ambient air at atmospheric pressure, unless that compressed air has had time to radiate it's excess heat away. That is the reason for the intercooler, it is used to radiate the excess heat from the compressed air and drop it's temperature.

^^good idea if, infact, it was actually air...the gas coming out of the can is much cooler (in some cases able to give frost bite) than the ambient air temp...especially if you turn it upside down and are spraying the liquid instead of the gas...you could get some of thoes rechargable aroisal cans in the JC whitney catologs... now that is an idea.... hmmm

^^^ The cans arent technically air tho. Use a electric compressor with no extra gasses.

So, adding an intercooler, spraying compressed air (from a compressor), right into the intake would do something? Or would it be somewhere else? I'm still a little lost here...

-Add intercooler
-Spray compressed air into intercooler???

I really want to try something like this. I'm highly interested in whats going on. Thanks for all the repsonses.

omg... what u guy are trying to do is what a turbocharger and supercharger does, it is an air compressor. hey if u want to waste ur money on a tank of compress air and use it for about a min or so, go right ahead. and if u want an eletric air compressor, that has already been made. the problem with that is that it takes so much elctricity during a single use that is has to be recharge after a very short time of it being used.

electric air compresors or piston aorcompressors arent ideal for piston engines...impeller and roots compressors give a constant flow of air...wher as piston compressors there is a delay between compression pushes....now just spraying comrpressed air into the intake and not makng it go directly into the engine will do about the same as a ram air intake...eliminate vacum in the intake but wil not give your boost since matter always takes the path of lease resistance..if you where air would your rather squeez yourself the wrong way through 2 foot of pipe then through an air filter or have to be sucked in, compressed, blown up, blown out then travel down 10 foot of tubeing to become equal with ambient air pressure?

Why not stop beatin around the bush and just get nitrous? Its compressed, when you spray its extremely cold, and its better than compressed air since it contains more oxygen than air. As for having an actual in-car air compressor, I had a similar idea except using a turbocharger. The idea was this:
Normal turbocharged engine, except have a compressed air tank that is fed via the turbo. A solenoid valve would decide whether the turbo is feeding directly to the intake or to the tank, another valve is capable of connecting the tank to the intake. Upon WOT and no boost, the tank would feed the engine compressed air. The instant boost would cause a great increase in exhaust, quickly spooling the turbo and recharging the air tank. The proof this would work (at least somewhat, the size of the airtank may make it impractical) is the fact that wastegates exist... there is more energy coming out the exhaust than the turbo needs.. why not use that energy to fill up an air tank for some instant boost? Of course you will probably only get one 'boost' out of it, so if you gun it for a second and don't give the turbo a chance to re-charge the tank, you'll experience lag the next time. But for a strictly racing application where a blip of the throttle isn't likely, it might have some use. Obviously I left out an awful lot of details in my explanation, but I didn't feel like writing a novel.

well a tank of liquid oxygen would give you lots of O2 and freeze your intake into a block of ice :)

it would also raise your exaust tempatures to the point that your exaust manifold and block become one...Nitros cost too much....spraying compressed air that has had time to coll to the ambient air tempature into the intake manifold will do 2 things...eliminate and vacume and have the intercooling effect of nitros without the extra oxygen...

With the air compressor, you guys were talking about charging it up... if its electric, just use a dc-ac converter and plug it in then. That's what Ii was thinking.

NO2 is too dangerous. Too bad for the engine too. "Your cars weak to begin with, so let's spray it. When u dont use nitrous, your cars still weak."

That's why Im always looking for someway to add power w/o NO2. My car doesn't have a turbo/super charger, that's also whyIm looking at other options. I know a these use compressed air, but I want to do something with out spending too much $$$.

So, back to the topic, would that work? There really wasnt any real answer to the compressed air from compressor idea. Thanks

no such thing as cheap HP once you get past headers, exaust, intake and underdrive pulleys...and all that will give yo uat best 30-40HP...next mod is cams and timing...other than that any decent jump in HP will cost 1000+....you are not understanding what i was saying...spraying compressed air into the intake will do noting but reduce vacume...if you put an ove supply of air in the intake manifold and yo udont stop it from going out the intake it will...well just go out the intake...the only way yo uccould actualyl run your car off of compressed air that is in a holding tank and have th option of having it run NA also is to put a chek vualve in your intake...which would kill HP when not useing the compressed air...