Fan to help Air

[david-b]

I had a dream... would this work/help?

Would adding a electric fan, small but not too small, in the engine compartment help air flow?

Just some common snese and reasoning: You make it close to the ground, blowing air up. Air being blown gets dense and cold, especially since its coming from the ground. Cold air goes around the engine compartment, blowing the hot air out. Engine compartment drops in temp, intake gets kept cooler, cold air going into the intake.

I cant imagine it helping TOO much in the way of performance, but it seems it should help keep the engine and engine compartment cooler.

Just a thought. Please comment. Thanks

[mellowboy]

I think they invented that already. It comes in every car I'm pretty sure its not goin to do anything. Doesn't hurt to try.

[Rufe]

I think you would be better off designing a vent system, (you want to remove the hot air as opposed to circulating it). Your speed at 50mph would give you 1,000 times the airflow of a fan, (no, that number is not scientific, but it gets the point across)

Fans are better for insuring airflow through the radiator at idle/low speeds.

[david-b]

So lets just say, for example, get a CF hood with vents (not that fake look-a-like), and then have a fan at the bottom blowing air toward the hood.

I know this shit probably sounds stupid, but it's just to get people thinking... mostly me tho.

[drdisque]

intake air temperature doesn't make a HUGE difference, not as much as the intake companies would try to make you think. The main advantage from that would be that the engine as a whole would run cooler because more air would pass over the radiator.

[CivicSpoon]

Originally Posted by drdisque

intake air temperature doesn't make a HUGE difference, not as much as the intake companies would try to make you think.

Wrong. The colder the air the more dense it is. the more dense it is, the better it will work in your engine. There is a reason air intake companies make those claims; they actually researched and tested it. Why do you think they make cold air intakes? Because they stick out and get colder air than the short rams. And why would people put dry ice on their filters and intake piping at the track? That's right, cold air

[Evil Result]

well it probley dosen't effect things much if the engine compartment is 200F+ just as long as you can get cool air into the intake.

[civichatch982]

yea I'm roughly going ot have to agree with everyone on this, your fan theory isn't neciserily going to work, and even in the slightest instance that it did keep the engine slightly colder .. the only way that'll help if you end up leaving your car idleing for a very very long time, because engineers took engine cooling into consideration already and therefor they made sure that there was an overly adiquite air flow in the engine bay while driving, and what the air couldnt cool they solved by putting on that nice little cooling system called a radiator.

but .. your idea would work with an enclosed amp (like mine). It works like a charm for the most part, given I just have a small 2.5" computer fan pulling cold air into the encloseur and one pulling the warm air out, therefor creating a nice little air current over the amp and its heat displacers.

[drdisque]

Originally Posted by CivicSpoon

Why do you think they make cold air intakes? Because they stick out and get colder air than the short rams.

because most car "enthusiasts" don't really understand the actual physics of an actual car in the REAL world, they read what the companies put out there that uses theoretical situations and fudged and/or fake dyno numbers into selling them the intake that costs more money. Just because somebody sells something or does something doesn't mean it actually works. Lots of people buy the tornado, that doesn't mean that useless peice of shit actually does anything. Also, I never said cold air does NOTHING, i just said it does very little.

[383PhoenixAm]

The fact is that you want to get as much cool air as possible. Aside from giving a denser charge to the engine, it also helps in keeping combustion chambers a bit cooler, etc. The problem with the fan idea, though, is that it would probably be a bit hard and impractical to create a fan that could displace enough air to feed engines at the more mid RPMs. At higher RPMs it would probably even be a restriction, not to mention, as Rufe said, at a certain apeed you'd be better off without it. You'd need some sort of centrifuge to do anything like that.
And yes, vents are normally more for getting rid of hot air, not introducing cold air.

[benchtest]

david-b

[benchtest]

david-b, A radiator is capable of producing in the range of 50,000 watts of heat. That's over 100,000 btu/hour. Imagine a window fan trying to cool your house with the furnace at full roar. The vented hood is a good idea for cooling the engine compartment, but it will have a very minor effect on the intake air tmeperature. Your idea is good, but hard to execute. If you're really concerned about intake temps, you could insulate your cold-air intake.

Best of luck

[david-b]

Thank you. that was all i needed