Kraze's "The Reasonable Thing" kind of build

[gotovato]

Be careful with the above. If you do the computer fan thing don’t bother with any cheap fans. They don’t move air for shit. Keep in mind it needs to actually push through the tmic for it to do anything at all.

typical PC fan is like 0.5amps at 12v. What’s that like 6watts? How much are you hoping that will do for you?

also factor in when the car is moving at speed the fans will most likely act as more of a flow restriction then anything. This will take some testing to confirm though.

 

[L337TurboZ]

Be careful with the above. If you do the computer fan thing don’t bother with any cheap fans. They don’t move air for shit. Keep in mind it needs to actually push through the tmic for it to do anything at all.

typical PC fan is like 0.5amps at 12v. What’s that like 6watts? How much are you hoping that will do for you?

also factor in when the car is moving at speed the fans will most likely act as more of a flow restriction then anything. This will take some testing to confirm though.

This is true. In my friends case he used it to pull cool air from the fender into the engine bay but what I was suggesting is using it during off track time to keep air moving across the IC while the car is stationary.

The downside to using ice is that water will pool under the TMIC and around the coil packs. This could lead to a short in the coils or corrosion long term. If there are any coil pack valley covers that work with a TMIC then I would use the ice method.

Are you using a handheld pesticide sprayer tank to spray the IC? That's what I normally use since they can be had for cheap.

 

[Kraze]

Be careful with the above. If you do the computer fan thing don’t bother with any cheap fans. They don’t move air for shit. Keep in mind it needs to actually push through the tmic for it to do anything at all.

typical PC fan is like 0.5amps at 12v. What’s that like 6watts? How much are you hoping that will do for you?

also factor in when the car is moving at speed the fans will most likely act as more of a flow restriction then anything. This will take some testing to confirm though.

Oh yeah, we're not looking at typical computer fans for this idea lol. I've been doing a bit of searching, thinking about trying something like this out: www.amazon.com/Bgears-b-Blaster-140x38-Hi-Speed-5200RPM/dp/B07FHM5DJZ/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

5200 rpm, 300+ CFM, and I would probably use two of them. Ideally I would mount them in such a way that they were easily removable, and could just put them in for autocross events. I don't think the fans being a restriction would even come into play in an autocross scenario, but definitely might if I was highway driving.

Then, if I combine the fan blowing over an ice pack or something of that sort, it might be even more effective for cooling while in grid.

This is true. In my friends case he used it to pull cool air from the fender into the engine bay but what I was suggesting is using it during off track time to keep air moving across the IC while the car is stationary.

The downside to using ice is that water will pool under the TMIC and around the coil packs. This could lead to a short in the coils or corrosion long term. If there are any coil pack valley covers that work with a TMIC then I would use the ice method.

Are you using a handheld pesticide sprayer tank to spray the IC? That's what I normally use since they can be had for cheap.

Yep, using a handheld pesticide sprayer. And the excessive water was definitely something of a concern. I think I'm going to geek out this coming week and try a couple different scenarios and do some pseudo-scientific testing to see what gives me the best results as far as icing the TMIC goes.

Different options I'm considering:
1. Ice still in the bag, with the intercooler sprayed down with water first. Concerns with this method would obviously be the bag melting, or just not cooling it down enough due to the plastic adding an insulation layer in between them.
2. Frozen milk jugs set on top of the intercooler. No worries about water dripping down onto the coils for this one, and frozen milk jugs are free.
3. Reusable ice pack set on top. Again, no worries about water with this one.

I'll use an infrared thermometer on the TMIC in a couple places to see which one of these cools it down the most and will be the least hassle going forwards. I don't know how accurate the BAT reading on the AP will be since I'll be doing this at my house, and the nearest road where I could actually get the car into boost to really move some air is about a 10 minute, slow drive away, so that negates any cooling that would have happened. But I'll try holding the revs to 3-4k RPM while parked to see if that gives me an idea of what the actual temps are as well.

I wish I could find a reliable source for dry ice that's open on weekends. I think dry ice on a TMIC might keep things even cooler than a FMIC would for my specific application lol.

 

[Easter Bunny]

Any excess water on the valve cover would evaporate on the way home. It would be no worse than a PU with the hoodscoop on a rainy day

 

[Kraze]

Any excess water on the valve cover would evaporate on the way home. It would be no worse than a PU with the hoodscoop on a rainy day

That's a fair point. I probably don't need to worry about excess water nearly as much as I think I do.

However... Today was the day of reckoning for the speed, aka, compression test day. And after seeing the results, I don't think I'm going to worry too much about trying to extract the full potential from the TMIC by icing it, installing fans, etc.

Here's the results from the compression test:





So yeah, that went about as well as could be expected for a 200k mile motor. It looks like there's about a 5% max variation between cylinders, and it's a cheap gauge, which I've heard/read that they often read low, so the actual numbers could be higher.

Since I have to worry a bit less about an imminent engine rebuild, I think I'll start saving up for a FMIC to put on over the winter months so I don't have to dick around with this TMIC anymore. And also saving up for a clutch, since the clutch also has about 200k miles on it lol, as far as the previous owner knows (who owned it since 40k miles).

Also, does anyone know about at what point the stock catback exhaust becomes a restriction? Right now I have an Ebay downpipe going to a UR resonated test pipe, then out to the stock CBE. I'm just wondering if that will become a significant (10+ horsepower) restriction on this CST4 setup once I put it on an e30 tune and try to push some more power.