CO2 Cooling

WH1 85

New Member
Joined
Apr 26, 2002
Just kicking around an idea. Has anyone ever rigged up some nozzles to spray CO2 mist around the turbo and or intake.

Seems like it would be relatively easy to do. And should be fairly inexpesive. I would think that this would drasticallly cool the intake charge. Seems like you would just need some nitrous nozzles,(maybe a fogger), some line, a Co2 bottle and a switch. You could use a nitrous bottle.

Co2 isn't flamable, so if you got a leak, or if the line burst the worst thing that could happen is that you would freeze something.

The hardest part would be developing an even spray pattern. But even this would just be trial and error.

If anyone has tried this, or has any ideas please chime in.
 
A friend of mine was talking about injecting CO2 into his exhaust housing to cool the turbo and spool it at the same time. I was thinking about it and the turbo spools best with really hot exhaust gas, right? So wouldnt cooling the exhaust slow down the spool? What I suggested was injecting CO2 into the intake just before the turbine. It would cool the intake charge and maybe even pre-spool the turbo. What do you think? I realise that you want to just cool the turbo/intake tract but I thnk that this is just going a step further. I am planning on doing this to my hot air motor as soon as I get it into my regal.
 
I did not want to inject CO2 into the turbo or the intake. I was thinking of spraying them with Co2. This would help both the turbo and the intake dissipate heat. And I would only aim the nozzles at the compressor side of the turbo. That way the turbine would stay hot,(keeping the exhaust gas velocities high), but the compressor side would be cooler. Causing a denser air charge.

I don't think that this would make a huge difference in performance. But if it would just cool the intake charge by 15 to 20 degrees that would be a notable improvement. Would be like the differnce in driving in 90 degree and 70 degree weather.
 
Originally posted by mygrain
I was thinking about it and the turbo spools best with really hot exhaust gas, right? So wouldnt cooling the exhaust slow down the spool?

Cooling the exhaust lowers it's pressure*volume, so it can't spool the turbine as well. Adding CO2 will cool the exhaust, but this will be more than offest by the increase in pressure*volume of the additional gas.



Originally posted by mygrain
What I suggested was injecting CO2 into the intake just before the turbine. It would cool the intake charge and maybe even pre-spool the turbo. What do you think

The advantages of adding CO2 to the inlet side would be more than negated by the dilution of the air/fuel charge. More inert gas (nitrogen or CO2) means less oxygen. Less oxygen supports less fuel. Less fuel = less power.

You trying to force more air (oxygen) with the turbo. This would work against that. Try the same idea with NOS - that would work. ;)
 
Originally posted by WH1 85
has any ideas please chime in.

Wrap the up-pipe in insulation, put a divider between the turbine/compressor, and then use outisde air to cool the compressor. Run ducting just like anyone does on thier "cold air intakes" except blow it on the compressor instead of the air filter (run two ducts, one on each side of the car).
 
Another gem to bring up.

If you inject CO2 into the down pipe, you will at least reduce back-pressure. Shouldn't this make more power?

Has anyone done this yet?
 
Just get a Bison Alky Direct Injection Nozzle Plate and spray your diffused Alky fog into your intake. That way, you are cooling the fuel air charge, dramatically. Not too mention, utilizing a fuel (Ethanol) that is known to produce serious horsepower in our cars.

All of which would be far better than displacing the much needed fuel / air mixture charge with C02 aka Carbon Dioxide. So to add that would be defeating your whole purpose, would it not? Actually there’s probably no better example of a “defeated purpose” when you consider, more fuel / more air / more horsepower, right? As you are displacing charge, thereby reducing the amount of fuel and air your motor will recieve. So, reducing / counteracting oxygen can never be a good thing. IMO anyways.
 
Just get a Bison Alky Direct Injection Nozzle Plate and spray your diffused Alky fog into your intake. That way, you are cooling the fuel air charge, dramatically. Not too mention, utilizing a fuel (Ethanol) that is known to produce serious horsepower in our cars.

All of which would be far better than displacing the much needed fuel / air mixture charge with C02 aka Carbon Dioxide. So to add that would be defeating your whole purpose, would it not? Actually there’s probably no better example of a “defeated purpose” when you consider, more fuel / more air / more horsepower, right? As you are displacing charge, thereby reducing the amount of fuel and air your motor will recieve. So, reducing / counteracting oxygen can never be a good thing. IMO anyways.
you need to read the posts above you. This isn't a intercooled car and he isn't talking about injecting into the motor. And wow a bump of a 16year old post I like it

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This thread is from 2002. Injecting an inert gas into the engine isn’t going to help do anything but reduce engine output. It will take up space forcing oxygen away and slow down combustion. Just like a fire extinguisher.


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It happens.
We have learned a lot since 2002.
Pretty sure what Seedling was trying to say is: Chemical cooling has changed the boosted game.
 
you need to read the posts above you. This isn't a intercooled car and he isn't talking about injecting into the motor. And wow a bump of a 16year old post I like it

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Yep missed the part about hot air! Shame on me!!

Responded to a “Recent Post” of an ancient thread?? Again guilty as charged! But, at least nobody can accuse me of being a Richard Edward, right??




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Just to be clear. We are Not injecting CO2 into the Engine (Intake). We are Injecting CO2 into the Exhaust only, specifically into the Downpipe.

Would the decrease in pressure from the really cold CO2 in the downpipe cause enough pressure drop to give any horsepower gains?

I found one video on Utube from 7 years ago. They are shooting CO2 into the Exhaust Housing to aid in spool up. I don't think they are using it during the run though:
 
you need to read the posts above you. This isn't a intercooled car and he isn't talking about injecting into the motor. And wow a bump of a 16year old post I like it

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I couldn't find this post from the forums search directly, I had to dig it out of a Google search.
 
There are a lot of things I'd be concerned about spraying CO2 either into, or onto the turbo.

For one . . . CO2 gas temp is released around -100 deg F. Spray on a turbine at 1000 Deg F and he potential for hairline cracking is high, with associated failure.

The same goes for spraying onto the hot compressor housing. I am sure it looks impressive but that doesn't mean it's effective.

You could cool intake charge with CO2 to 0 deg F for example, but it doesn't mean the engine will make more power.

Not trying to discourage anyone so you will need to try it to be sure. ;)
 
The point of turbo or supercharging is to increase fuel, and oxygen getting into the cylinder. Instead of shooting c02 on or in anything It might make more sense to build a direct injection system that has 2 injectors per cylinder. One for fuel the other for compressed air. You could essential increase fuel and oxygen at whatever rate you wanted into each cylinder this would also allow you to compensate fuel/air on each individual cylinder, that way no cylinder is ever leaner or richer then another. Then there is the heat benefit as well because you are no longer using exhaust gas to spin a turbo. Also someone mentioned Alky injection and not being able to use them on non intercooled models. I didn't think that was right, I was under the impression you could still use alky on hot air cars.
 
Of course now that i think about it NO2 is a easy and cheap way to increase fuel/air charge without heat. The real issue for something like this is storage of oxygen or some sort of onboard compressor.
 
The real issue for something like this is storage of oxygen or some sort of onboard compressor.

There is a company on youtube that has done the compressed air setup. It works really well, but you can basically only store enough compressed air for one 1/4 mile pass. They used really big tanks.

Link to compressed air car --

It seems that alky/water gives the best bang for your buck when it comes to injecting stuff into the engine. Add a little bit of nitrous for added bang.
 
Ya, storing enough is the difficult part. That's why a direct injection system would be better. In a direct injection system there is still air coming into the engine through the intake. Then you can supplement oxygen at particular rpm or rpm ranges as well as individual cylinders. A direct injection system would also be much more efficient with regards to co2 used. This two things would limit consumption, however you would need some sort of compressor system with a tank.
 
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