I do a lot of canyon driving, and as you know, on some technical canyons you can't go very fast which restricts the airflow to our top mount intercoolers (which is why front mounts are better)... I noticed a drop in performance every time my intercooler got heat soaked, so badly that the water spray did nothing...

One day my friend suggested keeping a small cooler with me filled with some larger pieces of dry ice... Today I did just that and the results were great!


You can get dry ice at any major grocery store, you usually have to ask for it.


I did a total of almost 80 miles of canyon driving, and within 10 or so miles I pulled over to feel my I/C, and sure enough it was hotter then the sun (I have an STi top mount in a 2007 STi)... It was completely heat soaked and I could feel the result during acceleration...

I went to my cooler and plopped on a decent size of dry ice, closed the hood (the splitter keeps it in place)... Let it sit for a couple mins, then I was off again and the car felt great. When I get heatsoak, my car just feels like it lags compared to normal, but the dry ice changed that real quick!

It kept my i/c cold for quite a while too!


I know some people use regular ice, but it melts so fast and only keeps cool for a short period, whereas dry ice is much colder and stays solid much longer.

I don't see any downsides to using dry ice, if there are any, please let me know!


(Dry ice is carbon dioxide in solid form, so the only thing I can think of is the carbon dioxide robbing the intake of oxygen, but I doubt it because the splitter seals to the intercooler and they are pretty far from each other.

Give it a try, you wont be disappointed!

 

I think you can cause possible stress fractures by changing the temperature very drastically. Just a FYI. I guess the same goes for spraying with water.

It's like using hot water on a frozen windshield. Except you are using ice on a hot IC

 

The fact that it's carbon dioxide shouldn't affect your oxygen intake ratio at all. The intake draws the air in at a different location so the dry ice never really comes into direct contact with the intake charge anyway. I can't think of any real downsides.

 

Glass is one thing, but aluminum is another, I highly doubt that this would cause a problem like you mentioned.

 

Ice melts and goes between the inter cooler fins. Wouldn't this create more surface area for the heat to be pulled from the air?

Just a thought. Maybe wet the inter cooler and then use dry ice? (possible clogging I guess)

How about liquid nitrogen? -346 degrees, rather than the warm -109 degrees of the dry ice

 

**** it, lets just use liquid helium.

 

ive wanted to try that but never got a chance

 

Clogging? Clogging what?

 

magnetically confined sodium gas - http://www.universetoday.com/2003/09...-ever-created/

 

just get a water cooled intercooler

 

Drive faster, cooler intercooler, save money!!

 

front mount.

 

Rosetti

 

just to revisit what was said by pter...

Super low temps can cause any material to become brittle and prone to cracking. However, the temperature has to be below the glass transition temperature (Tg) of said material. I'm too lazy to lookup the Tg of aluminum. Actually pretty cool to see this effect in action. For example, you can take a rubber super bouncy ball, dip it in liquid nitrogen, throw it against the floor and it'll explode into a million pieces.

So anyways if you've got your chunk of dry ice sitting on your IC and a giant boulder-sized rock somehow flies into your hood scoop it may crack your IC. Likelihood of this occuring? Prob close to zero.

 

The one downside I think of when people put ice on the intercooler is you a putting something frozen on hot metal.
It just doesn't seem like something one should do.