Anyone have a website link for Imola Racing? Anyone have contact information? Anyone know of a US distributor for them? I've long thought that some measures should be taken to keep the intakes cooler by shielding them from the exhausts. Imola has found that even bigger deal is that the cats heat up the gas tank (to some 215')... so, they heat shield the cats from the gas tank and further they use the A/C to cool the gas. 65' vs 215'!! This is definitely something I want to learn more about!
I know F355 challenge cars put insulation around the fuel lines and fuel filters, so the issue is real. The thermodynamic question is: dose a lower fuel temperature alow the engine to produce enough extra power to run the A/C compressor to cool the fuel? We know that running the A/C compressor to cool the incomming air is not efficient thermodynamically.
I would guess the benefits of 86'ing the A/C altogether would pay off greater than running the compressor to cool anyting. I've ditched the compressor/condensor etc on my Esprit, and shaved around 100lbs. If you have to have A/C, and are really serious about lowering fuel (among other things) temps, then check this out..... http://www.designengineering.com/cryo2_cryogenic_fuel_bar.html fwiw- Craig
What is the physics behind fuel cooling? Can someone post something intelligent regarding this subject?
And why in my P4 did they HEAT the fuel. In the P4 the fuel transfer pipe is nestled around a water line. In the TR the ac line (hot) runs through the fuel tank as well. Why?
Mitch will probably actually DO the math, but in general, for any liquid, vaporizing it cools about 1000 times better than keeping it liquid. A 100 degree temp change means very little to cooling the intake charge compared to the fuel vaporizing. So, the only reason I can think that they would cool it is because it is just plain too hot causing it to vaporize in the fuel line, also known as vapor lock. Vapor lock is uncommon in efi systems due to the higher fuel pressure, but at 200+F, its got to be getting close or it could be that the more volatile components of the fuel boil-off in the tank and theyre trying to control that. I just have no idea why they would heat the fuel on a P4, but it might be that it improves the vaporization some how, smaller droplets maybe???
nice collection of Ferrari tuners: http://www.czechferrari.cz/ftuning.html link from imola leads to a German distributor - I tried to find contact information before but got stuck there the P 996 TT cools fuel through AC with a neat little fuel cooler - thought about this but never got around to digging the shop manuals out - the biggest hassel would be to loop the coolers into the AC circuit - I'll try to find and scan the pages over the weekend
That was my first thought as well... you'd never do this in a dedicated racecar... I think... thermodynamics would argue. But this is for a compromised car... a street+track car... I'm not there to set a track record... I'm there to have fun... and in Texas heat, that means I use some of my HP to run the A/C!! Soooo, given I am willing to pay the weight and torque penalties for having AC while on track, I might as well use it to gain back some of that HP!! Given that situation (AC running anyway), the thermodynamic question is whether the additional heat load of the fuel on the AC actually adds significant load to the engine. Does the engine have to pull on the AC harder when it has to cool more? Given the gross inefficiency of AC, I could see where the torque drag on the engine changes only minimally from light heat load to heavy heat load... just the AC running at all is most the load. That's one reason our house AC's are designed to come on and off, running full out while on... that's far more efficient than running non-stop and just applying less cooling to the air. Thus, I'm inclined to think that, given you're running your AC to cool you, its almost free to also cool your fuel!
For maximum power, you want to get as much fuel into the cylinder as possible, where fuel is air plus vaporized gasoline. The colder a gas is, the denser it is... the denser it is, the more of it you can fit in the same volume (the cylinder)... the more you get in there, the bigger explosion you'll have when the spark fires. Hence, people often are careful to draw in cooler outside air, rather than just leaving the intake open to the hot engine bay. With turbos, you often use an intercooler to cool the air down. For short sprints, racers are known to pack their intake with dry ice! But air doesn't hold or conduct nearly as much heat as a liquid does! So, removing heat from the gasoline can theoretically have even more impact. Mixing cool gasoline with the air will dramatically cool the mixture... far more than the reverse. But, as others have noted, there's an issue around the vaporization of the fuel... there, I step further out of my expertise... I don't actually know the physics of vaporizing fuel and the effect that temperature will have on that. Feel free to jump in here if you are familiar with that!
I do remember a device to cool fuel, it was a canister with coils in it with an inlet and outlet to connect the fuel lines to. You packed it with dry ice. This is going back a few years.
Most racing regulations in a category that allows re-fuelling will have a section for fuel temperature. eg, the storage unit in pit lane must keep the fuel within X degrees of ambient. In the past, teams have cooled fuel right down and crammed in an extra X litres, to go further in the endurance race. In high ambient conditions this is extremely dangerous, especially at the start or any pauses in the race where the fuel is not burned off quickly enough and it begins to expand again....big danger park ranger. In car fuel cooling is profitable, but how much is hard to say. In FIA N-GT rules, no fuel cooling is allowed, but in ACO it is.........yet any engine info from Michelotto says no difference in power etc. Our Aussie N-GT cars have the fuel cooling, from an air heat exchanger in the ducting along with the steering oil and gear oil coolers. It drops the fuel temp from around 80deg c in tank (exhaust heat) to around 50 deg c in the rails. I wouldn't lose sleep if told to remove it.
Sorry Brian I could not find the original thread we discussed the Imola Racing stuff in here are a few remarks & observations It seems to be fighting the impact of heat in the engine bay of the 360 is very important- both the Iola and Risis article show lots of mods in that space - Imoal Racing are in Germany / Wiesbaden rats I have been there over Xmas however I should be able to find out more - they seem to use the Tubi exaust - the fuel cooler seems to be definitely something to look into I am not sure what the size of the Imola cooler is but the one of the P cars is very small - the 100 cell cat is also very interesting I have not found one for the 360 yet; several versions for the 355 available - the heat shields should be an easy modification or one could take an approach similar to the Risi cars wrap the air box with gold foil would be nice to see what they did to shield the cats; however what would worry me is exercise heat development in the shielded cats - the Michelotte air box is very interesting they enlarged the tube from the air inlet to the air box and increased the volume of the air filter covers (plus the filters?) not sure about the Imola air box: Group M? but it looks like they increased the air filter covers too - relocating the coolant expansion tank seems to be a common thing the air box is really in the worst possible spot with cats & silencer close by - adding the expansion tank is a sin I wonder how difficult it is to move it my priorities are (dont want to open the engine) - larger cats with 100 cells - improved air box (heat & size) - others such as fuel cooler
For completeness, that other thread is here: http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6500 I'm with you on all of that Thomas... I'll be looking at all of the same (whenever my darn car shows up! <grumble>).
The Imola Racing website is still saying "The English version will be available shortly." Yeah, right. Anyone care to translate what they do have up? I've tried emailing them, but have gotten no response... they're probably trying to translate my English.
most of the stuff on the web site is bla bla bal the following pdf contains most ot the stuff they offer (in German) http://www.dimex-automotive.com/de/imola/download_imola/F360_d0802.pdf they offer three stages of engine tuning up to 438HP with no cats
Brian: There is a company in the UK called Caracalla that sells alot of Imola products among others, I think it is caracalla.co.uk. I sent them a couple of email asking about their products, never heard back. Maybe you will have better luck. They sell alot of perfomance products for 360's and Maserarti
Thanks. I just sent off an email... we'll see what I get. Their site does show pricing for their sport air filters and box and the sport cats and cat replacement pipes... but not for the fuel cooler. Thanks to a comment made by Rob in another thread, I pulled out an old Forza and found an ad for NGT Motorsport that shows two Imola 360's! Their website is www.ngtmotorsport.com and they are US distributors for Imola! Unfortunately, their site doesn't have the sport cats or fuel cooler... just four packages, all including the air intake but paired with different exhausts (ANSA, Fuchs, or NGT+ECU software). I've sent them an email also. We'll see what I learn.
there are a lot of "stories" around car and company - there is a good reason that the Web site is in a '02 state and they don't responde to phone calls if you get the drift (all second hand knowledge) car is assembled from parts produced by different tuners: - GruppeM Induction Kit, - Painted Tubi Style Carbon Pieces - Tubi Style Exhaust don't know manufacturer of wing and bumper but it is not Imola I got told car has been shown around in Germany for some time and was tested by German magazine: http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/d/47958 and ripped into pices from an engine performance perspective by http://www.autobild.de/suche/artikel.php?artikel_id=5560&artikel_seite=1 0 - 100km/h in 5.2 sec!!!! - missing power & increased weight some more pics: http://www.supercars.de/singlecar/46/879.html
Right on, Brian. Or for those who wish to refer back to their high school chemistry class, the relationship is easily understood by evaluating the simple equation: PV=nRT where P is pressure, V is volume, R is a constant, and T is temperature. The lower the temp of a gas, the less volume the same number of molecules will occupy. Thus, if temperature is decreased, you can fit more of the air/fuel mix in combustion chamber, thus making more during the combustion phase. Ever been to a drag race and seen guys having coiled fuel lines running through a styrofoam cylinder packed with ice? Same sort of deal...
Thomas, I'm with you on the Challenge intake, heat shields for the cats and possibly larger cats - if it could be proven that they would outflow the factory cats. I have been planning to do these things for a while. I just want to chime in the the airbox cover issue. I think it's a bad idea to replace the factory Stradale fittings with anything else. If you look at the picture below and compare it to your intake system, you'll see that Ferrari altered the airflow considerably on the Stradale pieces. On the Modena, the air intake tubes just butt up to the filter boxes where your covers are contoured to smoothen and maximize the airflow. If there's anything else you want to try, it would be great to have a guinea pig to test them out before my car comes in.
It's not that bad. If you look inside the airbox lid there, you'll see the pipes do not just butt up, but continue to form a nice trumpet. The Stradale is an improvemnt though, but it's all part of the larger air mass meter and throttle bodies I think.......... Can a Stradale owner please measure his throttle body/butterfly size, and air mass meter inside diameter, and plenum chamber inlet holes......
ummm...that only applies after the fuel is vaporized, it does not apply to the liquid. Vaporizing is a very effective cooling process, by itself. I have watched dyno runs with fuel flowing through an ice box filled with ice then hot water, the hp is the same.....