"Cool Can" Old-School DIY Fuel Cooler?

[BlazedGlory]

I was discussing water injection a bit with an older coworker of mine, and he informed me of something they used to do back in the day that supposedly would make a "15-20% difference you could actually feel."

Basically, you get a coffee can (or some small container sized to your liking) and some copper tubing. You coil the tubing, and install in the can with an inlet and outlet connected to the sides of the can (something to that effect). You run the line from your fuel pump to the inlet, and run the can outlet to the engine. You also need some sort of drain in the bottom of the can.

Then, when you are "out for blood," you simply pack the can with ice (or dry ice or whatever your choice) and it supposedly cools the fuel and makes a big difference. After it melts you just open the drain...

Thoughts?

[TipStylez]

I always thought cold air was more important nowadays?

[frankist]

sounds like that magnet that goes around your fuel line, giving you much better fuel mileage.. i dont think that works, but as for this, it might make a difference, but so minimal that a driver would not feel it, just my thoughts and "out for blood" ahah :ghey:

[theicecreamdan]

I think that was more helpful back in the days of carburetors. More to do with keeping the fuel delivery consistant to run the same even when the car was hot. With fuel delivery as precise as it is now, I don't think you will notice anything. You wouldn't hurt anything to try. But I think you'll just end up running a tiny bit richer.

[LB.Motoring]

yah, now adays with injectors im sure it wont make a noticeable diffrence, but back in the day with carberated applications im sure it made a diffrence

[Bay_Area_sr20det]

no it works, ive heard alot about simaluar diy stuff for cooling fuel. ive seen people using ail coolers. an expesive way is here:http://www.mini-madness.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=129


most porsches have them to this day. for example a 02 996 has one.

[big_schaf]

^that cools the air in your intercooler...not your fuel

[LB.Motoring]

yah, well somepeople have a problem, its called sucks at reading, or commonly know as young kid / add syndrome

[S14DB]

It's all about the CO2...
http://www.cryo2.com/images/products/Fuel%20Bar%20Family300.jpg
http://www.cryo2.com/products.asp?m=sp&pid=3

[JohnC]

Taken from a discussion about the subject of fuel cooling
I started on another forum. I am in the process of actually testing
what , if any, effect this will have on AFR etc..
I have encountered fuel temps , not recommended btw :duh: , 1 hour after driving in traffic
and then parking it and all I can say is that it is f**king hot! :bash:


http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e8/cliffb75/fuelcorrectiontables.jpg


Thats the temperature correction used for petrol station fuel pumps, so you can be fairly confident its correct

Your ECU should have a compensation based on ambient temp, coolant temp, speed/load (i.e. gas velocity which affects heat transfer) and soaktime for hot start compensation. This is all designed to create a modelled fuel temperature as it passes through the injector. However, it probably won't compensate for an increase in bulk fuel temperature caused by prolonged idling, which is where your fuel cooler comes in.

Having said that, you'd be (un)lucky to raise your bulk fuel (i.e. fuel in the tank) temp much more than 20-30 degrees above the ambient. You can see from the correction data that is about a 3% enleanment, which probably isn't enough to worry about assuming your car is running / mapped correctly. Of course if its too lean to start with then its a problem

Of course if you have a car with a lambda sensor then it corrects itself in the areas where it runs closed loop, and may apply the correction in the open loop region too. if its running fully closed loop with a wide band sensoe then you have no worries at all.

Overall, unless you do a lot of idling then don't bother, as its not worth the effort and wont gain you anything. The cars that I know of that have them fitted are things like Bentleys which tend to waft about on very light loads with a lot of fuel being heated by the engine and then returning to the tank. A better way to avoid the problem is to run a variable or 2 stage fuel pump arrangement, that only supplies just above the required fuel, or a returnless system (most common on modern cars) that doesn't return anything to the tank so bulk fuel = ambient temp.


"

[Burke]

^^ He is right.
You really wont see much difference for fi cars, excpecially returnless ones. Thats why all new cars are returnless, too keep the fuel tank temp down. and they are able to duty cycle the pump, keeping its heat production to a min. This has all pretty much been dont to keep cars OBD compliant.