I talked to Gary Bethurem at SEMA regarding the Pre-Chiller. This is what
he had to say. They are basically trying to develop and manufacture a
device that allows you to cool air through the intake by 20-30 degrees F.
They (PFM Products) feel that cars and trucks run pretty well at 70º ambient
temperature. The device they originally developed for the Viper is quite
different than the version that they have just tested on a Durango. The
Durango's setup is most like our Dakotas.
Where I thought they would use an evaporator and a fan, they don't. They
basically have a tube, not a whole lot different than the tubes you use
today for the modified intakes. The big difference is in their tube there
is a network of freon tubes that have been routed from the standard AC
compressor throughout the inside of the tubing. As air passes through these
freon tubes it is cooled down to the appropriate temperature. They still
have to work on the valves that feed the freon through the tubes because
freon is a pretty tricky substance. It goes from liquid to gas and back to
liquid. You can't go too fast or too slow, otherwise you will not get the
desired effect. The R134a requirements of today make it even trickier
because the R134a is not quite as stable as R12 was.
Summarizing their accomplishments, they are basically giving you cooler air
for your engine during hot days. This allows you to perform as good on a
100º day as you do on a 70º day. As the outside temperature goes down the
pre-chiller has less and less of an effect. The reason their stock Viper
showed a better performance gain than the modified (aspirated) Viper is
because you can only get so much air through the intake and to the manifold
and heads before it doesn't get any better. They have not come up with the
costs yet because the tooling hasn't been done for them to go into
production. They are currently estimating 1st quarter 2001 before you can
buy anything.
What do I think? I think they can go a little further with their strategy
by including an evaporator and fan in the intake box and basically help the
air movement to the throttle body. I don't know how much this would be like
supercharging but I'll bet that would increase the costs dramatically.
Currently, Gary has meetings with the big three to discuss his concepts and
what they can do for engines of the future. DC has been listening intently
while Gary and company have been testing this equipment for the past two
years. So maybe what will happen is a standard pre-chiller that will
maintain an ambient temperature of 70º that sells for a couple hundred bucks
and a high-performance one with an evaporator-fan setup that will push 1000
cfm at 55º to the throttle body for say, a thousand bucks. That's just this
author's conjecture. Who knows what lurks in the minds at PFM Products?
Ron
00 SLT QC 4X2 5.9 46RE 3.92 LSD
For modifications see my DML Profile
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