Intercoolers have been used on turbocharged and supercharged engines for quite some time now. When used on a supercharged engine they are often called aftercoolers. Turbos are the most common usage for intercoolers though. Any engine that uses an air compressing device such as superchargers and turbos can benefit from intercoolers. When the air gets compressed it can heat up dramatically, up to 300 degrees F. This dramatically reduces the compressed air density and limits the maximum boost. The high intake temperatures can increase the chance of detonation in the engine, causing major engine damage. An intercooler can fix this problem.
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Engines are simply an air pump. The more air you can get in and the more exhaust you can move out, the more power you can make. Superchargers are one way of packing more air into an engine. Superchargers or blowers as they are sometimes called have been around for a long time and are still currently being used on some production vehicles. There have been many different types of superchargers made but I will focus on the two most popular versions. One being called positive displacement or roots type and are generally referred to as blowers. These are the style most used on muscle cars due to the ease of setup on a v-8 with a carburetor. They are also widely used on drag cars for street and professional racing. Some of these cars make insane horsepower in the thousands. The blower has an advantage, because it compresses air even at very low speed it also creates alot of torque. This gives the engine very good response and power from idle up. That is why drag racers like them so much, they are very predictable from launch and have almost no lag time.
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Auto air conditioning can easily be changed from old R-12 to new R-134 refrigerant. The new style R-134 refrigerant can be used in R-12 systems as long as the oil is included with the installation of the new refrigerant. No new seals or any other components should need to be replaced. Your car’s system should be completely empty of the old R-12, which is supposed to be contained and removed by a certified refrigerant technician. When doing anything with ac you should first understand that there are two sides of the system. The high pressure side will be the side with the smaller diameter lines, this side is very high pressure and should be avoided. The low pressure side will have the larger diameter lines and will have the condenser. The condenser looks like an aluminum canister of about 4″ in diameter and appx. 6″ long. The fill port will probably have a plastic cap on it. The port is a valve that looks like a air fill on your car tires. You will need a kit composed of an adapter and the hose used to fill the system with. Some types of cars need different adapters.
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Nitrous is a cheap way to make a lot of power. Nitrous comes in kits and can increase your power anywhere from 50 hp to 400 hp. The nitrous is limited by the engine’s ability to handle the power. A 200 horsepower engine is not meant to handle 400 hp of nitrous. An engine built correctly can handle massive amounts of nitrous. On a standard engine the ignition will need to be retarded. The fuel will also have to be increased either by the fuel map or a fuel nozzle. Nitrous was first used in aircraft to help the plane gain alot of altitude very quickly. Soon after people realized the potential and set up systems on cars. Unfortunately at this time there were not many good ways to control fueling verses nos being sprayed. Many people blew up there engines because of having a lack of understanding of nitrous. Today kits have come a long ways and have the setup down to a science. Nitrous can be very reliable as long as it’s not used excessively per engine setup.
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Naturally aspirated engines are simply engines that are not assisted with a turbo or supercharger. Most people that want their car to go faster will chose this way. Large power increases in automotive engines are not hard to get. Four stroke performance can be greatly improved over the mild factory setup. Four stroke tuning can greatly improve the power over stock conditions. The factory tuning is very mild because they need to pass emissions tests from the factory. Many people buy aftermarket computer chips with modified performance maps. This can improve many cars by 5 to 20 horsepower dependant on the vehicle. Aftermarket chips are also an easy install and can be purchased reasonably. As with all engines, moving air into the engine is the way to make power. Another easy bolt on performance modification is to install a high flowing air filter. Large gains can also be made with improved flow through aftermarket carbs or larger diameter throttle bodies. The import tuners usually purchase high performance intake tubes which try to draw in cool air. These kits usually give moderate performance gains. Most of the domestic car tuners do the same and tend to spend money on the actual intake manifold instead. Depending on the vehicle it came off the performance gains can be much larger some up to 40 horsepower on V-8 models.
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What happens when an engine gets flooded? Generally this happens to carbureted cars but could happen to fuel injected cars if there is a problem with it. Every engine needs a specific amount of air and fuel to work correctly. If there is too little fuel the engine is lean if the engine has too much fuel it is rich. Flooding can occur when the ignition system is weak and does not start the engine quickly. If the carburetor (gas petal) is pumped too much before starting the engine can become excessively rich to the point where it can’t ignite the fuel. As you continue to rotate the engine, more fuel is added to the already excessive amount of fuel. There are a few methods to start the vehicle first, just let the vehicle sit, the fuel will evaporate out after 20 or 30 minutes. Remove the spark plug which may be fouled out with black carbon any ways. Slightly fouled plugs can be wiped off, severe cases can be burned off with a propane torch. Severe fouled plugs will need to be replaced, make sure the plug is original and hot enough heat range. After the spark plug is out stick it back in the spark plug wire, lay it on a metal part on the engine, spin the engine and verify the plug is firing. This also helps to get air in the engine and excessive fuel out. The third option is to hold the throttle wide open. In a carbureted vehicle, the air moving through the carb won’t suck fuel when held WOT if the engine is not running. In fuel injected vehicles the ecm, ecu, computer won’t send any fuel through the injectors if the gas petal is held wide open. If the ignition is o.k. and the vehicle floods continuously, then the carburetor idle circuit may be too rich.
Do you live in an area where you car has to meet inspection requirements? Normally your vehicle will also have to pass emissions requirements also. This article will help explain what emissions are and how to fix a possible problem your vehicle may have. The emissions test is normally done with a probe placed into the exhaust tailpipe. The emission sampler will sniff or sample the contents of the exhaust coming out of the tailpipe. Every road going vehicle produced, has certain clean requirements that it is required to reach. This requirement is specified by EPA to limit the amount of pollutants exiting the vehicle. Most samplers are five gas analyzers simply meaning they “see” or measure five types of gases. The five gases that will be measured are HC, NOX, O2, CO, and CO2. We will start with HC or hydrocarbons. HC’s are simply another term for unburned fuel that makes it through the engine and out the exhaust. HC’s cause smog and and are not good to breath. NOX means oxides of Nitrogen. NOX is a by product of highly heated and compressed air that has nitrogen in it.
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