Nordic Ice and the AVS Intercooler Tank

We receive some meds packed in thermal blankets with Nordic Ice gel packs tucked in to keep them cold.  “freeze and re-use as long-lasting ice packs” they say.  I have a hot intercooler coolant system (most any day).  What happens if we put these two ideas together?

ice1

In my intercooler system, coolant flow up from the pump to the intercooler, then down to a heat exchanger, through a reservoir, another heat exchanger, and back to the pump.  Almost none of the system is accessible with the nose of the V in place.

However, if I remove the engine covers and gently pry back the air guides, I can just slot in Nordic ice bags on the AVS aluminum coolant tank.

ice2

I had extras so I put them near the filter to try to provide some local A/C.

temps over time

The yellow line is ambient temp in the driveway — yes 100F here in Texas.  The blue line is air into the engine intake — around 120F.  The Red line we would like to see go down to below 100F (wishes).  What we see is that it falls from 148F to a flat steady 138F and stays there regardless of the iced tank.

seal

I did discover that there was radiator air leaking into the filter area near a joined metal location and applied a seal there to block hot air coming to the filter.

Conclusion

The test was not ideal, as no air was flowing over the two heat exchangers since the V was sitting with the engine running in the driveway.  I was hesitant to drive with the Nordic Ice packs just loosely stacked on the AVS tank.  However, I could in a future test add a fan over the heat exchangers.

It would be great to engineer a system to allow ‘transfusion’ of cold intercooler coolant into the system when heat soaked and thus restore it to cold temps for testing.

Testing VVT Exhaust cam retard at high RPM

Today’s test was not a normal test.  First, I was dispatched for a breakfast run to Starbucks, which adds intercooler heat.  Second, the highway was jam packed with some problem, and the run was captured in an alternate location.  All that noted, I feel we can reach some conclusions.

TUTD 2013-06-21 exhaust cam test

This chart shows exhaust cam position for the VVT timing.  The cells in red are our test settings — adding 1 degree of retard at 4800 rpm, and 2 degrees of retard from 5200-6800.  What we hope to see is a change in the slope of the HP and Torque curves as a result.

tutd 2 2013-06-21 add exhaust cam retard

This chart shows today’s hotter run vs previous cooler run.   I am not focused on the absolute values so much as the slopes for today’s study.  Here is a zoom in from 5800-6600:

TUTD 2 2013-06-21 zoom in to study slope

What this appears to show is that the change in the exhaust cam timing didn’t cause a huge improvement or loss in power and torque at 4800-6800.  However, the slow of the blue torque curves appears to suggest that the addition is overall not an improvement, since the current curve decreases over time in this range at a faster rate than the previous.

The TUTD shift point did work correctly for this test, so that change will help with future testing.

TUTD 2 2013-06-21 exhaust cam retard

Next I will restore the exhaust cam VVT timing, and test an adjustment of the intake cam vvt timing.

Amsoil eaau6065 filter Cold Retest log

I ran a cold/empty test for my 2008 Cadillac STS-V with Spectre CAI and an Amsoil eaau6065 filter this morning to have for reference.  Today’s run was with the normal 2-3 shift at peak.  [Click on images for larger versions; hit back in browser to return]

Torque vs Boost and SC Inlet Vacuum

Torque vs Boost and SC Inlet Vacuum

The comparison data is from “Rethink advance full cold 0531”.

Today’s run looks as expected.  MAF peak at 60+ Lb/min and Delivered Torque look on target with previous cold runs in warmer weather.  The SC inlet vacuum appears to run ~1.45 psi vs the ~1.3 psi we saw with the K&N filter.

Here was the HPtuner data at peak in 2nd gear:

HPtuners screen capture

HPtuners screen capture

The V was cool and almost out of fuel.

The Virtual Dyno run reads high Torque, Low HP:

Virtual Dyno suggests good Torque but low high RPM HP

Virtual Dyno suggests good Torque but low high RPM HP

I am uncertain how to interpret this relative to the other readings.

Conclusion:

I include these dataruns to study repeatability and build info on my current setup.  The key to tuning is to have a solid reference set to compare to.