| Author | Message | ||
     Xoptimizedrsx |
i tested a cooler to find the fuel temp was reduced. plus as frame temps went up the cooler temp inlet went up but dropped back lower at the exit. i remover 15 deg from the fuel. with a inline cylinder high pressure cooler. i'll add one to the bike permanently up front. i did see the afr and hp pick back up from before to after. as laps go on the fuel gets hot. not sure if all racing allows this item but it works on the dyno. a more precise fuel temp could help the afr later as well as on the street for those who live in very hot summer areas. when i do the next test to install i'll do readings and take notes with pics. you just cant beat keeping the fuel cool. also heat tape the inner frame and lower underside of the airbox lid. hopefully i can get it on the superbike before next months races. if not it will be the october races. mike | ||
| Slaughter |
Check the rules... some active fuel cooling (if not OEM) may be prohibited (even though a good idea) Club racing, it's not likely to be protested until you start hitting the podium or taking points away from others. | ||
| Xoptimizedrsx |
well crap we are always on the podium. guess i need to dig deep in the rules in the club. i'm sure the rice burners are already pissed at us. especially on the belt drive bike. thanks for all the info you have given us. mike | ||
| Fast1075 |
I award you the Smokey Yunick trophy...you are THINKING!!!  If you don't know who Smokey Yunick was...I am passing on my highest possible mechanical accolade...a full notch higher than number two Burt Rutan. | ||
| Xoptimizedrsx |
he was one awesome man. when some were looking for the big bang, he took it to three little bangs. keep it simple stupid. we use a cooler on the gocarts and the drag car. worked great. cold air intakes are a laugh. i prefer warm air cold fuel. always will always have. these buells get awe-full hot fuel after riding for a while. that screws up power delivery and the afr. hands down. something 90% of the riders forget about. especially on the track. the only flaw about fuel in the frame. IMO! somkey always pushed the rules. you said go simple. as i say some times less is more. mike | ||
| Slaughter |
I worked for Rutan for a decade (2 5-year stints actually)... I gotta do more legwork on Yunick besides just what I've heard. | ||
| Fresnobuell |
when i do the next test to install i'll do readings and take notes with pics. Please do. Interesting concept. Thanks for thinking out of the box!} | ||
| Fast1075 |
Steve...thank goodness Mr. Rutan is still around and very much still pushing the envelope. I have odd perspectives sometimes...two men from opposite ends of the spectrum...one mostly self taught and the other certainly one of the most brilliant engineers of our time. The point is thinking outside the box...too many people sit and wish for that magic bullet...some people get their minds around something and chip away at it one small thing at a time, leaving nothing neglected. In this and other areas of interest I have..there are so many myths that are accepted as fact. there are few that look at something and question the general belief. I perk right up when someone here openly thinks outside the box...whether it turns to be a discovery, either new or new to them....and if it turns out to be a dead end...As Mr. Rutan would say..we have eliminated another wrong way to do this. The relationship between temperature and fuel density is an important thing to understand...it is equally important to understand how air temperature, barometric pressure and air moisture content play into the tune....and it gets really interesting when you bring nitrous oxide into it...but that's another story for later...puzzle over phase change and pressure drop. | ||
| Ducbsa |
I think I read that Smokey built a 7/8 scale car and that brought in the templates afterwards. Another story was that he was checked for excess gas tank capacity and he was so insulted that he drove the car away from the tech area before reinstalling the tank. Obviously this all was back when they were really stock cars. | ||
| Slaughter |
Hey, I LOVE the stories about Smokey Yunick. Adiabatic engine, his history of "cheating" - working on roller-forging fasteners. Hell, ANYBODY who is self-educated AND an expert has always amazed me. Rutan works with John Roncz on various projects. Roncz is an Egyptologist by education, a world-class concert pianist, speaks AT LEAST 8 languages but his passion is aerodynamics and fluids. Roncz has designed a few airfoils and wing/fuselage shapes as used by Rutan (and another ex-boss of mine - Jon Sharp http://www.nemesisnxt.com). Roncz has been under contract to NASA and others and has his own business doing aircraft design. Another amazing character who is largely self-taught. Yunick is fascinating as the googling shows - for the same reasons but in a wholly different area. | ||
| Slaughter |
Sorry about the thread hijack. Even if NOT allowed, cooling the incoming fuel might be able to be done cleverly in a Smokey Yunick kinda way until you're caught... depends on your idea of the "ethics of cheating" but Smokey was FAMOUS (infamous) for cleverly cheating. Just check the rules. They are often kind of specific about induction - even disallowing cooling the induction air if such ductwork wasn't stock (for some classes) You could literally have a small icebox heat exchanger hidden away that the fuel flows through and chills. In sprint racing, you're only running 20 minutes so you can get away with it. Kind of interesting to think about it. My problem is that I've still got 20HP that I'm not using and I'm always looking to speed up lap times by braking later, braking HARDER (and just picked up a slipper clutch for that), bringing power on earlier (when even the measley 100-ish HP will spin the rear in almost every turn) | ||
| Xoptimizedrsx |
give me a little bit. i'll do some heat test. my first test was get it hot. real hot. the afr was up to aprox 14.2 where when cold it was 13.4. when i looked my power was down and cam in slower over all lost aprox 8 hp and 12 tq. most of all was the lag it had. so with a almost empty tank i put fresh cold fuel in and with in a couple runs the power was back on. it didnt last long cause the hot frame heated the fuel back up. so next we have a secondary tank so it was sitting there unused. with a pump. pressure unknown. put cold fuel in that one moved the lines to it. and poof had more power again. it was two run into it the power was back on. guess it has hot fuel in the lines still. all in all. the trick works. if you cant add a cooler you are allowed to use heat tape and barrier tape. cover your fuel line and the inner frame. everything helps as a shield. dont forget to wrap the AIT sensor wires. they transfer heat to the sensor!!! its the little things that do the best job. some call me crazy some say I'm mad. some dont believe me. its all your choice. copy what everyone else does and you will ride like they do. do your own stuff and you will either be in front or dead last. look at our club guys i help every one is on the pod many times over. two are on stock bike with belt drive. its all in the minor tweaks. 100% legal this fuel cooler mod i have to check on. i may be able to run it on superbike but not super stock. all in all it does work. plus if you cant run a cooler they dont specify where you run or how to run the fuel feed line. loop it outside the bike in the air flow. every deg helps, or cover it with dei wrap. mike | ||
| 1_mike |
Be carefull...Yunick also showed that heated gas could produce both power and mileage!! Air is the item that makes the power, the gas (fuel) only lights the air. Mainly, figure a way to pickup cool (DENSE..!) dry air. The cooler the air is...the denser it is...therefore more power. Also low humidity helps power. Warm or hot air is much less dense, this WILL return less power. You want proof...go race a given setup on a 95 degree, 85% humidity day. Then...go race the exact same setup on a 70 degree day with 40% humidity. All others thing equal...I'll guarantee you that you'll go faster on the cool day....gas temp. being equal of temperature. Cool the gas after you figure a way to pickup the coolest air possible. Been proven time and time again over the many years. Mike | ||
| Blake |
Just raising the level of the fuel supply can have a major effect. An elevated fuel tank means more pressure at the pump, which in turn provides more pressure at the injectors. So your hot and near empty versus cool and full tests may not be indicative of temperature effects alone or even at all. Also, you are measuring air/fuel ratio. Of course a more optimum A/F ratio is going to produce more power. Well you can adjust that through mapping, no fuel chilling required. What you are really after is more HP for the same optimum A/F ratio. If you can chill the air, then you are on to something, because then you can get more (denser) air into the combustion chamber along with more fuel, still at that same optimum ratio though. Will chilling the fuel help chill the air more, so that you get more/denser air AND more fuel into the engine compared to if you didn't chill the fuel? I don't know, maybe. If your dyno results are not tainted by the differing fuel levels then it looks to me like they tend to indicate that no, only the mixture is effected; you're not getting more air along with more fuel, just more fuel. Maybe you are getting both but biased to the fuel side. More investigation is required. And a constant level supply of fuel is needed too. If it turns out that the effect is mainly to richen the A/F mixture, then simply setting the mapping a little richer would by far have a much greater effect with no worries about breaking rules or suffering issues with the intricacies of some kind of fuel cooling rig. Cooling the intake charge (not just the gasoline, now we're talking: As Fast1075 alludes to in his closing comment above, it's the phase change from liquid gasoline to vapor that is by far the most significant cooling mechanism for an engine's incoming charge of air. Mere cooling of the liquid temperature is much less effective as you are unlikely to achieve enough cooling to significantly effect its heat of vaporization (the amount of heat it sucks from the surrounding air as it turns from liquid to vapor). But maybe you can. But will that just enrich the mixture or will it also pull in significantly more air as it is chilled more than otherwise? In cases where one is unable to tune the fuel mapping to achieve the desired optimum ratio of air to fuel, then maybe chilling the fuel might make more sense. It's easy to check... simply compare gasoline's specific heat of vaporization to the specific heat capacity of liquid gasoline times the difference in temperature that you are looking at achieving. You'll soon start to learn why racing fuel can provide such significant benefits in HP versus regular gasoline. Fun stuff. | ||
| Blake |
"Air is the item that makes the power, the gas (fuel) only lights the air." Not so much actually. The actual combustion reaction for hydrocarbon fuel is as follows: CmHn + (m+n/4) O2 ==> (m) CO2 + (n/2) H2O For octane... C8H18 + 12.5 O2 ==> 8CO2 + 9H2O Which in turn is formally expressed as... 2C8H18 + 25 O2 ==> 16CO2 + 18H2O What is burning, meaning what is releasing a bunch of energy in the form of heat, is both the hydrocarbon (fuel) and the oxygen (from air) as they are broken apart from molecules of hydrocarbon and oxygen and then recombined to form molecules of carbon dioxide and water. No matter is disappeared, it is just changing molecular form and in the process releasing a bunch of energy in the form of heat, on account of the fact that the new molecular forms don't require near as much energy to maintain as the old ones. Cooler air is just denser so you can then get more into the engine and when you have more air, you have more oxygen and thus you can burn more fuel. The same effect is achieved to an even greater degree via supercharging or turbocharging. Instead of reduced temperature to increase the quantity of air/fuel charge introduced into the engine, the air is compressed to a higher pressure. The net effect being the same, more air and more fuel to burn. Fun stuff.  | ||
| Court |
No matter is disappeared, Nor energy. To quote Barack "it's just redistributed". I hated those equations for years, hate them now, but they are still FACT. I shall foul your beer next time we meet. | ||
| Xoptimizedrsx |
very true for all the things listed here. its a big game we chase. i run sonoco race fuel the 100 only on the bike and these test. what i am chasing is stabilizing the fuel temp. sure i can move the tables to keep the afr. but, a more stable fuel temp at all times will relay in a better tune. a more given map thats more accurate at all times. we dont have a lot of cells to adjust for heat variances. with that we need to stabilize fuel temps. a tad better than we are given. i have only a hand full of data lines i can use to create fuel to temp offsets. my next item to test is a product we used at work on welding. the heat putty. wrap it at the intake where it meats the head. front and rear. then use the same exhaust tape on the body to keep heat off it. would keeping the body cool help anything? only time will tell. all of us have done the inside the box. its time to go outside. off the wall thinking. we cant change physics but we can use it in our favor. its time to step back and look from a new direction. sure some will be failures but together with simple thinking we can get these twins on the game even better. mike | ||
| Fast1075 |
I'm way behind the ball in that I have'nt studied the Buell injection system...I ride a Cube..having said that..I have a question. What sensors does the Buell system use? I can assume a TPS, IAT and Oxygen sensor...is there a MAP sensor or is it a MAF system? If the system could sense fuel temperature and pressure at the injectors, it could regulate the fuel flow by weight instead of volume...if there was a humidity sensor there would be the makings for a completely accurate fuel delivery system. | ||
| Xoptimizedrsx |
you can add in a map sensor with a little coding. it works. i know a few guys who have applied the map sensors and made it work. the newer bikes have them. the older ones dont. but we have a TPS, IAT and O2 on the older ddfi2. I run 2 O2's. but they only monitor the fuel. my fuel table is direct. what i set it to is what it gets. zero correction. i set the timing the same way. this is on the race bike. the street bike is done a little different as it need slight allowable correction. anyone have a fast air intake I need one for next weeks dyno test. mike | ||
| Blake |
"I shall foul your beer next time we meet. " It's as good a time as any to finally give up on the beer drinking. (Message edited by blake on August 04, 2009) | ||
| Paint_shaker |
And to think... For my part all I have to do is open or close the throttle!! Hehehehe | ||
| Xoptimizedrsx |
what if you dont drink beer or other alcohol. dont worry about getting the fuel cold or freezing its just find a way to maintain a fuel temp. thats the goal. then later figure out how to get more bang and air into the bike. also dyno tune it for the starter maps. then data tune it for the track. this way its tuned to the riders weight and wind resistance. get the useless rows of rpm out of the fuel maps. make rpm rows more closely detailed to the riding the bike goes threw. split the data lines to apply the fuel where you need it. who in the world came up the the tps 8 bit unit counts?0 to 255. i understand the range but who scaled the between values. mr epa himself. well they suck. why 175 then 255 as the next % table. drop 175 down add in 225. remove the 10 % tps. start with 12% on the bottom row. you will be shocked on the fuel value differences. this all fine tunes upper tps. then do the same in rpm why is there a zero row? why a 8000 row. why three rows in very low rpm where you never ride. but a wide rpm skip where you do ride.get those fixed. apply use full rpm bands. tun it all in on the dyno now. then put it on the track. retune to the rider. its not hard. whats up with a severe retarding to tps and acell % tables. OMG they suck. why over fuel so harsh on acell % tables any way. drop those back way back. by 30% this is all 2003 to 2008 early datas. newer stuff is a tad better. only because the epa forces it to be there. i would prefer to twist and ride but i lack that blessing to race on the track. well i could get out there but its better if i dont. the riders are safer this way. so, i do what I can else where. ok have your beer or ect now I'm getting dr pepper. sorry for the rant! just get the fuel to a even steady temp. not the climbing rate we get on longer races. if you cant use a fuel cooler item well put it on all the production bikes. it will fit nicely on the left side right inside the air scoop. it will also fit on the cradle bar. now feed up the line over to the TB. you now have a more constant fuel temp. cover then in dei wrap or a sewn wrap sleeve. poof a more stable fuel temp at your finger tips. mike | ||
| Sparky |
If the goal is to reduce outside temps from raising the temperature of the fuel line, why not paint the fuel line with a white non- thermal-conducting paint if that is allowed? As far as that goes, I would think that painting the insides of the (XB, 1125) frame/tank with that kind of paint should help, especially if a thermal insulating blanket/shield is used to reduce heat transfer. | ||
| Slaughter |
Wonder about evaporative ("Swamp Cooler") system - total loss. When Messerschmidt set the propellor-driven speed record in 1939 http://www.air-racing-history.com/aircraft/Messerschmitt%20Me%20209.htm (?) that stood until Daryl Greenamyer broke it in 1969. They used a total-loss cooling system (eliminating the drag of radiators for cooling)   Heck, you're only running 20 minutes, why not a misting cooler??? | ||
| Slypiranna |
The accepted horsepower increase is every 10° in air charge temperature reduction is equivalent to 1% in horsepower. A liquid fuel is harder to control (gaseous is outside what many can wrap their brain around after reading this thread!  )...given a overly warm intake/air charge but (heat) aids in vaporizing said liquid, thus canceling out the latent heat of vaporization equation. Apply "kiss" principle herein. Yes, try to keep the intake charge relatively cool but even "freezing" a liquid fuel will only counteract what you are trying to do in the combustion chamber, let alone the intake track on THIS engine. The helicon IS reality, not Bullshit wannabee engineers' from the outside. Read archives and talk to racers and tuners, BIG difference in what is posted on the internet. Fact. Remapping and/or corrections WILL be needed if everyone wants to play master mechanic/engine tuner on a racetrack or even the street which is where most on this example ride. The racetrack even helps simulate street conditions...IF NOT HOTTER! LOL! The above was proven long before most herein were even born. The many reasons said LIQUID fuel temp reduction will yield an INCREASE in engine output is when one or more of the following (or what else has been missed!? ) applies; -High intake temps. -High intake track surface temps/see above. -High combustion temps/see above and below. -High coolant temps. -"Hot spots" within said combustion chamber (counteracting detonation/preignition?). -Poor ignition and/or fuel mapping. -Poor cylinder/valve/leakdown sealing/rates. -Cam timing "Off". -The "tuner" doesn't know what the F**k he/she is doing and/or covering up! LOL! Keep it simple stupid. No offense, just throwing in my two cents in what is factual and being realistic. Too much time is spent on reinventing a "wheel" in many of these threads, IMO. Forgive me if I came back in to reel some of you in. Argue away as you were... | ||
| Slaughter |
Get good suspension Good brakes Seat time - ALL you can afford. Within 3-4 years, you can START worrying about power. | ||
| Paint_shaker |
What Slaughter said! | ||
| Bigblock |
No one has mentioned fuel density, or specific gravity here. THis is not exclusively a chemical element in fuel formulation, but temperature related as well. Back when they were starting to go pretty quick with NOS, let's say first running into the low 7's and high 6's with a bigblock and no blower, some guys started losing motors because a certain race fuel company changed the specific gravity (lowered the density) on their fuel without telling the racers. Keeping your fuel at an acceptable temp is not necessarily a bandaid for poor tuning in all cases, but perhaps a remedy for an existing problem. | ||
| Xoptimizedrsx |
the best known wheel is the sphere it can move any direction at any given time. yes a sphere can be a wheel. i like what Slypiranna said all of it. none of us can recreate the wheel. we just need to find a way to make it roll faster. some are looking way to deep just get the fuel more stable temps where you start the race and stop the race with the same fuel temp. thats all we need to do. plus all i want to do with mine. all i wanted was to post a simple way to keep fuel at a more constant temp. forget the rocket science. making something stable makes it more easy to keep accurate tuning. best used by a dyno with egt around 1325/1375+-, set afr to 13.4 steady. set the tq to max tq at each rpm positing and tps deg on steady state from the timing and afr. dont set it to ping then back off. run the timing as low as you can for max tq. with the exhaust at the 1350+/- band for gasoline. less is more! in most cases. mike (Message edited by ••••••••••••• on August 04, 2009) | ||
| Blake |
A sphere cannot be the best wheel! Where would you mount the ZTL brake rotor? |
