JG Pasterjak
JG Pasterjak Production/Art Director
9/12/18 10:00 a.m.
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Grassroots Motorsports LIVE! Starts In:


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Race cars get hot, and heat leads to a degradation in performance of the most important part of the car: the driver. Tonight on Grassroots Motorsports LIVE! presented by CRC Industries we’ll build a budget-friendly homebuilt cooling system to keep drivers operating at peak performance in sweaty conditions. We’ll also have another edition …

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David S. Wallens
David S. Wallens Editorial Director
9/12/18 3:10 p.m.

Just bumping this up since it should be pretty darn cool. (Pun not intended.)

te72
te72 Reader
9/12/18 8:51 p.m.

Looking forward to what you guys come up with. I've had the idea of using a compressor that is mechanically driven off a hex drive (think mechanical fuel pump) off the back of my oil pump, to provide a somewhat traditional AC, but that's all in the "idea" phase right now.

 

But can't really use AC on track, so... still gotta address that.

Robbie
Robbie GRM+ Memberand PowerDork
9/12/18 9:24 p.m.
te72 said:

Looking forward to what you guys come up with. I've had the idea of using a compressor that is mechanically driven off a hex drive (think mechanical fuel pump) off the back of my oil pump, to provide a somewhat traditional AC, but that's all in the "idea" phase right now.

 

But can't really use AC on track, so... still gotta address that.

I was going to just hook up my cooler and water lines to the existing ac evaporator in the challenge car.

Ac should work like normal as long as you keep putting ice in the cooler!

te72
te72 Reader
9/13/18 9:03 p.m.

In reply to Robbie :

I'm a novice when it comes to AC systems, despite living in the desert all my life. Would this setup you're talking about on your challenge car be basically replacing the heat exchanger (condenser, if I understand the terminology correctly) up in front of the radiator, with a cooler full of ice instead?

Robbie
Robbie GRM+ Memberand PowerDork
9/13/18 10:27 p.m.

In reply to te72 :

Yeah, but you'd need a water pump too like they used in the show.

Basically the actual system has a heat exchanger in the dash (just like a heater core) but refrigerant flows through it instead of water. The ac compressor compresses the refrigerant, the evaporator lets it expand (as the pressure goes down so does the temperature), and then the condenser lets the heat out and the refridgerant goes back into the compressor.

If you get rid of all of that stuff except the heat exchanger in the dash, you could pump cold water through the heat exchanger in the dash and then the factory fan would blow air through it which would get cold on its way through.

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