but the s/c might be hotter, it can no longer transfer the heat to the the intake, the heat is trapped in the s/c.

 

IMO....

IMO it's not a good value. (improvement vs money spent)

Two things I do see it doing is allowing for a slightly cooler intake charge (especially if hot lapping) to the blower and *allows* for some custom port matching between the upper and blower.

I bought mine used and took alot of care to port match the ported blower-spacer-intake.


Just my 2 cents, Rich

 

Lets get a few terms correct here..

"My intake is cool to the touch". Sorry, but after a good run, your intake is not cool after a run. Maybe you can hold your hand on it and not burn yourself, but it is not cool with a spacer.

This also goes to the ice on the intake. The spacer is not cooling the intake like ice does. So two completely different things.

Air is passed through the many "fins" of the intercooler. We are talking about the air passing on near the outside of the plenum being warmed. I don't see how you could compare the two.

-Mark

 

Bingo; we have a winner! IMO you no longer have the upper plumn transfering the heat out of the blower, and therefore makes for a hotter blower which is worse. I had a spacer, and the blower always seemed to get hotter than it did before the spacer.

 

I heard that *some company* had developed a S/C - Intercooler spacer.

I could see that working a little better than the blower - upper intake spacer. The only drawback is having to use a longer belt.

...and as far as straightening the air out, I don't think the 1/2" of spacer makes enough of a difference on the radius of the turn that incoming air needs to make.

I run one - paid like $40 for it. Probably would have been a better purchase to buy $40 in parts for alcohol injection...or $40 in ice for between runs.

Sure my intake is cooler, but maybe if I get to the dyno this weekend, I'll do 2 pulls - one with, and one without to see if it makes any difference at all.

 

I'd like to see four runs actually, since we are the issue of heat.

One without the spacer.
Another back-to-back without the spacer.

Compare results.

Then, cool down, bring back up to operating temps, make another pull with the spacer, and another back-to-back pull with the spacer.

Compare results.

This way, we can not only find out if the spacer has any hp gains in it, but also whether its effect on heat can be documented.

 

I'll send you my PayPal address for the dyno time ;-) heh

 

Totally disagree. The blower is not designed to be cooled by transferring heat into the intake tract. The heat is just a by-product from heat soak and sitting when the engine is off. With the engine running, any heat from the blower and intake tract, including the plenum just gets drawn into the engine with the intake airflow. So, you WOULD benefit on keeping that intake charge cooler, as opposed to allowing the heat to transfer to the plenum and get dispersed into the intake charge.

 

But here is where we need to move beyond theory and into some facts. This is a blanket statement just like saying the spacer keeps the plenum cool.

The question that needs to be answered is how much cooler does it have to be to make a difference.

 

A lot

 

Cool to the touch.
Much more consistant onhot laps.

 

you are not transfering heat INTO the intake tract. the blower is already part of the intake tract. without a spacer, the upper intake plenum acts as a sort of heatsink. it basically just equals a larger surface area, which means that it helps dissipate heat faster than the blower housing could do alone. you are not putting any more heat into the intake charge, you are actually cooling the entire upper/lower/blower assembly faster because you have more surface area. if the upper plenum is isolated from things via a spacer, then it can't help get heat out of the intake and blower.

in theory, there are probably alot more variables to consider.

ex: what if you only have 20 minutes between runs? would it be better to have a cool or ice cold upper plenum? possibly, because spacer or not, the blower and related parts aren't going to cool down much in that amount of time.

but if you have 3 hours between runs, then it might be advantageous to have no spacer because it'll allow more heat dissipation, and if you ice your upper, it'll help cool the blower case and lower intake.

if you ice your upper with a spacer then you are doing just that, icing your upper.

having said all that, I have a spacer. I don't know if it does jack squat, but I paid for it so I run it.

mine is painted sonic blue though, so it's probably faster...


just my .02

later
chris

 

Hey Chris,

This is exactly why I started this thread. I bought one too, but I don't think it does much. Just trying to get some facts on this mod to help out the people who haven't bought it yet.

-Mark

 

Put a Nitrous Nozzle in the Phenolic spacer

 

All I want is for vendors selling the phenolic spacers and making these claims to provide some hard evidence. And to me, hard evidence is not just one truck making a pair of pulls, it's multiple trucks making multiple pulls to document not only the claimed gains, but the reduction in heat.