Would there be any potential benefit to having some sort of cooling system for fuel in cars? We spend so much time cooling the air, but then spray hot gas into it. If the gas were very very cold (but not frozen, obviously) would this yield any benefit?

 

Personally I don't think it would make any difference. The moment that a spray of gas hits a hot cylinder ,it's vaporised and only needs a spark to explode.

 

I was thinking of the opposite. I think we should heat it up so it burns better. Cool air makes gas burn better. Cool air + heated gas = POWA.















I could be wrong though.

 

I have seen some drag cars use a canister with a coil of metal fuel line so they may fill it with dry ice to cool the fuel. I have also seen some street cars retro fit an oil cooler to the front of the car and ran their fuel through there.

 

The benefit of cooling the gas is insignificant to the benefit to cooling the air intake. Here's why:

Gasoline is a liquid. The specific heat of gasoline is relatively low - about half of the specific heat of water. That means that cooling a gallon of gas requires half as much energy removal as a gallon of water.

But gasoline combusts as a gas, not a liquid. To get the vaporized gas one degree colder, you would have to reduce the temperature of liquid gasoline by over 200 degrees!

On top of that, Air is only 21% oxygen. Almost one fifth of the air is Nitrogen, which doesn't burn. That means that you would have to cool the gasoline vapor five times as much to get the same effect as cooling the air.

 

^
bill nye the science guy

lol j/k

 

Since cooling gas would allow for a rich and denser fuel to enter the engine, perhaps race cars go faster if their using more fuel?

 

Here's a guess. Dragsters are keeping the fuel cooler behind the engine for safety reasons and not for performance reasons?

 

Yes, it would offer a performance benefit.

Is it worth the effort to try cold gas? I'm gonna have to say no.

Kudos for bringing it up, and kudos to slalom for the good answer as well.

 

I would assume that colder gasoline would allow the pattern of injected gas in the cylinder improve. It would also prevent preignition, or dieseling. These are obvious benefits, and I assume it would be similar to free octane.

BTW: The more I thought about my numbers above, I think my argument about liquid gas requiring 200x the temp is off. That can't be right. It's definitely much greater due to the 200x increase in volume, but you get the idea.