spare tire

What you want to do is make your blocks of ice at home For your weekend of racing but store the blocks of ice in a cooler with dry ice. Your freezer will chill the block to about 10* below. The dry ice will keep it even colder. The blocks of ice you freeze and take with you on a Friday are still ice on Saturday and Sunday but Sunday Ice does not last as long in a cool suit because it is not starting out at 10* below zero. By Sunday your block might be 25*. The melting point of water is irrelevent to cool suit use except salt will circulate 28* water instead of 32* water.

todinlaw

I was told that the system is not designed to be drained out completely, I had to send my cooler back for some repairs and they said leave the water in the lines, so I do and just put a tea spoon of bleach in at the end of the weekend.

God I love that cool shirt, sitting on the grid.

ApexPerformance

I've spoke to Cool Shirt folks in the past and they do not recommend using bleach. It can eventually break down the rubber in the lines on the shirt and system. They recommend using the rubbing alcohol instead. Guess if you've been using the bleach for a while, you are using just enough to kill any algae but not harm the tubing.

TheOtherEric

+1. Do NOT use bleach in rubber tubing; it'll mess up rubber. Alcohol is a good idea. Or drop by a homebrew supply store and pick up some Star-San. Great non-toxic sanitizer you can even use around the house.

kurt M

Bingo. All ice is not the same. 32 deg ice has less BTU soak value than 10 deg ice. Adding salt does not increase the BTU cap of the ice charge it causes the ice to melt at a temp below 32 deg. you get colder water but the same BTU soak as without salt. If the system is unable to cool you and the ice lasts longer than the race salt or other freeze point cemicals can be used to lower the water temps.

I found a set of tupperware type contaners that make blocks that can be slotted in an fit in my cooler tight. Make a bunch and keep cold in a good cooler. You can add styrofoam sheet insulation inside a large cooler to increase the R value.

more pounds and colder ice is the key to more BTUs soaked up.

Venting CO2 from a cooler is not real issue. The cooler will vent at a low pressure and/or you can make a simple vent for it. The issue will be the cooing fluid. It will freeze around the CO2 blocks and then loose good thermal contact unless some method is used to prevent freezing.

why not make a small and I mean very small belt driven copmpressor that runs a small drivers water loop chiller? It would be far less $ than an TC electric system and use less power from the motor. Yes less power than the electrics. the electrics get the power from the alt. as the load goes up on the alt more HP is needed to drive it. The entire unit could be made as a bolt on box with a flex line set for the 3X4" condenser. Less power consumed unlimited time on station.

John H

Best part of this thread....

38D is back!!!!!!!

krystar

so seriously why not just run orig car AC and use the orig evaporator core inside your cooler then? hehe

38D

I agree

onefastviking

So does the ice melt faster or slower if the water is kept colder ?

As for the chiller you suggest, it's quite common in NASCAR and other forms of racing, just not a cheap system. http://www.koolboxproducts.com/Koolbox_IV.php

onefastviking

Weight of the OE system, loss of hp, and potential for problems.

kurt M

Adding salt will make the ice melt faster*

*The colder water is a simple factor of the ice melting rate and the heat being absorbed. The ice has a fixed amount of BTU absorption. This number is 100% fixed and is a simple calculation of the weight and temperature of the ice charge against the amount of heat being absorbed. Salt or other chemicals that lower the melting point only change the rate of absorption not the amount of heat soaked up. This is governed under the laws of thermodynamics and unlike speeding a hard one to break.
A lower melting point will increase the thermal delta between the water and the material (in this case the person) being cooled. It will feel colder but the ice will not last as long. Period. If you are running the circulating pump 100% on and still not getting cool enough salt might be of benefit. If you are not running the pump 100% salt will only shift the pump % rate not the heat moved.

Increasing the amount of ice charge and or using colder ice will increase the thermal capacity. Cap. Obvious wants me to add that colder ice has more thermal heat absorption capacity pound for pound than warmer ice.

There are chemical compounds that react exothermically when mixed. They want to combine with each other and consume heat when they do so. This consumption produces a thermal delta. "cold". I wonder if you could make a device that uses the cold pack type chemicals to produce cooling. My guess is it would be far more mess and $ than ice.

My budget is in the cold ice range for now but I do high end HVAC and am going to look at geeking up a grassroots kind of small compressor based rig. It could be rigged in so it only runs when you are not at WOT. This way there are not lap time losses.