Hair Dryer Power!

[Treker4747]

Here's my plan.

I have a 2000 Ford Focus ZTS. Right now, driving "efficently" I can get on average 30mpg, though I've managed to get almost 40.

But, my plan is to introduce a hairdryer to the air-intake. I'd like to get the biggest hairdryer I can, plug it into the beefiest inverter I can, and hope the alternator is as strong as I think it is.

And just have the hairdryer set to "high" and blowing into the air-intake piped in somewhere close to where the filterbox is under the hood.

Any thoughts on how or if this could work?

[rh77]

Here's my plan.

I have a 2000 Ford Focus ZTS. Right now, driving "efficently" I can get on average 30mpg, though I've managed to get almost 40.

But, my plan is to introduce a hairdryer to the air-intake. I'd like to get the biggest hairdryer I can, plug it into the beefiest inverter I can, and hope the alternator is as strong as I think it is.

And just have the hairdryer set to "high" and blowing into the air-intake piped in somewhere close to where the filterbox is under the hood.

Any thoughts on how or if this could work?


First, welcome to the forum. Conceivably, a hair dryer could add that extra hot air, lean out the mix, and the inverter power draw might be negligible. Something to think about. Any thoughts out there? I think it's worth a try...

RH77

[SVOboy]

It'd be so much cheaper and easier just to run some duct (like 5 bucks) off the headers or cataytic converter. Honestly, it'd prolly work, but it wouldn't get as hot, might hinder sucking power of the engine, and you'd have to worry about the dryer melting/doing the wiring.

[Treker4747]

My biggest concern is the power. A really good Hairdryer wants around 1800 Watts, and I've only seen inverters that'll provide half that. May have to do some digging, but I would imagine somewhere I can get an Inverter to support 1800 Watts.

[Matt Timion]

I like your thinking. I would be concerned about the power too. If a hair dryer has enough power to kill someone standing in a bathtub, then it would quickly drain your battery.

You might want to look into going to the junkyard and pulling a heater core out of any old car. Run a coolant line through it and have it rest (somehow) at the bottom of your air intake. Zero load on the battery, and you're actually DOING something with the extra heat instead of wasting it.

[Treker4747]

Well, cars don't run off the battery. The battery starts the car, then if everything is working right the car should then run off the alternator alone. It's just whether or not 1800watts (or even 900) being drawn fromt he inverter plus everything else in the car, would be more than the alternator can handle, and THEN turn to the battery for power. May just require a bigger Alternator being put in along with everything else. It'd be expensive but it could pay for itself in the long-run, and work better than fancy duct work in the dead of winter when there's alot of cold air outside.

My other thoughts would be to just run a heating coil inside the duct work to heat the air up that way.

[diamondlarry]

I did some quick calculations to figure out the current draw for an 1800 watt hairdryer. 1800 watts/12 volts=150 amps. Your alternator may not be able to handle that much load.
Larry

[beatr911]

Yeah, SVOboy has it right, use the waste heat from the catalytic converter, they run at about 1200F inside and prolly 800F or so outside where you could draw heat effectively. No need to use engine power to make electricity and then heat.

[kickflipjr]

I think the hair dried would die if it was run non stop.

getting air off the manifold would be much easier.

[CruiseControl]

All of the gearheads I knew in the 70's and 80's when turbos first came out, were way jazzed at the idea of INTERCOOLERS. The logic was that air was always the limiting factor in the combustion chemistry, so cold dense air carried more oxygen. Since a Turbo or Supercharger compresses the air, it also heats it, which is counter productive, since hot air is less dense, and won't expand as much in the cylinder when ignited. So to maximize the efficiency of the cylinder chemistry the intake air should be as cool as possible. This up to a point that I'm not enough of a chemist to understand, since the abilty of the gas to vaporize is also a factor, etc. Also isn't 1500 watts, like ~ 1.5 horsepower. And that would be drawn on the engine's electrical system, which is only marginally efficient, so it's probably more like chopping 5 horsepower off of your drive train power.
Maybe if you put the hair drier in the trunk, aim it out the back, and fire a little propane through it, you could use it as an afterburner. ;)
Speaking of which, who here has tried NO2 or O2 ? O2 is really cheap, and the sensors should pick it up...to a point.

[Matt Timion]

Maybe if you put the hair drier in the trunk, aim it out the back, and fire a little propane through it, you could use it as an afterburner. ;)


okay, that was funny. :)

[diamondlarry]

Cool air is good for making more power but warm air is better for mileage because it helps vaporize the fuel better. Unvaporized(liquid) fuel doesn't burn. Cool air would not allow as much vaporization.

[rh77]

Speaking of which, who here has tried NO2 or O2 ? O2 is really cheap, and the sensors should pick it up...to a point.

Wait...that's a great idea -- the Oxygen setup. O2 is safe to transport (it's not flammable, it's just an accelerant). I suppose it's easy and cheap to get from a welding equipment supplier. Rig it up just like a NOS nozzle or similar by where a manual switch or accelerator pedal switch would start the flow. A little chemistry...

O2 is required for a hydrocarbon to combust. If more oxygen is added, like NOS, more power is produced from the same amount of fuel? A little O2 could go a long way. I didn't do so good at chemistry, so any help here?

RH77

[Matt Timion]

Speaking of which, who here has tried NO2 or O2 ? O2 is really cheap, and the sensors should pick it up...to a point.

Wait...that's a great idea -- the Oxygen setup. O2 is safe to transport (it's not flammable, it's just an accelerant). I suppose it's easy and cheap to get from a welding equipment supplier. Rig it up just like a NOS nozzle or similar by where a manual switch or accelerator pedal switch would start the flow. A little chemistry...

O2 is required for a hydrocarbon to combust. If more oxygen is added, like NOS, more power is produced from the same amount of fuel? A little O2 could go a long way. I didn't do so good at chemistry, so any help here?

RH77

I've always understood though that NOS will destroy an engine rather quickly. Can the same be said about O2?

[SVOboy]

Nitrous won't destroy and engine if it's used responsibily and correctly, so I dun see why the o2 would.

[rh77]

NOS and 02 basically accomplish the same thing -- more Oxygen in the combustion chamber and less fuel. The side effect: lean and hot. Would an OBD-II ECU dump more fuel to compensate to cool the charge? OR if you get a Stoichiometric air/fuel ratio with an 02 addition, that would, in theory, use less fuel. But how can you monitor the temperature before it's too late and the internals are fried? Has this even been attempted for fuel economy purposes?

RH77

[CruiseControl]

Matt Timion Wrote:

I've always understood though that NOS will destroy an engine rather quickly. Can the same be said about O2?

They used to use an additive to gas during the summer (it was mandated in New York, because the air quaility was so bad) that increased the O2 in solution in the gasoline itself. This in turn increased the effiecincy of the burn, by allowing it to burn to completion. My guess is that that O2 is the limiting factor in the chemistry. Where it can be purchased would be a great question, as every major oil company had to include it in their gas, at only a few pennies a gallon extra to make. There was no mention of damage to the engines from the additive. Free O2 at those temperatures would probably oxidize almost anything, including oil, or an exhaust maniforld, that it came in contact with. So O2 would probably be better for the engine in the long run if it was in solution and associated with the correct reducing agent. It would certainly limit the temptation to increase the O2 and leave a patch at a light. Maybe the O2 valve could be bracketed by the O2 sensors in the exhaust, and intake manifolds (so the exhaust manifold, and cat aren't oxidized), and actuated by the...intake manifold pressure? It could even be something simple, like a light switched by the exhaust O2 sensor voltage, to warn a highway driver, to stop opening a valve. The Department of Tranportation lists Oxygen as a Class 2 substance, which puts it a full class ahead of Gas which is a Class 3...FYI Ammunition and Explosives, and Flares are Class 1. There would be a limit as to the size of the gas bottle, at least for transport commercially. So a little bottle, like the ones that come with MAP gas would be a smart start. Also the valves and hoses should be available generically, and so at a lower cost, than those for NO2.

[DaX]

Speaking of which, who here has tried NO2 or O2 ? O2 is really cheap, and the sensors should pick it up...to a point.

Wait...that's a great idea -- the Oxygen setup. O2 is safe to transport (it's not flammable, it's just an accelerant). I suppose it's easy and cheap to get from a welding equipment supplier. Rig it up just like a NOS nozzle or similar by where a manual switch or accelerator pedal switch would start the flow. A little chemistry...

O2 is required for a hydrocarbon to combust. If more oxygen is added, like NOS, more power is produced from the same amount of fuel? A little O2 could go a long way. I didn't do so good at chemistry, so any help here?

RH77

I've always understood though that NOS will destroy an engine rather quickly. Can the same be said about O2?

The problem with injecting oxygen directly into your engine, is that oxygen LOVES aluminum. Your aluminum cylinder heads would quickly erode and your engine would be DESTROYED. I have a book on the ins and outs of Nitrous Oxide injection and this is a question they talk about [why not just inject oxygen?].

[krmusher]

I recently put a total hot air intake on my 360 V-8 2bbl Jeep. Results are very good, even better as the temp drops (9 deg F today, below 0 tonight). This engine/carb setup has the old fashioned american lack of vaporization so just dump more gas set up. So as winter comes in I'm more preserving by warm season mpg. It runs great on hot air, very smooth as vaporization is improved.
How To: first I replumbed the vacuum system so that the stock hot air riser/heat stove is on and connected all the time. This will not provide enough air so I built another one on the other exhaust manifold from roof flashing (aluminum), replacement heat riser duct/hose, exhaust fittings on both end of hose for positive connections, hole saw into air cleaner and voila, another on all the time hot air input and now I have enough total air. Have run up to 70 deg F days OK but really shines as the temp drops. I can control total fuel flows thru the jets from the cab so monitor vaporization that way. Now I need to heat the fuel....

[dean]

Hey everybody,

I've been working on a project for better gas mileage. I built a heat exchanger to heat the air/fuel charge using exhaust heat. It should be ready for a test run in a week or two. (It could be ready tomorrow but its hard to get out in the garage in this weather.) I've been reading through some of the posts here and noticed that some on this site are pretty computer savy and I'm hoping I can find some help here. I want to monitor the engine vitals when I test run this. Some I know how to do, most I don't.

A thermocouple in the intake and an O2 sensor in the exhaust, that's the easy part. I'd also like to monitor CO, Co2 and NOx in the exhaust. I got the impression from some of the posts the some are monitoring their fuel economy electronically. That would be real helpful, if its accurate. Any ideas? Without spending a fortune.

thanks,
dean

[diamondlarry]

You could go to www.scaguage.com for a product that is pretty good for monitoring mpg. Also, if you want a product that is really good for monitoring engine parameters such as O2 sensor outputs, long and short term trim levels and such, this is a pretty good product: http://www.auterraweb.com/ Welcome to the group!

[Matt Timion]

You could go to www.scaguage.com for a product that is pretty good for monitoring mpg. Also, if you want a product that is really good for monitoring engine parameters such as O2 sensor outputs, long and short term trim levels and such, this is a pretty good product: http://www.auterraweb.com/ Welcome to the group!

If your car is made after 1996 Scangauge is your best bet. It will monitor air temp, engine temp, mpg, etc. I'm not certain about data logging though, but I'm pretty sure with obd2 (post 1996) you can easily get toys for things like this.

For those of us with older cars, we're still trying to figure out the best way to monitor gas mileage. We'll figure something out sooner or later.

[dean]

I have a 1951 truck with a 96 Ford engine but I did not use the computer. Thanks for the links. I'll look at them.

[Ryland]

yes, fuel will vaporize better in warm air, but your engine will run more efficently if it has cold, dense air because it gives a simaler affect as a turbo, and if done right, a turbo engine can get the same mileage, or better, while producing more power, becasue of the extra air it's packing in there.
and a hair dryer doesn't produce enough presure to make any differnce, it might put out .5 psi, while a turbo is 15-20 psi, or more.

[SVOboy]

I'm glad you're going around ressurecting some old threads, :p, some of these things have nuggets in them.

[Sludgy]

Yanno, it just occurred to me that the easiest warm air intake system would be a tube with an orfice that pushes a metered amount of EXHAUST GAS into the intake manifiold. EGR has been used for years to reduce NOx emissions, so why not apply it to fuel economy?

The tubing would be tiny compared to hair dryers, catalyst shrouds, and ducting from the catalyst, etc. And the whole thing would be reversible at inspection time.

Has anybody tried this?

[rh77]

I'm glad you're going around ressurecting some old threads, :p, some of these things have nuggets in them.

At first I was like who brought up the hair dryer thing again! But there's more to it. You're right, despite the title, there might be some valuable off-topic gems to mine.

RH77

[SVOboy]

Well, from my standpoint, the egr system that honda designed has not just emissions purposes, but gas mileage purposes as well. I will be doing this buy installing a stock intake manifold and egr system in the future.

How do you plan to scoop up the exhaust gasses though?

[n0rt0npr0]

Also from my standpoint GM designed my egr system on my engine to also affect FE in a positive way :) (the 60°V6 guru/ecu programmer I know mentioned this when I told him i was interested in piggy-back chipping my motor)

[Ryland]

at what point does the EGR valve open? and would leaning out the o2 in your "air" really have that much of an affect? I meen, I'm sure you could lower the amount of fuel going in if you lowered the o2, but wouldn't you almost need to cool the exaust gasses befor the go in the combustion chamber, so they can exspand again with the rest of the gasses?
and would you have a problem with the o2 being to scattered to be able to burn all the fuel?

[Ecomike]

Why would you want to use hot air? Why do you think hot air would lean out the mixture?


First, welcome to the forum. Conceivably, a hair dryer could add that extra hot air, lean out the mix, and the inverter power draw might be negligible. Something to think about. Any thoughts out there? I think it's worth a try...

RH77

[DracoFelis]

But, my plan is to introduce a hairdryer to the air-intake. I'd like to get the biggest hairdryer I can, plug it into the beefiest inverter I can, and hope the alternator is as strong as I think it is.

And just have the hairdryer set to "high" and blowing into the air-intake piped in somewhere close to where the filterbox is under the hood.

Any thoughts on how or if this could work?
Thinking outside the box, is good. So I want to congratulate you for thinking about this.

However, as another poster mentioned, the electrical power for this would kill you, even if everything else about this plan worked. The thing most people forget, is that virtually all electrical power from a car, ultimately comes from the ALTERNATOR. And where does the alternator get it's power from? You guessed it, the alternator gets its (mechanical) power from drag on the gas engine (i.e. lower fuel economy)!

NOTE: This isn't just theory. You can actually measure (or even "feel", if the wattage is high enough) the extra drag on the engine, due to using more electricity in a car! And in fact, I've actually been able to usefully increase my FE (in my CRX) just by lowering my electrical power usage (by such means as replacing the standard car bulbs with energy efficient LED modules, running power using fans less, etc).

So what do the numbers say? Well, the "rule of thumb" I seem to remember, is that 1 horse power of drag is approximately equal to 700 watts of electricity _IF_ your generator was 100% efficient (and car alternators are not even close to 100% efficient, nor are "power inverters" for that matter). So assuming your hair drier used approximately 1400 watts to run (and a lot of hair driers use more than that on high), you are talking 2HP+ minimum drag (likely AT LEAST 3HP in practice, due to less than 100% efficiency).

And this is drag OVER AND ABOVE any power the engine generates to move the car forward! This drag is just to power the hair drier, nothing else! And this is what the laws of physics say HAS TO HAPPEN, it's not just a matter of engineering this well, it's the physical limits of what you are trying to do (i.e. the electrical energy for that hair dryer has to come from somewhere, it's not magically created, and in a traditional car it comes from extra mechanical drag on the gas engine). So there is no way to "engineer around this", unless you had a totally different source of electrical power (a big plug-in battery pack, perhaps?), in which case you are really just making a weird sort of electrical-gas hybrid car. Otherwise, you are pretty much stuck with these numbers.

So the bottom line, is that you will pay a 3HP+ loss of power (possibly 6HP or more, depending upon the efficiency of your components), just to run the hair dryer constantly. And this loss of power will hurt your FE a fair amount (the effect on the car will be similar to what would happen if you had your brakes partially engaged all the time). And this loss of FE is almost certainly going to be greater than any FE gains you could get by warming your car intake air. So you would essentially lose FE overall, not gain it.

OTOH you might be able to boost FE, if you were to find a source of heat that doesn't require nearly so much energy to tap into. For example, using some of your "waste heat" (from the car's exhaust system), via a "heat exchanger", to heat your car's intake air. I'm not saying even this would gain you FE in your car (it may or may not, depending upon how your car responds to warm air intake), but at least an approach using "waste heat" avoids the huge power losses associated with generating heat from electricity in a car (so it actually has a chance of helping overall, unlike the hair dryer, which would use too much power to make it practical)...

[88HF]

Try the WAI like others on this site using a dryer vent hose. I think Draco is right. You are talking about a huge electrical load. You have plenty heat under there esp. if you seal the engine bay well. Maybe too much.

[Peakster]

Maybe if you just used the fan alone (without the heat from the whole dryer) would work well. Little electrical load and a high amount of forced air could almost act like a supercharger.

[Bill in Houston]

A guy named Richard Reece used a hair dryer to make a WAI for his Insight and saw drastically increased FE in colder months and on cold starts. I don't think that the forced air action helped, but rather the warming of the air.

[Blue03Civic]

Maybe the hair dryer heating element alone would create a warm air effect, but the fan would have no effect at all. Look around for people using leaf blowers as superchargers and you'll find that even they only produce around 1psi. IIRC a leaf blower moves a lot more air a lot faster than a hair dryer.

[cfg83]

Hello -

I used to have a combo HAI+Marine Bilge blower :

Switched Hot/Cold Air Intake
http://www.gassavers.org/showpost.php?p=38436&postcount=10

The fan was rated at 5 Amps, which I think is similar to the draw of my now disabled DRLs. The problem was that most of the fan components were plastic, so it was only rated up to 160 degrees F. At about 150 degrees F, it started to deform the bilge blower housing. I think that a metal "turbo/snail" shaped fan would work better. I didn't go that route because I wanted an inline fan for easier installation.

Also, even though it pulled in hot air, the *volume* of air that it pulled in seemed to increase the mix of cold air coming in. I think that going with a straight WAI is better.

Idea : Why not use the hair dryer concept for engine warm-up only? Assuming the 1800 watt load wouldn't lower the already bad FE too much, the faster engine warm-up time might be a pay-off. Also, the shorter time span for keeping the hair dryer on should increase it's life span. However, most hair dryers suck, so you would probably need a really high quality one.

CarloSW2

[mrmad]

Don't forget that a hair hair dryer that was not intended to be used in such a harsh environment. Temperature/vibration/exposure to moisture, and being "on" for potentially longer periods of time then the average beehive takes to dry, all could cause a failure which could either cause an electrical fire in your engine, or suck hairdryer parts into your intake.

[88HF]

I don't even know that you could run an 1800 watt hair dryer off the altenator @ 14V. Thats a lot of amps.

[cfg83]

88HF -

I don't even know that you could run an 1800 watt hair dryer off the altenator @ 14V. Thats a lot of amps.

Here's a DC one rated at 175 watts (14 amps) :

http://www.baproducts.com/rpsc-818.htm

But, probably too wimpy to be useful. But I also agree that the environment would be too harsh for a commercial hair dryer. I think you'd need "Grainger quality" parts to make it work reliably.

CarloSW2

[Bill in Houston]

I think I would only run it for 5 or 10 minutes at a time, at cold starts. When my wife dries her hair it definitely runs for longer than that... To power the 1000 watts of heat you would need a mighty stout inverter...

[kwtorbe]

Or use a gas powered leaf blower sucking air off the exhaust manifold : )

[joeldude]

dont intake manifolds have coolant runnign trough them for this purpose? i know my 1993 240sx does

[hound_13]

I have been thinking the exact same thing you have, (a hairdryer!!!) except I was going to turn the temp. on the hair dryer to "warm" for a warm air intake. Also, i was thinking of removing the fan from it and leaving the heating coil inside so it would just be considered a heater.

[philip1]

On EFI equipped car there is an intake temp sensor, this sensor helps determine how much fuel to inject and how much timing the air can handle. Higher temperatures mean the air can handle less fuel before it goes rich, conversely the cooler the air the more fuel it can support. Since we here are not so concerned about peak power and high MPH, high intake temps are a good thing. My car for instance has manifold pressure based fuel mapping but the IAT (intake air temp sensor) determines the offset on a given map. I run a hot air intake (as seen in my garage) my intake temps run between 130* and 140* f compaired to the 78*f without, my fuel usage went from 1.5 gallons per hour (GPH) to just 1.09GPH at the same throttle setting (cruise 65 mph) this netted a huge gain in cruise milage. Again we aren't looking for low quarter mile times just good MPG's.

[BEEF]

phil hit the nail on the head. less power but more FE. the trade off is there and has always been there. I have heard that it doesn't work so well on all vehicles but I personally saw about 10% gain out of mine too. taking the heat off of the header (exhaust manifold).

[slurp812]

Cool air is good for making more power but warm air is better for mileage because it helps vaporize the fuel better. Unvaporized(liquid) fuel doesn't burn. Cool air would not allow as much vaporization.

Less O2 = less gas.
So hot air effectively makes the motor smaller...