Hi people,

I thought I'd share this again, now that Im getting back into the Nitro world once again!

about 3 years ago I came up with a device (I guess you could call it that) that you can make at home for about $10 to give some real efficient cooling to your nitro motor at a very low wieght cost.

The old one I made is long since gone, but I am going to make another once my Kyosho monster Tourer arrives, at which time I'll take some pics.

The idea is really simple, and quite effective!


Age old image of the basic idea (I created this as the design for my first prototype. (its a crap drawing I know LOL)

What you need :

A length of composite rubber tubing (about 1/2 inch in diameter, the tubing is generally used as insulation on wiring, its soft, and extremely flexible), I buy it by the meter, generally you want to make 4 sets of tubes.

Plastic Tubing that fits inside the rubber tubing (12inches long will be more than enough)

Wire (around the same thickness as that bit of wire that holds your pipe in place)

Plastic Sheets (12inx12in should do)

Modelling Putty

STRONG glue

Fly screen mesh

Velcro tape

1 large ziplock bag

where and how you mount the air intake is entirely up to you, and this does require some degree of scratch modelling skills!

The Last one I created was for my T-Maxx, and I mounted it directly on the front of the body, and in this attempt to explain how to build one, Ill use this position as the example

First thing to do is to create the intake piece.

Basically your using the Plastic sheet, glue and Military Putty to create a pyramid type shape. the complexity of this is going to depend on your modelling skills. this will need to be attached to the front of your car/truck/buggy so its size, shape and depth depends on the space you have available between the body mounting posts and the body front. The Tmax has plenty of space, so I made a pretty large one.

Once you have made a pyramid like shape, you will need to cut the point of the pyramid off using a hacksaw or similar tool. cut just enough space so that you can place the plastic tube in it (not the rubber tubing).

cut a 1 to 2 inch length of plastic pipe and insert it into the newly cut hole, try and keep the end inside the intake flush with the sides. mix up some military putty and mould it around the outside of the pipe to seal up and holes, and if necassery smooth some out inside the intake to make it smooth between the walls of the intake and the pipe. It might also be a good idea to put some military putty along the edges of the intake to help strengthen the construction.

there, the intake is done! I know this is rather hard to follow without images but some of you might be able to understand what I am on about!

thats the hardest part over, the rest is simply mounting.

Using a small drill bit (just bigger that the thickness of the wire you have) drill 2 small holes on each side of the intake (space them no more than 1/2 an inch apart)

take the wire and thread it through one hole from the outside, loop it around, and put it back through the other whole. bend the end you just looped around so its flush with the side of the intake and holds it tightly. Do the same on the other side. Now you need to figure out the most appropriate mounting place for the wires in order to hold the intake where you want it. When doing this on the front, I used 2 of the spare upper shock mounting positions. I cut the wire to length, and the made a loop at the end, and screwed it into the shock mount hole with a spare shock screw and bolt.

next is the tube clips, this is going to be hard to explain without images LOL These clips are spaced (2 or 3 should do) between the intake and the motor to hold the rubber tubing in place within the car.

on my previous one, I used the screws used to hold the electronics box down, and one of the engine mounting screws to hold my 2 clips in place.
Use the image above to get an idea of how to shape the wire.

Basically you want these to be bent in such a way that the tubing will be held in place between the intake and the motor without bending the tube too much.
They also need to hold the tubing quite firmly!

the next-to-final step is to cut some lengths of the tubing to size, they should be long enough to go from the rear of the intake to about 1 inch from the motor head.

Now, depending on your body, you will need to cut a hole the shape of the intake (so air can get in it!) and then glue some fly screen over the hole (to stop rocks getting in there) finally use the velcro tape to velcro the front of the intake to the body! (dont use too much otherwise its a pain to take the body off, just enough to hold it in place!)


now, your probably thinking that all this does is direct air flow to the motor head, and you would be right, but there is one final thing that needs to be done in order to get great cooling, and this is where the composite rubber tubing and the zip lock back comes into play!

take your tubes you have cut to length (you DID make more than one right?) and place them inside the zip-lock bag, and shove that into your freezer. leave it at least 12 hours!

now, when you take them out of the freezer and attach them to your car, air that travels through the tube will be cooled by the cold tube! if you get the right type of tube, it will stay cool for about 15 minutes. generally about the length of a run on a track before having to pit for fuel (at which time you can change to another tube if needed)

On my T-Max, this reduced the running temp of my engine by about 15degrees (celsius) allowing me to lean out my motor for better performance.


A waste of time? perhaps, but wow it works well. I'll be picking up the materials to build a new one next week (engagement party this weekend) and Ill take pics as I make it so you can see the real thing.

if your daring enough to attempt this, let me know how you go, or if you need me to clarify (which wouldnt suprise me) ask away!

very creative i love new ideas but wouldnt it be easeir to zip tie a computer CPU fan on the head of the engine and ridge that to one 9V battery????? ull have that fan running all day!!!! u know if u actually need the extra cooling!!! are you goin to make another one???? id love to see pictures since this would be a EXELENT IDEA for my ms budweiser hydro plane boat!!!!

I certainly am making another one!

wouldnt the CPU fan melt? my Motor sits on the 180 - 200 Deg (celcius) mark which would ruin a cpu after a while (I would have thought)

I really like this, its extremely light, has no moving parts and is like a mini air conditioner for your car LOL (for a while at least)

I think I might make one for my On-Road basher with the Lamborghini Gellardo body, and use the rear air intakes on the actual body as the place to mount the air intakes. that'd look sweet!

actually no the fan housing and whatnot would survive.. the stators.. different story
but my thought your just complicating the simple.. make the channel... dont close the back off so much 1/2 in tubing will deliver VERY LITTLE AIR with aircraft we simply channel the air over the over the head.. directing it of sorts.. use your funnel make it at minimum the width of the head.. you dont wanna try to force air throught the fins as that will cause turbulence and ultimately slow down the air if you build a simple funnel that reaches from the window to the engine about 1/2 inch before the head youll get a much greater airflow and more efficient cooling..

now onto something else..i think your temps are a bit off.. a nitro engine simply wont run at 200c or 392deg F !!!!!<<<!!! the rod would fold lol around 285 they just shut off.. thats fahrenheit lol the cylinder wall expands and it looses compression

I do not have a problem with mine over heating even in 100 plus degree weather. Running to cool can be as harem full as running to hot. Nice idea just do not see where it is necessary.

Thats the temp read via a Duratrax infra red temp gun pointing at the glow plug. I dunno but thats what i read LOL

Aircraft travel (in general) alot faster than cars do, especially off road cars. the idea is to get low speed air flow cooler to more efficiently cool the motor.

The reason I actually starting all this was because I didnt like cutting big gaping holes in my body to get air to the head. this fixed that for me!

I just thought Id share

Would it not be easier to cut the legal half of the windscreen out then build a tuinnel that tapered to the size of the engine head? that would work great right?

Dann

I agree with this completely. Just like oversized cooling heads, a cooling device should not be necessary. When properly tuned, I have never had any problems overheating. The last thing I want to do is lean my engine out so much that the piston/sleeve no longer get the necessary lubrication they need. JMO.