What is the effect where when you let high pressure air out of a tank, it gets cold? Because I was thinking about if it would be possible to cool an intercooler with gasses other then Nitrous Oxide.

I think it's pretty common knowledge that the reason intercoolers are necessary is that the act of compressing air increases its temperature. So yes, if you let a high pressure gas out of a tank at ambient temperature, the molecules get much father apart, and since they still have the same amount of energy, the temperature drops.

At least I think that's how it works.

Yes it's possible to cool an intercooler with gasses other than nitrous oxide.

Though I feel obligated to point out that the cooling effects of nitrous oxide are only secondary to its real pupose, increasing the oxygen in the intake.

it's very messy and inefficient way to go about cooling, a lot of gas under high pressure will have to escape. More efficient to have circulating water cooling and a heat-exchanger.

Think about running liquid nitrogen over an intercooler, lmao. That might burst the intercooler depending on the amount of boost!

I just wanted to know how to calculate the temperature, like some sort of equation.

Have a look into Boyles Law, Charles Law and the General Gas Equation.

FYI - When you open a can of beer, the 'smoke' you see is actually tiny ice crystals floating in the air, formed by the sudden decrease in temperature when the pressure is rapidly decreased by opening the can.

Just spray some water to surface of it, when water vaporizes it cools down surface and surrounding air, making cooler colder and then it cools compressed air inside of it better. Obviously works best with air/air coolers

Also spraying water to compressed air is decreasing temp dramatically, but problem with that is that some of water tends to get to intercooler, slowly filling it, also there will be some condensing to worry about.

And yes, you can spray water to engine, that is how you can also clean engine, however I won't recommend anyone to try without some training or learning, it is possible to destroy engine with this too.

But if someone needs to find ways how to cool intercooler, then he has just too small installed

Intercooler water spray is fitted as standard on Impreza Type-R's (and probably more cars), either as automagically activated or manually. Surely such systems must be available as an aftermaket add-on ?

Quote from wheel4hummer :

I just wanted to know how to calculate the temperature, like some sort of equation.

Go here: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/isentrop.html
You need equation 4. Here come the maths...

p1/p2 = (T1/T2)^(γ/(γ-1))

(p1/p2)^((γ-1)/γ) = T1/T2

T2 = T1/(p1/p2)^((γ-1)/γ)

T2 = T1 * (p2/p1)^((γ-1)/γ)

'γ' is supposed to be 'gamma' but the Verdana font makes it look like a 'Y' dropped below the line of the text. γ = 1.4 for air...no idea what it is for N2O.

Suppose you have a can of compressed air at a gauge pressure of 1 atmosphere. That is 2 atmospheres in absolute pressure, or 101325*2 = 202650 Pascals. Let's assume you've cooled it to room temperature, about 20°C. That is 20+273.15 = 293.15 Kelvin. You're now going to allow it to expand isentropically (ie reversibly, with no losses) to atmospheric pressure.

p1 = 202650 Pa
p2 = 101325 Pa
T1 = 293.15 K
T2 is unknown
γ = 1.4

T2 = 293.15 * (101325/202650)^((1.4-1)/1.4)
T2 = 240.48 K

...or -32.7°C.

Incidentally, this is why you should NEVER hold onto the horn of a CO2 fire extinguisher when you use it. The ice formations are quite impressive if you let the whole bottle out in one go

Does anyone else find equations impossible to read with computer formatting?

So, the temperature of nitrous exiting a 1400PSI nitrous tank would be -192C? HOLY SH*T! Would suck to get nitrous on you!

Well, it turns out that gamma for N2O is 1.3, so I make it -177°C but yeah, you get the idea

Quote from Bean0 :

Intercooler water spray is fitted as standard on Impreza Type-R's (and probably more cars), either as automagically activated or manually. Surely such systems must be available as an aftermaket add-on ?

Aquamist is google search word you might find useful, that is aftermarket system similar to one used in Impreza.

There is also possibility cool intercooler externally with water, have not seen these readily available, but rather easy to build, well system like Aquamist is not too difficult either specially if your aftermarket ecu supports water injection (I don't believe anyone is using stock ecu for such engine that needs water injection.)

Water injection to intake does not work too well with carbs, but then again carbs and turbos are not mixing too well either so probably nobody will ever get idea to put water injection to engine that is feeded by carbs. Anyway with carbs adding more fuel will cool intake temps down, but there is certain optimum you should aim.

Quote from Bean0 :

Intercooler water spray is fitted as standard on Impreza Type-R's (and probably more cars), either as automagically activated or manually. Surely such systems must be available as an aftermaket add-on ?

Dodge SRT-4 Turbo kit comes with a water sprayer that sprays water onto the 8 row intercooler too. This would be the cheapest way.