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]

Originally Posted by 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?

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

[bones33]

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.