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The cars, as it stands, are cooled to a general vicinity of an acceptable ideal on a per-situation basis.
However, the cars running up high on warm mountaints (think The Grapevine, been there) do not receive the same cooling capability relative to their ideals as do, for example, cars run in low valleys in around-freezing conditions.
I know they have thermostats. You have the "flat of your hand" like Sean Connery, but his wife still mouthed off sometimes, yes?
Anyway, the idea is that for every power output, throttle, etc. setting, there is an ideal temperature and quantity of coolant flowing through the engine, supercharger, oil, and transmission coolers.
For the transmission, the black color of much of tranny oils I have seen leads me to believe optimal cooling was not often enough achieved. How does this work?
Oil is at ambient temperature. It gets splashed around so it get in the gear teeth. Now, at the highest-pressure interface between two gear teeth, you will have the maximum temperature-generating portion of the transmission oil. As a demonstration, get some plasticine and smear it hard against a surface a few times. It will gain heat and become easier to work, aka softer. When two gear teeth are playing tug-of-war with a chain of oil molecules designed to do a "hands across the water" to keep them from being brusquely brushed aside, there is energy expended, and heat is the entropic result of almost all energy conversion in a car. It is when the trans warms up, the oil warms up and the load increases that you will get micro-hotspots between gear teeth, momentarily, and it is at those that the cheaper (non-Amsoil, especially) oils overheat and break down into something more like Bruce Banner and less like the Incredible Hulk, while being colored more like T'Challa. In other words, the oil gets overcooked and those small overcooked quanta end up as being a general oil degradation over time.
Now, if one were to cool one's oil below a temperature where such micro-overheats occurred, it would be too thick to yield optimal efficiency, and be an energy waste. (Again, think of working cold plasticine versus warm)
So, we want our transmission oil to reside, optimally, at whatever exact beginning temperature leads to JUST cool enough to avoid thermal breakdown. The problem is that this intial temperature is different when one is going full honk than it is when trundling along at exactly 50.0mph. The result is the oil is hotter exiting transmission at full honk than it is at a slow, steady pace. The thermostat in the system attempts to bracket the operating parameters effectively so that optimum operating temperature is most often achieved. It could be improved, however.
One way that one improves it is to increase the cooling capacity of the trans cooler to a dramatically higher level, while simultaneously increasing the thermostat set point (when the flow to the actual cooler begins) to a higher level, also, and having a reservoir for the cooled oil, external to transmission, just before it re-enters the transmission.
Desired net result: oil is not cooled until it needs to be cooled, and it does not get cooled more than it needs to be cooled. Thus, energy is not being wasted in turning stone-cold oil into well-flowing oil, and oil is not getting turned into tar by overheating it between gear teeth, either.
For the engine, the obvious top-down cooling, of course, but again, a larger radiator with multiple thermostats staged to provide a staged level of cooling, each thermostat on a bypass loop of its own.
At low loads, thermostats are shut except for one, and other two are just bypassed to engine. At higher loads, first and second thermostat open, allowing more of the pumped liquid to flow to and from radiator, and at highest loads, all thermostats are open. Lowest thermostat is set at closer to ideal operating temperature than is currently the norm, with larger radiator and extra thermostats kicking in as needed to add more cooling as needed to keep coolant temps close to said ideal. Thermal expansion valves or radiator shutters would also work. The idea is to introduce coolant to engine that results in a certain temperature after the engine, and this after-engine temperature is used to determine cooling needs.
What coolant is for, ultimately, is to protect engine components and lube from overheating. If the engine parts had infinite heat capacity, there would be little need for coolant, and engines would run a lot hotter, and a LOT more efficiently. By more closely matching cooling in more circumstances to the needs of the engine, more efficiency and more power can be achieved.
Supercharger: FAR larger radiators and aftercoolers, as there is no science that indicates getting intake air at LEAST down to ambient temperatures does anything to harm mileage or performance. Again, though, with thermostats, one can go hog wild with cooling the intake charge coolant with huge radiators, and still not stupidcool it to the point of getting misfire at very cold temperatures due to the gasoline huddling together in large droplets due to lack of air temperature to encourage it to burst out into smaller ones.
You can see this in action in casual life by pouring ice-cold water in a cup or near-boiling hot water in a cup. They sound different, because parts of the near-boiling water are evaporating, even momentarily, during free fall and impact of the cup. You don't want your gasoline to be far sub-zero unless you are putting it in before the supercharger, in which case it will provide some cooling, and the agitation will help it atomize and evaporate, leading to MORE cooling.
Every single possible situation has an ideal temperature of coolants and lubricants.
As a side note: Ideally, one would heat the incoming gasoline at the same time as cooling the incoming air, so the gasoline, at the time of injection, would be violently revolted by contact with itself (the heat causing this) and atomize as finely as possible, while the cool air would combat any extra heat brought in. An alternative is to dramatically increase rail pressure on the injection system, which provides a similar effect with same-temperature gasoline. The diesel engine industry brained this one out years after it occurred to me: raising injection pressures for better everything, power, torque, lower emissions due to approaching more closely that holy grail: complete dissolution of fuel in the air.
Stupid-high injection pressures would lead to much smaller atomization droplets, which leads to more evaporation, which leads to more total direct contact between oxygen molecules and fuel molecules.
If you can use the same injectors and use higher rail pressure to deliver your desired fuel load, you will gain efficacy. There is only so much pressure those injectors and the O-rings they use for sealing can stand, however. At some point, one would have to go to individual lines leading to each injector with no push-in O-ring weak points.
But, to sum up the MAIN point: there is an ideal temperature for every part of the engine at all times. By increasing overall heat rejection capacity, coupled with higher initial thermostat settings, you get to enjoy being nearer that ideal more often.
However, the cars running up high on warm mountaints (think The Grapevine, been there) do not receive the same cooling capability relative to their ideals as do, for example, cars run in low valleys in around-freezing conditions.
I know they have thermostats. You have the "flat of your hand" like Sean Connery, but his wife still mouthed off sometimes, yes?
Anyway, the idea is that for every power output, throttle, etc. setting, there is an ideal temperature and quantity of coolant flowing through the engine, supercharger, oil, and transmission coolers.
For the transmission, the black color of much of tranny oils I have seen leads me to believe optimal cooling was not often enough achieved. How does this work?
Oil is at ambient temperature. It gets splashed around so it get in the gear teeth. Now, at the highest-pressure interface between two gear teeth, you will have the maximum temperature-generating portion of the transmission oil. As a demonstration, get some plasticine and smear it hard against a surface a few times. It will gain heat and become easier to work, aka softer. When two gear teeth are playing tug-of-war with a chain of oil molecules designed to do a "hands across the water" to keep them from being brusquely brushed aside, there is energy expended, and heat is the entropic result of almost all energy conversion in a car. It is when the trans warms up, the oil warms up and the load increases that you will get micro-hotspots between gear teeth, momentarily, and it is at those that the cheaper (non-Amsoil, especially) oils overheat and break down into something more like Bruce Banner and less like the Incredible Hulk, while being colored more like T'Challa. In other words, the oil gets overcooked and those small overcooked quanta end up as being a general oil degradation over time.
Now, if one were to cool one's oil below a temperature where such micro-overheats occurred, it would be too thick to yield optimal efficiency, and be an energy waste. (Again, think of working cold plasticine versus warm)
So, we want our transmission oil to reside, optimally, at whatever exact beginning temperature leads to JUST cool enough to avoid thermal breakdown. The problem is that this intial temperature is different when one is going full honk than it is when trundling along at exactly 50.0mph. The result is the oil is hotter exiting transmission at full honk than it is at a slow, steady pace. The thermostat in the system attempts to bracket the operating parameters effectively so that optimum operating temperature is most often achieved. It could be improved, however.
One way that one improves it is to increase the cooling capacity of the trans cooler to a dramatically higher level, while simultaneously increasing the thermostat set point (when the flow to the actual cooler begins) to a higher level, also, and having a reservoir for the cooled oil, external to transmission, just before it re-enters the transmission.
Desired net result: oil is not cooled until it needs to be cooled, and it does not get cooled more than it needs to be cooled. Thus, energy is not being wasted in turning stone-cold oil into well-flowing oil, and oil is not getting turned into tar by overheating it between gear teeth, either.
For the engine, the obvious top-down cooling, of course, but again, a larger radiator with multiple thermostats staged to provide a staged level of cooling, each thermostat on a bypass loop of its own.
At low loads, thermostats are shut except for one, and other two are just bypassed to engine. At higher loads, first and second thermostat open, allowing more of the pumped liquid to flow to and from radiator, and at highest loads, all thermostats are open. Lowest thermostat is set at closer to ideal operating temperature than is currently the norm, with larger radiator and extra thermostats kicking in as needed to add more cooling as needed to keep coolant temps close to said ideal. Thermal expansion valves or radiator shutters would also work. The idea is to introduce coolant to engine that results in a certain temperature after the engine, and this after-engine temperature is used to determine cooling needs.
What coolant is for, ultimately, is to protect engine components and lube from overheating. If the engine parts had infinite heat capacity, there would be little need for coolant, and engines would run a lot hotter, and a LOT more efficiently. By more closely matching cooling in more circumstances to the needs of the engine, more efficiency and more power can be achieved.
Supercharger: FAR larger radiators and aftercoolers, as there is no science that indicates getting intake air at LEAST down to ambient temperatures does anything to harm mileage or performance. Again, though, with thermostats, one can go hog wild with cooling the intake charge coolant with huge radiators, and still not stupidcool it to the point of getting misfire at very cold temperatures due to the gasoline huddling together in large droplets due to lack of air temperature to encourage it to burst out into smaller ones.
You can see this in action in casual life by pouring ice-cold water in a cup or near-boiling hot water in a cup. They sound different, because parts of the near-boiling water are evaporating, even momentarily, during free fall and impact of the cup. You don't want your gasoline to be far sub-zero unless you are putting it in before the supercharger, in which case it will provide some cooling, and the agitation will help it atomize and evaporate, leading to MORE cooling.
Every single possible situation has an ideal temperature of coolants and lubricants.
As a side note: Ideally, one would heat the incoming gasoline at the same time as cooling the incoming air, so the gasoline, at the time of injection, would be violently revolted by contact with itself (the heat causing this) and atomize as finely as possible, while the cool air would combat any extra heat brought in. An alternative is to dramatically increase rail pressure on the injection system, which provides a similar effect with same-temperature gasoline. The diesel engine industry brained this one out years after it occurred to me: raising injection pressures for better everything, power, torque, lower emissions due to approaching more closely that holy grail: complete dissolution of fuel in the air.
Stupid-high injection pressures would lead to much smaller atomization droplets, which leads to more evaporation, which leads to more total direct contact between oxygen molecules and fuel molecules.
If you can use the same injectors and use higher rail pressure to deliver your desired fuel load, you will gain efficacy. There is only so much pressure those injectors and the O-rings they use for sealing can stand, however. At some point, one would have to go to individual lines leading to each injector with no push-in O-ring weak points.
But, to sum up the MAIN point: there is an ideal temperature for every part of the engine at all times. By increasing overall heat rejection capacity, coupled with higher initial thermostat settings, you get to enjoy being nearer that ideal more often.
