This may sound like a dumb idea, and if it does, take it easy lol. Has anybody ever thought about hooking the a/c up so that it cools down the air intake? Instead of it going into the cab, it could possibly be hooked up to the intake so that air coming in is cooled. Colder air = more power...

 

Then you are putting extra load on the motor at WOT by running the AC which will negate the gains you see from the cold air. The Lightning(maybe just concept don't know if it made production) used the AC to cool a seperate tank of coolant and at WOT it kicked off the AC and pumped the chilled coolant through an intercooler. Once you returned to normal throttle the system would rechill and wait for you to mash the loud pedal again. That was supposed to feel like a small nitrous hit but being forced induction the intake temps are much higher before the cooling.

 

Would the power drain be that much, so that it would negate the effects of the cold air?

 

It is sort of like the concept of supercharging, but more indirect. Im not sure if it would cool the air enough though. It might not also have enough oxygen in it, im not sure. Sounds like a waste of time to me.

 

Well, I wasn't speaking of having the air conditioning hose(?) be the only intake... more along the lines of cutting out a hole in the intake tube and connecting the a/c to it to cool the air. The air would still be coming from 'outside', but get cooled along the way in.

 

I had considered the possibility of using the AC lines as an intercooler of sorts, but then realized that the compressor is turned off during WOT. Probably cost more than any HP boost would be worth. Plus with the colder air, you'd have to be worried about condensation and it's effects on combustion.