Dangers of cooling?
Hey RC Tech!
Sorry to ask a potentially stupid question but:
we all know about an overheating engine, but what is the danger of cooling a nitro engine (beyond the obvious glow plug failure)? how cool can you go before, assuming the glow plug is actively powered, you either witness a large drop in power output or another sort of failure that makes running the engine extremely inefficient?
The reason I ask this question is because I plan to use peltier junctions and an additional heat sink/cutout to allow for a leaner engine and to use waste heat to recharge a battery(and yes I understand that a peltier junction requires cooling on one side + heat on another to maintain a temp gradient and generate a current).
Lastly, approximately what percent of the nitro fuel's potential energy is actually converted to KE and heat through the engine (individually). There are ways of finding this out, but nothing beats a racer's experience/knowledge. Is there a place to find detailed specs on popular engines, such as approximate fuel consumption at stock tune/temp over time/efficiency in terms of actual data?
Thanks for the help, Alex
P.S. I really hate being on of "those guys" with overambitious projects and high expectations, so I'll come clean and say I don't expect this thing to race, I'm doing it more for the novelty of energy recovery via thermoelectric generation. hence the post on r/c tech. And who doesn't like not replacing those damn receiver packs?!