Aftermarket performance snake oil vendors busy cashing in on the 2015 Corvette C7 Z06 shortcomings

As long as there are problems with the newest +General Motors flagship Corvette, C7 Z06 (and there is a shitload of these to go around), there is a great opportunity for the fine so called "tuners" to make out like bandits, cashing in on the car buyers gullibility and ignorance. 

The concept of "snake oil" is not exclusive to the automotive market, it exists everywhere, especially in the audiophile circles but apparently, the automotive variety keeps the concept going strong.  There is certainly a great opportunity to cash in on the flaws of the car, promising great improvements and reality, delivering absolutely nothing.

Here is one example, exploiting the problems of so called heat soak and increased temperatures of the compressed air coming out of the midget supercharger that serves as a great reminder of +Tadge Juechter 's aversion to laws of physics and thermodynamics.

What it is?  Well, it is a set of nifty looking wonder spacers that are to be placed between the bottom of the supercharger housing and cylinder heads.  To complete this 'upgrade", there is also an oversized coolant tank connected to air to liquid heat exchanger that supposed to cool the air off sufficiently to increase its density and most of all, the oxygen content.  Cooler/denser air rich in oxygen is according to the peddler selling this nifty combo is a guaranteed recipe to heal the ailing Z06 and prevent the timing retarding symptom.

What is this "remedy" supposed to do?  Well, somehow, in a purely magical way, these spacers are expected to extract the heat from the air charge and offer a FIFTY DEGREE temperature drop in the air charge.  Now, this sounds just great, why wouldn't GM think of this approach?  20 dollar spacers and 40 dollar expansion tank should easily take care of the performance problems so widely known already.  Yet somehow, with all the brain power, absolutely nobody, including Juechter employed such approach?

According to Occam's Razor, when many solutions are possible, the simplest one is usually correct and thus, the simplest answer would be: BECAUSE IT DOES NOT WORK!!!

Yes, there supposedly is a "proof" consisting of infrared temperature readouts of the SUPERCHARGER HOUSING!!!  This alone is beyond laughable, considering that aluminum used for the housing is a rather poor heat conductor but anyways...

What is behind this great "horsepower adding invention"?  The concept itself has been around for a very long time.  The principle here is very simple, a spacer/gasket with heat rejecting properties is inserted between two otherwise connected components.  Typically, this is done between the intake manifold and the cylinder head, using PHENOLIC SPACERS.  The spacer provides discontinuity in heat transmission from cylinder head to the intake manifold and theoretically, lower the temperature of the intake manifold and hopefully, increase the density of air, creating better anti knock protection and ability to extract a few extra ponies.  If this idea works is debatable and interestingly irrelevant in the case of the LT4 supercharger.

As already explained in this blog in the past, the increase in the temperature of the air exiting the supercharger is not caused by the heat transmitted from the engine or inefficiency of the heat exchanger, the supercharger itself is the problem, the heat is generated due to the excessive speed of the supercharger and high boost pressure, something that renders the Roots supercharger completely THERMALLY INEFFICIENT and it makes very little difference if the air is cooled sufficiently before being compressed, the heat is added during compression and lots of it because the thermal efficiency of the Roots supercharger falls off drastically beyond to moderate supercharger speed and boost.  In fact, as already shown on this graph, the thermal efficiency falls well below 50 percent at WOT, exactly where it is needed the most and thus, the Z06 literally runs out of power at higher speeds and while attempting to accelerate.

This loss of thermal efficiency is the part that renders inventions as this bullshit THERMAL REDUCTION PLATE and this larger expansion tank.  In other words, the heat travels the wrong way for these plates to do anything effective.  Of course, that proof of effectiveness is something else as well, it is a well known fact that aluminum is a poor heat conductor, the temperature of actual air can never be measure this way effectively and the fact the housing may be cooler (due to the presence of the separator, assuming this part is even factual, does not mean jack shit with regards to the air itself.

The interesting part here is that there will be without any doubt those who will swear by this "invention" and use the so called credentials from Camaro ZL1 and Cadillac CTS-V not understanding that those cars used larger supercharger and that GM has quite a big and ongoing headache replacing blown superchargers on those cars.

As long as GM refuses to acknowledge the failure of the undersized supercharger among many other problems, this comedy will continue and these "tuners" certainly will not have any issues with cashing in on the ignorance of Z06 buyers.  Let the show go on, LOL...