Mounted a heatsink under the distributor

Patrick

i really like what youve done

i have a box of old cpu chips heatsinks somewhere

goin to find them and rebuild a spare distributor

Marcel

    I have been meaning to post these for months. Here is the one that I have, its pretty much the same principal as what you have done. The dist shaft is completely rebuilt and polished on my wire wheel to make it nice and shiny. I did not install the heat sink, an ex club member that worked for Air Canada did the work in a machine shop using a mill. I just did the finishing touches to it blending the seems and stuff.

I am really tempted to go one step further and wire up a small 4cm computer fan to the heat sink, and power it via the 12v lead from the ignition system. Not sure if it would do a darn thing, but is an idea.





















Edited by Capt Fiero

I wasn't going to open up this can of worms, but...  WTF.  :D

Remember that a heat sink works both ways. It can displace heat - it can also absorb it!

If the heat in the engine bay (or at least the air pocket right there beside the toasty exhaust manifold) gets hotter than the ignition module, you will start to drive heat INTO the module instead of pulling it out!  This would be a good reason for a fan (remember the factory one that almost everyone pulled out on the early V6 cars?).  It'll have to be a pretty robust one though, or you'll be swapping them out monthly.

I still like the idea of extending the pickup wires, and mounting the module onto a heatsink/fan and stuffing it into the trunk.

Well this is a good time to bring this thread back to life.

  Its been a year for me, and I am thinking about the same for you Patrick.   Have you burned up an ignition module yet?  

If the heat sink was drawing IN heat from the exhaust and causing early failure, our modules should have failed by now.  I installed mine with a used module and still no failure, how bout yours?    Heck my dist is now running in a 2nd motor as a test mule and still no issues. 

 

 We'll we will see if Damien finds a way to mass produce the heat sink distributors and if not, I'll start adapting them to all the ones at the house.  If it saves me even one trip out to go and rescue, Lisa, Shirley or Tim broke down at the side of the road, it'll be worth it enough for me.  At $100 per module, and costs in fuel, several times a year. (combined for all the cars) I think a new type dist might be looking like a great idea.

Romeo wrote: Has anyone also considered using a liquid cooling system?

Great idea, Tristan! We'll run some long wires and screw the ignition module to the radiator.

Actually, after thinking about it for a minute... How about some kind of metal mount for the ignition module that attaches in some manner to the metal coolant return pipe near the passenger side of the engine? The coolant coming back from the radiator is probably no more than 200 F (probably a lot less), and this would be a whole lot cooler than the extreme localized heat that the module itself produces.

Hmmmm, the wheels are turning...

 

I think what you guys are looking for called a "water block"  its what the home water cooling CPU kits use.  It has a flat metal surface for attaching to your CPU and then 2 hoses come off of it to your computers radiator and water pump.  (yes some computers have radiators and water pumps)  I thought about installing a kit like that in my large server tower.  The main reason for home kits is not for extreme cooling, but no fans means no noise and the better water pumps are silent.  So your computer is silent.

     I really don't think we need to go to the extent of using our cars cooling system to cool our ignition modules though.  It might work and function, however with so much extra stuff needing to be added and hooked up, I honestly don't think it would be worth it in the long run.

 

http://www.dangerden.com/store/new-products.php

Yeah, guys, the cooling water idea wouldn't work. The p-n junction of the transistors which are trying to dissipate power would have to get way hotter than the 200F starting point...poof.

Now, a nice liquid hydrogen cooled substrate...now you're talking!

Dr. Fiero makes a good point...time to read up on black body radiation basics again!

The transistor junction temperature is linked to the ambient through a 'thermal impedance' which takes into account all the things like junction to case, case to heat sink, heat sink to ambient impedance values. By adding the improved heat sink you've lowered the heat sink to ambient  impedance.

Given that we think of the air around the dist as cooler than the ignition module there should be a modest improvement in transistor junction temperature, given a constant thermal output from the module. I think it probably produces less heat at low rpm (Less switching), but not that much less.

Worth a try though eh?

Chay

Hmmmm....All this seems a little overboard.....:)

Oh I know....a Peltier Junction would be simple and would work.

But still overkill....

Google it, you'll like it.

DG

Car-2-Lo wrote: That's so gnarley !

Oh, I see what you did there...

But yeah Patty, I think you've probably seen what I mean, liquid cooling systems, even very tiny ones, are often regarded as superior to heatsinks.