Kincaid's New "Standalone Killer Chiller EKC": $8,188.60 + 365 Days = INSANE

[lmurtha1]

I'll build a flex capacitor for anyone interested! I'll need your vehicle for a unknown time and I'll need $20k up front for R&D. I can't promise results of actual time travel however I can promise you'll have a cool food processor on that back to fuel it's needs! Let me know


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[SCGallo2]

Damn JB... sorry to hear your experience with Kincaid played out this way. Your detailed documentation of everything that transpired is impressive to say the least. I hope Joe eventually makes things right, in your favor.

 

[Tob]

Easily the most detailed documentation I've seen to date with respect to issues such as this.


Stay the course. Karma will show up sooner or later.

 

[JBN]

Anyone who knows the OP knows what a good hearted guy he is and this was deffinately last resort.

Without writing a novel on what John has been dealing with this past 1+ year in regards to this, all I will say is this is the epitome of horrid customer service and taking advantage of a customer.

As has been stated previously by other members, John's attention to detail and well thought write up has deffinately given a clear picture as to how things transpired.

"The proof is in the pudding"

Jay

 

[rotor_powerd]

Stay the course. Karma will show up sooner or later.

Always does

 

[GT Premi]

Some questions:

Why did you stick with the system/install when it was evident early on that things weren't going to work out?

Why was the shop charging you labor when they weren't even working on the car?

Why do you expect Kincaid to reimburse your labor costs? Does any other business do that?

Why did you go to a performance shop to install a part that would've been better suited for a radiator/air conditioning repair shop?

Why didn't you just get the standard, and proven, KC kit?


I believe I was one of, if not the, first people to install the standard system with the then upgraded core on an '11+ GT500. The instructions were for the '07 - '10 car, but the A/C system changed slightly for the '11+ cars, so I had to improvise and adapt. Joe Kincaid offered me a hundred or two hundred dollars to do a write-up for '11+ install instructions. I was too lazy to do a proper write-up, but did post up on here how to do it and what adaptations need to be made. It wasn't that big of a deal. A reputable radiator/air conditioning shop probably could've had you in and out in no time. But that's hindsight.

It sucks what happened, but from reading how it went down, I can't help but think you could've avoided it and you brought most of it on yourself. This is the first time I've ever heard of his EKC system. I certainly wouldn't have been a guinea pig for it. The standard system had been tried and true for years before I installed mine back in 2010 or 2011.

 

[RedVenom48]

I think its evident how it all went down, especially after the detailed description and evidence pack. He tried to give KC every chance to make it right, which is quite a few more than i would have given him.

My tone is a bit harsh in this thread because its clear in hindsight this was, at best, a botched idea that was shotgunned together. Kinda like throwing shit on the wall and hoping it sticks. There is no way that the scope and scale of the heat needing managed was even remotely going to be handled by the system in any form or fashion that could be considered effective or reliable.

Its one thing to modify a factory AC system with extra parts. Its another to create a standalone system and market it as he did. Its clear there was no R&D, and that this idea was sold to OP as version 1.0. What was delivered was a pre alpha prototype.

The nail in the coffin so to speak was the run around, excuse after excuse, delay after delay. The company failed to recognize it had produced and sold a lemon and instead chose to bandaid the situation. My guess is that they were hoping OP would just go away. Its practices like this that make you mad as a customer that you trusted a company and got delivered poo.

 

[Tob]

I'm with lexustech. Poo indeed.

 

[Weather Man]

Some questions:


It sucks what happened, but from reading how it went down, I can't help but think you could've avoided it and you brought most of it on yourself. This is the first time I've ever heard of his EKC system. I certainly wouldn't have been a guinea pig for it. The standard system had been tried and true for years before I installed mine back in 2010 or 2011.

Being balls deep into something with your car in pieces because the seller is a lying sack of steaming shit is hardly the fault of the buyer.

 

[Snoopy49]

Does Kincaid have a place of business or is he working out of his garage? From the video it looks like a garage rather than a business.

 

[Bad Company]

Does Kincaid have a place of business or is he working out of his garage? From the video it looks like a garage rather than a business.

From the YouTube video that is a personal garage attached to a home Snoopy. It made me think the guy was a ACHV or commercial refrigerant repair and installation tech by trade and this is a side business he is trying to build. Also it made me think he has no knowledge of the engineering side of trying to figure out BTU loads for a given amount of heat produced to perform the cooling he wants. He is a tradesman in the field, not a guy that has sat down and learned how to calculated load factors for the cooling required. That takes quite a bit more knowledge than an installer/service repair tech. Most automotive belt driven A/C compressors are in the 22,000 to 54,000 BTU output range depending on the size of the car and it's interior. The 54,000 BTU compressors are used in HD trucks with sleeper berths. 7300 BTU is small. Even the 11,000 BTU compressor is small. Also pulling a vacuum on the system is an industry standard before fully charging the system. Without pulling the vacuum on the system you'll have atmospheric moisture(think of humidity) in the system that can and will freeze in the orifice tube or expansion valve of the system as refrigerant temperatures drop below freezing. In the one picture showing the suction line with frost on it.......that means the refrigerant is below freezing temperatures inside the system after the liquid refrigerant has expanded. So any trapped moisture from the atmosphere in the system will freeze at the expansion point in the system causing it to freeze and stop the flow of refrigerant through the system.

It is a poor design and when I saw it being hawked on here, I didn't think it would work as advertised. Unfortunately this turned into a nightmare of much greater proportions than just being taken for the costs of the system..... due to lack of support from the seller for proper installation instructions and customer support. I didn't read the complete link, only enough to see that the OP got took.

 

[Bad Company]

OP

You wondered about whether a KB SC generated more heat and was this effecting your results versus Kincaid's. First and foremost the generally accepted rule of thumb is for every 1 psi of boost you add 10*F to the ambient air inlet temperature. So on a 100*F day at 18 psi of boost the air exiting the SC will be approximately 280*F on average.

Now what Kincaid made a mistake in thinking about and his testing results can differ is this. He was testing on a 2007 GT500. Was the engine and SC stock? Why does it matter? A stock SC on a 2007 is smaller in producing volume in CFM output and produces much less boost entering the engine.

I believe the stock 2007 gt500 produced roughly 8 psi of boost. On a 100*F ambient day at max boost output of 8 psi, the SC nets an air temperature of 180*F exiting the SC.

So now we have 100*F less heat to extract from the sir entering the engine.

Now another thing is this. You have a KB. What size is it?

Let me assume it is a 3.6L. Now lets do another little thought in how this increases the BTU load factor forthe EKC system over Kincaid's results.

Now lets say the stock GT500 Kincaid tested on has a 2.1L SC and it is pulleied to turn 14,000 RPM. 2.1L of air for every revolution of the SC rotors at max engine RPM.

2.1 x 14,000 = 29,400 Liter of airflow per minute at 180* F exiting the SC or 1038CFM of air

You installed an aftermarket SC to increase boost above stock, while also moving more volume of air

KB 3.6L x 14,000RPM to net 18 psi of boost at max engine RPM

3.6 x 14,000 = 50,400 liters of airflow per minute or 1780 CFM of air flow entering the engine at 280*F with 100*F ambient air temperature.

Do you see the difference in the load factor between the two examples?

Not only have you increased the air temperature, but you've also increased the volume of air CFM entering the engine by going to a much larger SC, versus what Kincaid tested with. Both of these things put together require a much larger EKC system than what Kincaid tested on a stock car to net the same results as he claims he made. Kincaid really screwed the pooch on this idea if he thought he could sell the same system to a guy with a stock SC versus a guy with a larger SC and net the same results. It proves my thoughts about the fact he doesn't understand load factors and how to calculate BTU cooling requirements

 

[lmurtha1]

No hablo espanol ^^


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[Bad Company]

No hablo espanol ^^


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LOL

It isn't Spanish or jibberish......it is plain and simple math

In my example above the airflow increase in CFM, is roughly 71% more air by volume entering the engine. Which means we increased the air in volume by 71% entering the intercooler to be cooled before it enter the engine. That alone means we need to increase the cooling capacity of the EKC system significantly to arrive at the same IAT2 temperatures Kincaid did. Now by increasing the volume of air, we also have a corresponding increase in boost pressure.

For every 1 PSI of boost you increase the air temperature 10*F. This is the nature of things when you apply pressure. It happens to water, hydraulic fluid, engine oil.......any time you raise the pressure of a liquid or gas...........plain physics tells us you raise the temperature of the item you're compressing. Air increases 10*F for every one PSI as you're trying to compressor it.

The SC is nothing more than an air pump/compressor and the same physics apply to the air entering and exiting the SC.

 

[JB_2010GT500]

Thank you all for the comments and for the support as well. I found from my testing (summarized on pages 115-118) and calculations (pages 136-138) that lexustech48's theory about electric compressors being underpowered for this application is correct.

Catmonkey - I summarize my racing results on pages 115-118. For regular driving, performance was, on average, no better than the a heat exchanger. I was surprised when the EKC system could not keep intercooler fluid temps below 100 degrees F when cruising around 2,000 rpm, never getting into boost, on the highway on a ~90 degree day. Recall in Kincaid's video where he stated that system performance would actually be stronger with higher ambient temperatures due to refrigerant pressures being more optimal. "Cream-of-the-crop" is one of the last phrases that would come to mind when describing the performance. Reliability issues aside, there were very few instances where the EKC system outperformed my C&R heavy duty heat exchanger. And those instances were at idle, or when the EKC system spent an unreasonably long period of time chilling the intercooler fluid with the motor off (while the battery was jumpered) when prepping for one quarter mile pass. Imagine how it would've performed on a road course (another advertised use of this system).

GT Premi - I believe you're referring to the concept of Caveat Emptor. However, there is also the concept of Misrepresentation, which I think has been proven throughout my 141 page document. I've answered most of your questions in my supporting document. I did in fact reach out to a few ac shops. When I gave the details of the project, the answer was always that the project was beyond their scope. As stated in my document, I originally signed up to buy the KC Drag Pack, but was led by Kincaid to believe that the EKC system was a superior product.

Kurt/Bad Company - Thanks for the calculations. I'm running a KB 2.8LC with a 3" pulley. I performed some calculations to estimate heat generation and the recovery time of the EKC system. They can be found on pages 136-138. I found it odd that, even with the motor running at idle my EKC system didn't come close to meeting Kincaid's stated performance levels. And that was with the more powerful 24v 15cc compressor vs. Kincaid's 12v 18cc compressor in the YouTube video. So, I also attempted to calculate (page 138) the impact of intake heat on the intercooler fluid just at idle; ignoring the heat generation from supercharger boost. Even then, my calculations found that the intake heat (in naturally-aspirated form) would be a lot for the EKC system to overcome to chill the fluid to even 45 degrees F, let alone the 20 degrees (with motor running) which was advertised in Kincaid's video.


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[brian98svtsnake]

You definitely need to go to small claims court. With all that data I don't see how you could lose. I feel you should be reimbursed for all your time and money because the product wasn't what it said it was and that's the reason it cost so much in labor and extra parts. I can't believe you would let him off the hook so easily and he still didn't make good on his promise. I can't believe you paid to ship that piece of crap back to him, that should've been on him. This is a nightmare, I feel bad for you.

 

[JB_2010GT500]

brian98svtsnake - Thanks. I was so burnt out from the whole experience that I was simply trying to move on and get back to life. Now that I've spent all the time, went back and did all the documentation, it's a different ballgame for sure.


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[lmurtha1]

brian98svtsnake - Thanks. I was so burnt out from the whole experience that I was simply trying to move on and get back to life. Now that I've spent all the time, went back and did all the documentation, it's a different ballgame for sure.


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This is exactly what the business or person wants. They hope and pray it goes away... by you going away (most do because like you, they' are mentally drained). Once they know you mean business and have your documentation and a legitimate case, they realize they will be shelling out more money than what's owed plus your fees. He's waiting for your move, then He will end up settling with you for a undisclosed amount before it gets to court. As long as your documentation is right, he's in for haul. Watch!


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[Bad Company]

Kurt/Bad Company - Thanks for the calculations. I'm running a KB 2.8LC with a 3" pulley. I performed some calculations to estimate heat generation and the recovery time of the EKC system. They can be found on pages 136-138. I found it odd that, even with the motor running at idle my EKC system didn't come close to meeting Kincaid's stated performance levels. And that was with the more powerful 24v 15cc compressor vs. Kincaid's 12v 18cc compressor in the YouTube video. So, I also attempted to calculate (page 138) the impact of intake heat on the intercooler fluid just at idle; ignoring the heat generation from supercharger boost. Even then, my calculations found that the intake heat (in naturally-aspirated form) would be a lot for the EKC system to overcome to chill the fluid to even 45 degrees F, let alone the 20 degrees (with motor running) which was advertised in Kincaid's video.


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I quit working in the A/C, Heating, and commercial refrigeration industry 25 years ago for a number of reasons

Roughly 35 years ago I worked on a large commercial refrigerant system that would be the concept of what I would use to build a refrigerant based intercooler system for these cars, if I was going to try to this.

The system was designed to maintain a constant temperature for fermenting 3000 gallons of grape juice into wine. The particular wine being produced needed the juice of the grapes to stay at 92*F if I remember correctly while going through the fermenting process. This is a much lower temperature than the standard fermenting process to make wine. So heat had to be constantly extracted from the juice without pumping it through a cooler. What my Father and I had to build was a little unusual. Fortunately the company that sold them the double wall 3000 gallon stainless steel tank to put the grape juice in did the engineering on the heat load factor, because we had no basis to know how much heat is generated by fermenting wine.

What we had to build was a 500 gallon water/glycol chiller system that would pump the chilled 70%water/30% glycol solution into the double wall area of the tank to remove heat from the fermenting grape juice.

It was unusual in the fact that the refrigerant BTU output of the 2 60,000 BTU refrigerant compressors were small for the job of cooling 3000 gallons of fermenting juice. But the winery this was going into didn't have the electrical system to install a larger system and the power company wouldn't run 3 phase power to the winery, unless the winery paid a minimum charge of $3500 a month, plus a $50,000 construction fee to build a 3 phase power line to the winery. So the idea came about to bank BTUs of cold coolant to be released over a longer period of time to maintain the temperature required to ferment the wine properly. The roughly 250 gallons of ice in the tank was our extra BTUs to be used to expand our cooling capacity. Fortunately the wine wasn't in the 3000 gallon tank for more than a few days if I remember correctly.

There are many different types of refrigerants available and they each have different boiling temperatures at atmospheric pressure. They are usually classified by the working pressures you want to use in a refrigerant system.

Your system uses 134a which has a boiling point of -15*F at atmospheric pressure or 14.7 psi

A system that uses R-410a has a refrigerant boiling point of -55*F at atmospheric pressure or 14.7psi.

Refrigerant systems use the boiling point of the refrigerant to be able to remove heat and control temperatures of the cooling coils by maintaining a given pressure in the cooling coils. It truly is much more important to work in the low pressure range of the refrigerant chosen to optimize the system for the work being performed.

What we built was a 500 gallon storage bank of cold water and ice. The chiller would be turned on 3 days prior to putting any juice in the 3000 gallon tank. The 500 gallon glycol and water solution would get cold enough that the cooling coils immersed in the solution would freeze a given amount of the solution into a block of ice, while leaving the outer areas of the 500 gallon tank of solution unfrozen to be pumped into the outer wall of the 3000 gallon tank of fermenting juice.

The idea is much like what everybody does with an ice tank in the truck. You are banking a large volume of cold coolant in the trunk tank to be used in a short period of time to extract a large volume of BTUs of heat.

If I was going to build a refrigerant based intercooler system, I would build it in the same manner as the 3000 gallon fermenting tank I described above. I'd utilize a 12 gallon trunk tank. The refrigerant would cool the water/glycol mixture in the trunk tank. Anytime you're driving the car in non-boost conditions the intercooler pump would be off, while the refrigerant system would be hopefully building ice in the tank to be used as a large storage area of cold BTUs, to extract heat once you went into boost and the intercooler water pump came on. Unfortunately the only problem I see is the fact that I'd be stuck using 134a with its higher boiling point, whereas I'd prefer to use R-410a or R-502. These refrigerants would allow me to use the lower boiling temperatures to build the ice in the trunk tank much quicker and more efficiently than 134a could ever think about doing.

Unfortunately Kincaid is stuck with the 134a, because he is trying to utilize a compressor that is strictly made for the automotive industry. Also to my knowledge nobody builds a small 12/18/24 volt electrical compressor that would utilize the R-410a or R-502 refrigerants.

Most everybody that uses a trunk tank doesn't use a heat exchanger, which is okay for drag racing. Everybody that drag races want to remove weight from the front and put it in the rear. To them removing the HE is a win, win. Whereas I look at it as a lost opportunity to extract heat from the coolant exiting the intercooler before going back to the trunk tank to be cooled further .

If I was going to do a 1/2 mile or a mile event race, the HE would be in place and used also. Why? Hot coolant exiting the intercooler would be air cooled before being pumped back into the ice tank in the trunk. This would reduce the amount of BTU extraction from the ice tank and give me more time with which to extract heat from the hot coolant exiting the intercooler over a longer period of time. I'd have lower IAT2 at the end of a mile event by utilizing the HE and ice tank in the trunk versus using only a ice tank in the trunk.

Here is a link for you to use to calculate BTU requirements

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/cooling-heating-equations-d_747.html

First you need to know the max CFM output of your SC at max engine RPM and the boost pressure above the intercooler. Why above the intercooler? Because the intercooler is a restriction and as such the boost pressure above the intercooler is higher than what is below it where you're taking boost readings entering the engine. With the pressure being higher above the intercooler, the outlet temperature of the air exiting the SC is hotter than you think it is if you use the lower manifold boost pressure as a way to calculate air temperatures exiting the SC.

While typing of this subject I went to Kincaid's website to see what he is actually selling. After realizing that he isn't using his system to cool a trunk tank, but to directly cool the fluid and send it straight back to the intercooler is a joke. I honestly can't believe anybody would attempt to build a system to do this. The BTU requirements to reduce IAT2 temperatures for engines with larger SCs and higher boost are much higher than Kincaid could ever possibly come up with in any of his systems in the modern cars versus the earlier Cobras.

You unfortunately fell pray to marketing hype versus a truly engineered system. Looking at his website he is claiming a 2 year warranty period for all of his systems, but this one. He also is saying that this system is not available at the moment, due to out of stock compressors. I wonder if he is trying to re-engineer it. First he isn't moving enough refrigerant by volume with the size of the compressor he has. Second he isn't utilizing the proper refrigerant to have a lower coil temperature versus the pressures this compressor is designed to work at.

At 33 psi on the suction line pressure with 134a, the refrigerant evaporator coil temperature is roughly 37*F

At 33 psi on the suction line pressure with R-12, the refrigerant evaporator coil temperature is roughly 34*F

At 33 psi on the suction line pressure with R-22, the refrigerant evaporator coil temperature is roughly 12*F

At 33 psi on the suction line pressure with R-502, the refrigerant evaporator coil temperature is roughly 2*F

See the trend here?

A better refrigerant for the job is out there, but nobody makes a compressor to do it in this application. I honestly hate 134a, but it is what became the replacement for R-12 in the 80s. R-12 is more efficient refrigerant than 134a and is easier to work with when trying to work on medium temperature commercial coolers in my opinion.

Sorry for the long post, hopefully it helps you understand refrigerant capabilities. I personally after looking at Kincaid's website today see no possible way for him to provide you with a working system. I assumed at this point that his system was built to cool a ice tank in the trunk and build a storage system to bank BTUs of cold in the same manner as the fermenting tank. I wouldn't have thought anybody with any true refrigeration back ground would have thought the small BTU output of the car A/c system or an electrical compressor would have thought to do this as a direct cooling method of the intercooler fluids. I can't even imagine his system cooling a heat soaked intercooler/engine down to the levels you claim he made in his results. You must realize by now that the aluminum block, cylinder heads, intake manifold, along with the intercooler are all absorbing heat from the combustion process......even at idle. You're not only trying to cool the airflow entering the engine, but you're also combating the effects of heat convection from the engine to the intercooler because all these aluminum parts are great conductors of heat. In the YouTube video my opinion is Kincaid shut the engine off in those gaps and let his system run with a cold engine to achive those low temperatures he showed.

And I thought Evolution was a bunch of crooks and tricksters.......this guy is as bad too

 

[JB_2010GT500]

Kurt - Thank you very much for the detailed post. It is great to have the experience and opinion of someone with an HVAC background. I think the description of the wine fermentation is very relevant and describes just how much cooling capacity is needed to remove heat, albeit in a different application. In my calculations, I wanted to simplify the heat transfer, so I ignored all the convection heat transfer from the various engine components. If we add them into the calculations, we would see that the EKC system is grossly underpowered. Which is why, in practice, I saw 100+ degree F intercooler fluid temperatures when simply cruising at 2,000 rpm with no boost. Note that this was also at 65 mph, where the EKC's AC condenser (which was mounted in front of the vehicle's AC condenser) had a high volume of fresh air flowing through it.


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