I've been looking at dropping my gear ratio down, I think i found a cheap and easy solution. If i'm mistaken please correct. But in other 03 and early 04 dodge automatics (cummins of course ) they run 3.55's due to the fact that they have a 4speed? Is that correct or incorrect. If they do should their gears be the same overall design as my 3.73's? Or would they be a completely differnt design requiring me to change out the axle. I'd imagine that they're the same design but just checking. Also, I'm guessing but could be wrong. This would affect my speedo much like adding large tires to the vehicle would? Or would it still be fairly accurate?

Also... Thinking of an idea, not too concerned with someone stealing it if it's a good idea. Now if i'm correct cold air produces more power due to the fact that it's condenser and your able to force more of it into a tight space. Now if you have a cold air intake it only drops down to the temperature it is out side. Then when I felt my intake to the engine from the intercooler that was fairly warm so it would possibly get warmed up a bit. Now would it improve power/efficency of the motor if you were too take and place in either three points of the engine. Intake (box), intercooler, or the intake to the engine itself. and place like an electric freon motor if you could make it so it didn't restrict air passage. Cooled air efficiently. And also make it so if there were a problem it wouldn't leak freon into your motor? If someone were to really put some effort into some sort of idea like that would you guys think it would work to help or be useless. I'd imagine that it would help if you could drop the degrees of air, of course it'd take some different designs and alot of tests. including when would it be best and help the engine have the most power. Where would be the best area to equip a certain device. Also how would the device be controlled and when should it turn off and be turned on. Or is there something already like that out on the market. the thought just popped into my head when i started looking at CAI's. Please give me your thoughts on this. Maybe i'm dumb and theres already something out there already or it's impractical and would give no use, but the only way to prove that is to try it.

 

#1 I could be wrong but I think the early axles were Dana's were as the new are mopar.
#2 The power required to run the cooling unit would offset the gains of the cooler air.

 

Well I thought of that, like if I tied into the a/c it would offset it so why have it, but then I thought maybe have a small electrical one.
Also in the axles question. So your saying that in two 03 dodges one auto one man they have different axles? My understanding is mine are Dana's can't remember sizes off the top of my head. Could be wrong but ehhh. who knows. Either way I would imagine if they're similar year. I wouldn't go older but I would go 03 or maybe early 04 since there was little change in those two years.

 

#1 it take power to generate electricty.
#2 Mine is a 06 and it has 3.73 Mopar axles

 

If you have the AAM axle with the 11.5" ring gear it will have a differential cover with 14 bolts. Nobody makes a ring & pinion set for this axle that is geared higher than 3.73. If you have a Dana 70 or 80 (10 bolt cover) than you can get a set of 3.54 gears for it. Check out Randy's Ring and Pinion website.

Your idea of using a refrigerated intercooler is interesting, but it would not work. Whether the compressor runs off of the engine or the battery, you would suffer some serious efficiency losses. It would take more power to run the compressor than you would make by having a denser air charge. Plus that power isn't free; it would cost you in MPG.

Cummins has a lot of talented engineers who have no doubt put many thousands of R&D hours into these engines. They have to think about durability, fuel economy, size, ease of maintenance, etc, for each part of these engines. They have probably brainstormed some interesting ideas over the years and maybe even tested some of them. What we have is their best effort, a compromise that is probably biased toward durability more than anything. At some point they probably had an idea like yours but dismissed it as unworkable.

 

Yeah, i'm running 3.73's as well. Just curious to see if it's the axle set up on another 03 auto would be pretty much the same. I can't imagine it being very far apart.I would imagine the gears being pretty much the same set up. My buddies axle design looks fairly close. I'm just seeing if the actual gears are the same except different ratio's or what.

Also yeah your correct it takes power to generate electricity. I'm just looking for a bunch of opinions on it. Not sure where I would intercate a device or what I'd use to generate it. also You don't think that the power being produced. if possible say it was 85 degrees outside. and your engine/radiator/ac condensor hitting the intercooler (say everything was stock except this device and a cai) and it was able to cool it off ten to 15 degrees would provide enough difference to produce enough available power? How much cooler would it have to be before something like this would work? I mean the Cold air intake, intercooler, they're both designed to take heat out of the air so it can be condenser. I mean this has really been stuck in my head. I don't know why either. I've kinda got a design that might work.However not quite sure how to fabricate it so it could withstand the pressures yet. Also another problem in fabriating something like that on the intake after the intercooler would be that if using freon they would have to be so far inside the casing so they could withstand pressure. so I kinda got an idea but i'm not sure enough heat would be transfered there certainly would help but I'm thinking intercooler or in the box for a cai would probably work out better. Probably intercooler. Hmmmmmmmm..... so many dumb ideas and I don't even know if it'd work or not.

 

a water mist spray on the intercooler will give a littel cooler air

 

have you noticed a difference in how much power your truck makes on a 70 degree day compared to an 85 degree day? probably nothing noticable. instead of wasting power trying to cool the air, move your turbo back towards the rear end and leave the intercooler up front. all the extra tubing will help cool the air as it travels back to the front (although you may lose a pound or two of boost). or get a bigger intercooler. i understand what you're wanting to do, but no sense in spending a buck to save a dime

 

3.73's is the lowest you can get for the AAM axels. the 3.54's were in the dana axels.

 

the cold air trick works great on gassers but not so great on the diesels... think about it, it's a compression ignition type of motor without a sparkplug to ignite the mixture... the colder it gets, the harder it is to ignite. when I had my edge I had my IAT's on the monitor and noticed that when the temp was at 100~110 deg, I had the most power, anything above or below that and power started to drop off. this was easily felt with the butt dyno. you guys with the edge attitude installed, put up the iat in the monitor and leave it there for a while, you'll see what I mean.