Originally Posted by
wolfrace
That some thinkin' outside the box
Uh...not really... (NO OFFENSE magusjinx) Ford developed a system for the Mustang that would do just that. Well....it would put a shot of super cold air through the intake, a trick worth up to 50hp at a shot. Don't know what happened to it.
However, to route your air through the AC would present three problems.
1. The energy used to run the compressor would never be paid back by any increase in mileage.
2. Any increase in power would come at the expense of more fuel.
3. The evaporator needed to cool that much air that fast (eg. 5.0L engine spinning at 5000rpm would ingest about 220cfm) would be quite large. If made smaller, it would be kinda restrictive...thereby presenting another problem.