I think some guys don't understand "heat soak" and how it impacts A/A vs. W/A IC's. A/A ICs have the ability to be more efficient than W/A, period....
That is provided that they can achieve sufficient airflow and surface area, which is a product of correct packaging more than anything. Packaging with a A/A can be difficult (especially in our 111s). The IC needs to be bigger than a A/W and needs to be perpindicular to the air stream for the best results. If those challenges can be solved, the user has an infinite cooling medium (air), and fewer layers of heat transfer when compared to A/W- thus more efficient, weighs less, fewer places for failure, etc...
A/A Heat Soak. Typically not an issue on a moving vehicle, such a car that is tracked or driven hard through the twisties provided that the A/A has sufficient air flow (back to the packaging challenge)... Remember that the A/A cools off pretty quickly if the IC gets heat soaked from sitting in traffic or similar (A/A cools much faster than an A/W system if the water gets heat soaked). As you can imagine, a street driven car with A/A trends to have a wider range of efficiency due to the variable airflow available to it. A dedicated track car has a much more narrow efficiency range since it's always moving at speed when it's running. An A/A tuner that knows his stuff is going to have a post IC MAT to deal with the wider range that is present on a street driven car.
There are two main challenges with A/A on our cars: Packaging and tuning. Obviously, Sir Wallace can tune them (get that post IC MAT in that proto-type
) and I think whatever company that is designing the IC has a decent start. I personally am not a big fan of the IC packaging in the pics since the IC isn't perpindicular to the airstream... but perhaps there's airflow there good enough to do the job...I wouldn't think there is, but I can't say for sure
Some track data-logging will tell the story...
My 2 pennies...
Best,
Phil