It’s a measurement of the density of the air in your location, so it’s dependent on temperature, humidity and pressure which is constantly changing
You can see that although I am at 1229ft, the density of the air is like that at 3492ft because of the poor air density which is pretty typical for my area this time of year. During the winter, the density altitude goes way up, which in turn drops the density altitude, which often will be a negative altitude, so a sub-terrain air density.
An interesting note, recently I was in a small accident, and was bumped in the front and back of the shop truck, the steel bumper wasn’t damaged but my grill area and front oem bumper was hurt. I installed a used oem grille and a non slotted front bumper and noticed a drop in my volumtric efficiency instantly, with less air flow around the intercooler and radiator, the truck ran 15* warmer, egts were up 200* and boost was up a psi. With the intercooler not cooling as well, less heat was taken from the air charge, which decreased the air density through more heat/pressure at the same rate of volume.
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You can see that although I am at 1229ft, the density of the air is like that at 3492ft because of the poor air density which is pretty typical for my area this time of year. During the winter, the density altitude goes way up, which in turn drops the density altitude, which often will be a negative altitude, so a sub-terrain air density.
An interesting note, recently I was in a small accident, and was bumped in the front and back of the shop truck, the steel bumper wasn’t damaged but my grill area and front oem bumper was hurt. I installed a used oem grille and a non slotted front bumper and noticed a drop in my volumtric efficiency instantly, with less air flow around the intercooler and radiator, the truck ran 15* warmer, egts were up 200* and boost was up a psi. With the intercooler not cooling as well, less heat was taken from the air charge, which decreased the air density through more heat/pressure at the same rate of volume.