Stock intake box mod makes more hp year round - Performance Forum
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I was talking to another J owner where I live. He was explaining to me the disadvantage of a short-ram intake. (I have the typhoon for example)
He claimed that when it gets warmer, even 60 degrees out, if im doing alot of stop and go that I am definately going to loose horsepower due to all the heat soak that the intake pipe will endure, and therefor greatly increase intake temps. He said if intake temps reach like 100+ degrees F that the ecu compesates for the lack of air density some how and starts to loose power.
His intake setup was the stock airbox, with a K&N drop in, and he actually removed the second half of the intake burried in the fender. What he did was use all the stock tubing and box, but where the box snorkle goes into the fender, right by the windsheild washer resuviour, he simply added a 5" long rubber hose that was as wide as the hole.
This way he claims that there is near no heat soak due to the plastic tubing, and that the system is nice and quiet, plus its hardly restrictive at all, because now the restrictive thin piped parts are removed (they were in the fender). He said that the piping from the box to the throttle body is not restrictive in anyway whatsoever, and that he has the 7-9hp dyno gain to proove this.
I have heard alot about intake temps and power effects, do you think this is a good mod?
This was done on an ecotec.
sounds like a pretty good way to do it but there still seems to be more power made by enlarging the tubing that he left. i have a wai and im thinking about wrapping it with some sort of thermal insulation. the aluminum does get pretty warm in stop and go situations.
His setup is still restrictive due to the stock tubing.
In traffic no matter what the temp cold air not you will still get hot air coming in and being around a lot of cars exhaust fumes does not make a cold air any better as a matter of fact you may even be sucking carbon monoxide into your intake. Also when you car is driving there is a lot of air flowing around the engine to get cooler temps into the intake. i will say this. I took of the filter off my cold air and put it so it became a warm air and it seemed like i was getting better low end thant the cold air intake. The thing about the stock intake is the flow is disturbed by the expansion box and the tube that ripples in it. Unless he can DYno prove it i see not real gain in the mod Seat of you pants is really not a good gauge unless it is a real dramatic gain.
2004 Grand Prix GTP (Competition Group)
SOLD-->1999 Z24 5M-#30 to register on JBO
"You can please some of the people some of the time but you can't please all the people'
all the time
more flow is better than a slightly better air temp....IMO
Why is this mesra? I am trying to find out the best possible way to feed air to my engine, so everyone please throw in your 2 cents. Thanks.
Cold Air intake is better than a warm air intake. Think about it, you have a hot engine compartment that you are sucking air from. That air that is circulating in the engine compartment iIS NOT cooler than the air outside the engine compartment. Think about this, where do you think the sir that goes through your radiator goes? It goes right into your engine compartment. It's hot air.
What your friend has done is removed the restrictive intake snorkal that was in the inner fender. He basically did what almost everyone else does. If he didn't do anything else, his system is still somewhat restrictive. There is an area in the air filter box that goes no where. It goes back towards the strut. This is in there to decrease noise and create turbulance. In my case, I used some expand a foam, the same stuff used for filling gaps in home for insulation, in that area and then curve shaped it for a smoother flow. What I got was a more straight through flow through the drop in air filter. Yes, I did get a little more noise, but you now can hear the sir going into the TB since all the baffles have been eliminated.
98 Z24
RIP Specks
Interesting.
I know what area you are talking about. I never thought that the are by the strut would be restrictive simply because its a large area, I would think that it sort of simulated an open area like outside, that would aid as soon as you went WOT. But I am probablly wrong. I would think that if you removed the first resonator, thats in the fender, and then replaced the exporting end of the box to the throttle body with a smooth plastic tube, rather then the ruffled one with the final resonator on the TB, that you would probablly have a nice resonably quiet CAI setup. Maybe I will create one and start a how-to....
Rob, you are correct. If you want to, look in your filter box at that open area. It's just in there for sound quieting. If you decide to go the route you just mentioned, it's a good idea, just fill in that open area in the back of the filter box and you will notice a difference in sound and a little better performance.
98 Z24
RIP Specks
CAI's are no better than WAI's. think about it, even though the air entering the intake may be cooler, it still has to travel through the engine bay to get to the throttle body, therefore it gets warmer. i looked through older posts and someone took measurements of the air temp at the throttle body in both WAI's and CAI's, and u know what, they were almost exactly the same!
Quote:
AEM spends extensive time developing each air induction system for maximum performance. Whenever possible, we design a Cold Air system that routes the filter outside of the engine compartment to take advantage of cooler ambient air temperatures, and offer a Short Ram system as an economical alternative to our Cold Air system.
However, tuning the inlet pipe is crucial to performance, and certain applications respond to runner lengths that will not allow us to create a true cold air system. In these cases, AEM manufactures a Short Ram system only, as this design creates the most useable power for a given application. .
. this is direct from AEM's site. why do you think that they only make a short ram for the 2.4L?
Ill make a sig someday
rhodaz24, I've seen other companies sell CAIs for the 2.4. Why do you think that when GM makes their intakes on any car, they try to duct it to outside the engine compartment? Must be a reason.
98 Z24
RIP Specks
10 degrees hotter air = 1 horsepower lost. That is proven fact. It is also a gact that the CAI has more pipeing so it has more area in which to experence "heat soak". There have been dyno test after dyno test done on this subject and they have found that both
styles produce within 2 to 3 horsepower of each other. Some days the short ram is better other days its the CAI. Myself I personialy have an INJEN short ram intake.
2 to 3 horsepower is not worth the added cost of the AEM CAI over what I have. My car runs 14.8 1/4 mile times and still gets 40 mpg on the highway, I am quite happy.
Semper Fi SAINT. May you rest in peace.
Yeah, there really is mixed facts about all this. For example, take the Sport Compact car intake test for the miata:
http://www.racingbeat.com/intake.htm
Notice how the intake kit that sits right under the hood, with an open end cone filter, had the HIGHEST TEMPS, AND THE HIGHEST HP and TQ gains. confusing huh? I guess flow really does make up for it. Other kits they tested was a ram air that had the lowest temps and did not achive the highest gain. Also theres a very interesting write-up on how the stock airbox actaully holds onto its heat longer then the metal piping does, so it actually is much worse then a metal pipe.
Its alot to take in! lol
the longer and more bends in the piping the worse it is for flow
the shorter and straighter the better it is for flow
on my g/fs cav i only gained .100(1 tenth) in the 1/4 , using a cai over a wai
also the heat soak in the tube is actually illrealivant , once the air is moving at a higher velocity , it is self cooling , and will cool the tube of the intake some
on my cav i am going back to the stock s tube and the RK cold air extension peice.
reason being i had my intake going straight down from the s/c and i had it wrapped and it got hot alot. It was because the hot radiator air is flowing past that pipe.
I feel plastic dont heat up as much as aluminum.
Well me and one of my friends have an idea about this, and we are going to try it so i will let you know how it turns out. Right now i have a short ram intake. I am going to build a small airbox where the old stock one was. I am also going to run my short ram tube into this box so that the conical filter is enclosed in the box. I am then going to run a 4 1/2 inch tube down from the box, to the opening on my z24 bumper cover where I have attached a funnel. My goal here is to have an intake that has more free flow than the stock, but still gets cooler air that the short ram intake. Not only that, but we are going to buid the box out of plexi so that you can still see the cone filter and we are going to try to light the box with some neons. We think that it will be a nice addition to my wire looming, all or my polished stuff, and my existing neons. Any feedback on this would be great thanks.
I currently have the setup you are explaining on my cavy, and i noticed a small increase in power; mostly at higher speeds. I have the Weapon r drag intake going into a weapon r cold air box. From there, I have a 2 inch (i think) pvc line that goes down into the bumper, and eventually faces the lower part of the grill below the license plate, with a funnel attached.
This setup works pretty good, but the cold air box was really hard to mount because there is really no stock place to screw it into. I have it securely held with proffesional multipurpose nasa-enginered space-age straps...(zipties j/k). It stays in there pretty good and when i step on it, the resonation from the cold air box makes it a little louder.
With the above setup, my cavy smoothly accelerates without hesitation all the way up to the high speeds.
Let me know if you wants pics.
<img src="http://www.jbnw.org/forums/images/avatars/2103925104418edcec93bd.jpg"></img>
Years ago, someone tested the IAT temps of WAI's versus CAI's.. it was 2-3 degrees at most while driving...
Who cares what the temps are when you're sitting in traffic?
ANYTHING is better than stock restrictive crap. Even an open TB.
When you car is moving, a cai intake isn't going to be much different if any that a wai intake, a lot of air circulates in the engine bay. Like someone else said, who cares what it is in traffic? A short ram intake normally has better throttle respons to and its a bit cheaper, thats why I have one. He isn't making and more power using a K&N filter on the stock tubing.
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2004 Chevy Cavalier
Quote:
Why is this mesra? I am trying to find out the best possible way to feed air to my engine
your goal with a WAI or CAI is to not only get DENSER air but to also create better air flow..
now we can argue air tempertures all day long..but you cant argue the fact that both of these intakes have better flow than the stock tube...and as far as air temp goes..some how i doubt the 50-80*F air that enters the intake and the 100+*F air that reaches the engine acutally have that great a deal differnce in power..maybe 1-2 hp? between 50* and 100*F??
i mean really now..is that worth arguing about? just focus on FLOW ..get a good pipe..and good filter..and route it where you want
The most restrictive part of the stock setup is the "squish box" that mounts on top of the TB. Most any real aftermarket intake should replace that part with a better one, and any intake that does replace that part will be better than any modified stock setup. Believe me, I know. I had that mod done years ago with also holes drilled from the bottom of the box, through to the fenderwell to suck cool air from there too. It doesn't matter much (maybe 2-3 hp tops with the K&N and that mod) if you still have the stock "squish box". You're best bet altogether is to get an HO mani so you don't have to worry about a sharp 90 degree bend into your TB. That's the biggest benefit of going that route. Just my 2 cents.
not to mention that throttle response with WAI is WAY better than cold air....
SLO CAV (the slo one) wrote:not to mention that throttle response with WAI is WAY better than cold air....
got proof?
I mean to say, I feel like i got better response from my cai than i did from my rsm wai. could be in my head though.
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