Intake temps---the truth

[RickyD]

I am making this a new post because the last place I posted it the person right after me changed the subject and you all need to know this!!!


Real life intake temps. don't get fooled!!! Go do it yourself.

Hi all. I have read all that you have said and PMed Eloy more then once about different things. This is what I did.
First I built a round forced air intake using 4 inch tubes and the question was the force of the air using 4 inch tubes versus 3 inch tubes. So I built a aluminum box very similar to the one on Brutus. After running it for 150 miles I didn't notice a thing! I then bought a indoor/outdoor temp gage and but the probe right into the rubber connector between the stock elbow tube and my CAI. I monitored the temp in town, on the road at 55MPH and all the way to 100. And then I pulled the probe out to get the engine compartment temp going down the road. The temp was only about 1-2 degrees different going down the road in the tube versus out of the tube!!! I then did the same thing driving around town. The temp when you stopped sky rocketed but as soon as you were moving even 20 MPH they dropped back down. To make a long story short. I hate to say it but some of you guys are not going to be happy but if you just cut two 4 inch holes in the shroud from the front of the car to the radiator so the engine compartment can get more air flow you DO NOT need any kind of special tubes, mortified air box or use a Ram air intake because they do absolutely NOTHING!!! Driving down the road is totally different then running it on the dyno and if you take that big fan and put it down on the ground to force air in where the car gets it from going down the road and do all your temp test again you will be surprised on how much time/money we have all wasted trying to get more air. I know I was!! Sorry if I angered some of you but just try the two holes with nothing else and you will see what I mean. I will have my car on the dyno in the next couple of weeks and I will post my findings. Have fun and good luck

[BlueSkyRL]

RickyD,

Do you have and can you post the outside temps, tube temps, etc. for all us to analyise? As you know the old saying...don't beleive anything you hear and only half of what you see As I posted before, I would think that the tubes would keep the temps from sy rocketing in the intake at the below 20 miles an hour speed?? I'm not dissing you or picking on you...but want more data and pics

[ggccg]

Originally Posted by RickyD

Driving down the road is totally different then running it on the dyno and if you take that big fan and put it down on the ground to force air in where the car gets it from going down the road and do all your temp test again you will be surprised on how much time/money we have all wasted trying to get more air.

All that fan on the dyno does is keep your radiator from boiling over in short order. Real life air flows are many times larger than any fan (short of a wind tunnel) can put out.

[duck833]

My CAI may not give me any more performance, might even take a few HWP away. But the sucking sounds are worth it!!!

[RickyD]

Yes the sucking sound is very noticeable. After I installed my R/L dual exhaust all you could hear is the exhaust. My car also seems a little faster then before which could be that is breathing better but until I get it on the dyno in a couple of weeks we wont know.

As far as to the request for pictures of my temp gage I will try to get those posted this weekend.

[bones]

I have dejons intake. On my dash-hawk there is a 7 degree difference from AAT to IAT. Sometimes 10 degrees but never more than that when moving.

[shabby]

Intake temps while cruising and racing are totally different, while cruising i've seen 5 degree hotter temps with the stock airbox. At the drag strip they were around 20-30 degrees hotter and the end of the run.
Also on the turbo kappa's the air behind the shroud is heated up from the intercooler, with my modded airbox that pulls air from below the shroud i've seen the same temps as with the stock airbox during a 1/4 mile run.
Unless you're actually scooping up air from beneath the car, not beneath the shroud, i dont think you're actually going to get anywhere near ambient temps.

[nomead]

Probably a dumb question - I searched and found nothing, so I'll ask it anyway.

Why can't the fake grill under the Saturn emblem be opened up to admit air directly into the opening in the stock airbox. I looked on my R/L and it is tough to tell for sure without disassemling some of it. I've seen that most of the billet grill kits attach on top of that piece instead of replacing it.
Is there something structural in there that prevents doing this?

[Ag94Whoop]

you can believe what you want
Forced air system wont work with an induction filter, it has to be a polarized system so the stock box must be used, or something similar

I did this and my 0-60 times dropped an average of 0.4 seconds (10 run average on 88 degree day) average the mod....

I do not have a GMPP or Fujita CAI or other intake but most actual automotive engineers I have spoken to that have ANY knowledge have said they would not provide cooler air, only more air....plus a drop in torque at bottom end

however, a GOOD design will provide gains in mid range with very little gains at top....Eloys dynos have shown that the GMPP actually works well and he has even recommended it


but I guess this engineer who designs forced air cooling systems for a living doesnt know anything


I may design my own intake....but the design I made currently is proven....you can try all you want to be right
a Ram Air will NOT work in conjunction with the GMPP...you have to pick one

my personal believe is that the GMPP works well, but a well designed RAM AIR will provide similar gains in mid range, no drop at low end and possible more gains at top end (still not much though) due to positive pressure, not temperatures

good luck guys

[RickyD]

I am working on those intake temp pictures you all wanted now but need to figure out how to attach them as thumbnails? I read a article on ram air intakes and learned a lot. Indy/Formula 1 cars use ram air induction with either one big intake or two smaller ones. Even though these cars produce high HP at there top ends they only produce a max of 20HP. I find it really hard to believe running down the highway at 70-80 mph you would see 12-15 hp. if there is that kind of gain it has to be because of some other factor. Also doing my temp checks with my box on and with it off there was only about 1-2 degrees difference in intake temps.
Probably with the box you are forcing the Eng to suck all the air in front of the car instead of getting some of it from under the hood. I notice this just by cutting two 4 inch holes in the plastic shroud for the radiator. and it didn't effect Eng temps at all.
OK let me get back to those pictures or you guys are never going to get them because the beers are making me tired hahaha

[Ag94Whoop]

I talked to a buddy here about another option I might do...

which is essentially to build a dual induction intake with cutouts in the shroud as you discussed.

I would be primarily doing it for looks though at car shows....I would expect a great gain in sound though

my current system doesnt gain huge amounts, however, probably 5-10 HP or so real world...original dyno numbers included CB exhaust as well and the combined gain was 17WHP.....we know a Magnaflow Single CB doesnt gain more than 8-9WHP so the balance was due to the RAI

but I also did 0-60 runs because many people questions the Dyno numbers versus reality and saw gains there as well

fact is that there are more than a few ways to gain HP in this car, some work well and others dont...this method seems to have worked but it doesnt discount the effectiveness of other methods, hence, I have though of going to a new intake again (probably because I am addicting to mods)

take care guys and good luck

[BlueSkyRL]

Originally Posted by Ag94Whoop

I talked to a buddy here about another option I might do...

which is essentially to build a dual induction intake with cutouts in the shroud as you discussed.

I would be primarily doing it for looks though at car shows....I would expect a great gain in sound though

my current system doesnt gain huge amounts, however, probably 5-10 HP or so real world...original dyno numbers included CB exhaust as well and the combined gain was 17WHP.....we know a Magnaflow Single CB doesnt gain more than 8-9WHP so the balance was due to the RAI

but I also did 0-60 runs because many people questions the Dyno numbers versus reality and saw gains there as well

fact is that there are more than a few ways to gain HP in this car, some work well and others dont...this method seems to have worked but it doesnt discount the effectiveness of other methods, hence, I have though of going to a new intake again (probably because I am addicting to mods)

take care guys and good luck

Do you have a picture of your current intake??

[cerberus]

Well, I'm probably missing the point here, but have had RPi do a custom ram intake on my 2.4. Hopefully we'll dyno it this week. Yeah, some folks dont care for dyno numbers, but it is a gauge to see if something changed. I don't think there's any earthshattering HP increase, but something changed as my 0-60 certainly feels quicker. 'Course we lightened the flywheel at the same time, so I've got a few different things going on at once. The increase in accel at freeway speeds certainly came from somewhere. All the same, keep experiementing guys!! The more info we can gather the better.

[RickyD]

Ok here you go. I have a couple pictures of the ram air box I made. very similar to the one on Brutus but the temps are after I took it off I think I still have some temps pictures I took with the box on and will post those as well. I wasnt happy with the results of the box at all

[RickyD]

here are some more with the box installed. it was about 10 degrees cooler that day but you can see that the temps are very close to the ones I took yesterday with the box removed. The ram air box didn't do anything

[Ag94Whoop]

one major flaw was that a true RAI can not use an induction filter

nice test method though

[JRinKY]

Before you guys get too excited about ram air, consider a bit of the physics involved. Here is a chart of stagnation pressure vs air speed:

MPH psi
0 0
10 0.00
20 0.01
30 0.02
40 0.03
50 0.04
60 0.06
70 0.08
80 0.11
90 0.14
100 0.17
110 0.21
120 0.25
130 0.29
140 0.34
150 0.39

Granted, any positive pressure is good, but don't expect any big gains, especially at lower speeds. Also remember that this is the maximum pressure you can achieve, there will be losses from your hoses, tubes, etc.

[Ag94Whoop]

true but the RAI setup is simply a better way for the stock airbox to get air
thats all....

with that alone I gained somewhere around 5-6 WHP minimum on dyno and saw real gains in acceleration as well

I may still do my own CAI anyway but actual speed data is the best identifier

[stonebreaker]

Originally Posted by Ag94Whoop

I talked to a buddy here about another option I might do...

which is essentially to build a dual induction intake with cutouts in the shroud as you discussed.

I would be primarily doing it for looks though at car shows....I would expect a great gain in sound though

my current system doesnt gain huge amounts, however, probably 5-10 HP or so real world...original dyno numbers included CB exhaust as well and the combined gain was 17WHP.....we know a Magnaflow Single CB doesnt gain more than 8-9WHP so the balance was due to the RAI

but I also did 0-60 runs because many people questions the Dyno numbers versus reality and saw gains there as well

fact is that there are more than a few ways to gain HP in this car, some work well and others dont...this method seems to have worked but it doesnt discount the effectiveness of other methods, hence, I have though of going to a new intake again (probably because I am addicting to mods)

take care guys and good luck

From another point of view, it looks more like CAI's don't actually GAIN horsepower, they prevent hp loss (I know, I know, semantics...). I don't have any experience racing the ecotech engine, but in the LT1 and LS1 cars, adding cold air intakes will improve your 60 ft time by as much as 2 tenths, even though they don't show much gain, if any, on the dyno. We actually see more hp gain on the dyno by switching to a free flowing air filter than we do installing an actual CAI.

Anyway, after datalogging several runs, it became apparent that the 30-40 deg cooler air the CAI was inhailing at the starting line was enabling the car to make WAY more power during the first two seconds or so of the run than before, both because of the denser air and because the computer ran more spark advance. The difference was much less apparent on the highway since the stock intake was already seeing cool air at speed, although highway passing performance improvement is probably very model-dependent.

[Ag94Whoop]

Originally Posted by stonebreaker

From another point of view, it looks more like CAI's don't actually GAIN horsepower, they prevent hp loss (I know, I know, semantics...). I don't have any experience racing the ecotech engine, but in the LT1 and LS1 cars, adding cold air intakes will improve your 60 ft time by as much as 2 tenths, even though they don't show much gain, if any, on the dyno. We actually see more hp gain on the dyno by switching to a free flowing air filter than we do installing an actual CAI.

Anyway, after datalogging several runs, it became apparent that the 30-40 deg cooler air the CAI was inhailing at the starting line was enabling the car to make WAY more power during the first two seconds or so of the run than before, both because of the denser air and because the computer ran more spark advance. The difference was much less apparent on the highway since the stock intake was already seeing cool air at speed, although highway passing performance improvement is probably very model-dependent.

This matches the faster 0-60 times I have seen with my intake. There is definitive difference from a stop than my previous intake.