swerve-driver

This probably has limited application for us guys with TBI, but thought I'd post it here first since I'm TBI.
Some TBI'ers have used the stock TPI air intake system as a cold air intake and mated it to their TBI unit. That is what I had initially, but went a step further and custom made air ducts from the grill area up to the TPI filters.
In doing this, I had to remove the plastic baffle that forced air through the radiator (not the air dam under the car). So I developed a radiator baffle as well and integrated it into the ram air duct system. Lots of measuring and cursing involved with that particular phase of the project.
I have previously posted on the TBI airbox that allows the use of a stock TPI air intake system.

Anywho, pictures of the project follow.

S-D

swerve-driver

First, I stripped out the baffles and stock air ducts as well as removed the hood latch assembly.
Red box is my Ignition system.

swerve-driver

These are the parts I did away with.

swerve-driver

This is what the duct/baffle system looks like prior to installation.
The baffle on the back of the ducts is attached using Dzus-type fasteners.

swerve-driver

Back side- showing fasteners-

swerve-driver

Installation didn't take long. Total installation time, including stopping to take pictures was about 50 mnutes.

Basically just dropped the ducts in from the top and then installed the baffle from the bottom. Then I re-installed hood latch bracket.

swerve-driver

This is a shot from the bottom of the car. For reference, the radiator support (bottom of it) is seen at the top of the photo.

swerve-driver

The air ducts come up through the TPI filter holders. The filter actually fits inside the duct.

swerve-driver

The stock TPI intake system does the rest. The car runs nice and cool- a little more so than the stock setup.
I painted the outwardly visable elements black- the brite-shine air ducts are just too much for me.

I'm hoping to get the car back up to the track and make a few runs to compare against my past runs with the old setup. Not expecting a huge increase, but time will tell.

The screen material is stainless steel mesh 0.33" square, to keep out the big stuff. All other material is aluminum and stainless.

S-D

FreeLoader

Ladies and Gentlemen, the man is a genious....

You never cease to amaze me.

I couldn't even IMAGINE measuring and building anything REMOTELY like that, much less do it correctly...it's just not in my genes.

So when you gonna start selling finished products and all that shtuff?

Low C1500

NICE!!!

Z28GEN3

Very clean. you must have a brake press for the bending and crimping. I dunno what power differences you'll see if any but anything is better then sucking hot engine compartment bay air.
I tryied that just not enough patience. gotta have a metal shop make me one.

r90camarors

Excellent job S-D! The project turned out really well, and your fabrication is top of the line. I'm interested in seeing how well it will help you in the quarter, I would have to think at a very minimum a tenth or two as well as a mph or two.
You definetely have the BEST air induction system on the board. Keep up the good work!

swerve-driver

Gracias for the praise, guys.
Freeloader, your compliment about me being a genius is probably an insult to real geniuses around the world! Har!

As far as these being practical for widespread use, probably, not. I just don't see the setup being cost effective for the average 3rd gen owner.
What I'm doing to get around this is I am working on some contacts with plastic injection shops to see if I can have some of these made of plastic. That would allow the user to trim them to fit, if needed, and would of course, lower the cost significantly. It just seems like the way to go. Slow, but sure.

I am wanting to get it up to the strip, but am chasing an electrical short. Ohhh, the agony. My running lights go out when I step on the brakes. Tracking down short circuits is such fun!

R90Camaro- Did your ducts come in and are they doing you any good? I think I remember seeing you were getting some off eBay? Just curious..

Thanks,
S-D

FreeLoader

Personally I like the part where I mis-spelled genius....

Shows my genious, eh?

Anyway, you should really see what you could do with that shtuff...possibly see if you could sell you're whole intake assembly design to a company and have them improve on it(if possible) so it works even better for tbi's, and sell it as a kit...we need a good cold air intake kit on the market....

and hell, you know, you could get, say, 5-10-15% on every sale?

the lovely stuff dreams are made of...

FreeLoader

oh, and make sure if you sell the design, or do the plastic thing or whatever, specify that its gotta be colored black, i agree with you on the whole shiny metal problem.

r90camarors

Yeah, they did. I have them installed on the tpi air cleaner, however, I still lack the proper tbi housing to make it work. I think I'm just gonna use an open element and close it off minus the 3" opening for the velocity tube. I'm just worried about turbulance problems.....

Also, your design is of MUCH better quality than these things I have. I really like how your's conforms to both the air cleaner and grill openings. The ones I got off ebay conform to air cleaner but remain that size, thus not utilizing the entire grill opening. Oh well, hopefully in time I can fab something up following your example, and maybe cheat a little with the ones I have.

ChevyGuy5

Looks awesome! but if ur cheap like me, here's the easy way...PVC

swerve-driver

Thanks-
I think there is a big difference in the volume of air each system is capable of delivering at a given pressure, but, if cheap and easy is your thing, you hit it dead on.
I spent well over a month and more than a couple of bucks designing and fabircating mine- much longer and more expensive than I had anticipated.
Do you have a picture of your grill intake you can post?
It often seems that the devil is in the details--
S-D

swerve-driver

I found the electrical short I had.

Symptom: I went over a bump and my dash and running lights went out. Then, intermitently, my running lights would go out when I stepped on the brakes.

Cause: The huge wiring bundle under the dash (just before it joins into the fuse box) was rubbing on a brake pedal bracket for 110,000+ miles. It finally wore through and was shorting out this huge 12 ga. wire every once in a while. It seems that one time it got hot enough to melt through an adjacent wire which caused a short everytime I would step on the brakes.

Fix: Laying on my back, upside down under the dash for 4+ hours cutting and soldering wires back together. The heat melted the insulation off a total of 4 wires and browned approximately 8 wires (most of those did not require a fix).

That sucked.

Anywho, just one thing to check if someone is having an electrical problem.

Terms for future searchers: Wire brake parking running light lights short electrical wiring harness parking blown fuse pissed off pulling hair out

S-D

r90camarors

ChevyGuy5

here's a pic of the grill intake before i painted it all black...i just added those little funnels hoping it would bring up some more air from down below. i dunno if it really worked or not

Slade1

When I made my setup last year, I used fibreglass and molds to get the right shape. Scoops up the air quite nicely for my setup. It's rather air tight on my setup deflecting all air well into the TBI.

I was going to go the aluminum route, but I had not as much time as I needed when I made mine last year. I fabbed mine up in a day.

The key difference I feel for my setup is that I kept the radiator air deflection system in place and "intruded' the ducting into the fog light area. This has the benefit of still defecting the air from the deflector to the radiator rather than spilling out all over the front area of the car.

swerve-driver

Fiberglass sounds like a good idea- do you have any pics of how they turned out? Reason I 'd like to see pics is that I am not clear on what you mean by these two sentences:

"I kept the radiator air deflection system in place and "intruded' the ducting into the fog light area."
Are you talking about the stock air deflector system? I tried to come up with a way to modify and then retain the stock system, but getting it out for modification and the resulting re-installation problems made me consider a different approach.

"This has the benefit of still defecting the air from the deflector to the radiator rather than spilling out all over the front area of the car."
I'm not too sure what you mean here? Maybe a pic with some more description?

Thanks,
S-D

Slade1

I'm giving the car an oil change tomorrow and i'll see what pics I can take. My method is pretty much a permanent method as it modifies the original radiator deflector.

nelsm6324

Hey, that's a really nice intake design, and now I'm seriously thinking of fabricating one myself, although i'm sure fate will have it that mine will turn out to be junk and make my look like a playschool engine, but i'll still try. anyways, my question for any of you is where did you get the tpi air intake thing? is there a place that has them, or are they just abundant at the junkyard you guys go to? I haven't been to the ol' yard in a while, and whenever i went there in the past it was not for an F-body, so i don't know what's there that could be useful. I went to this website (hotrodding your LO3) and it said something about using the L69 dual snorkle air cleaner assembly or something, and I happen to have a scrap 84 Trans Am sitting a couple of states away. So the other thing I was wondering is would the L69 dual snorkle air cleaner assembly work with this type of ram/cold air induction? because I haven't done much of anything with the Trans Am I'm not even sure what the aircleaner thing looks like, but I'm assuming it looks like the LO3 aircleaner but with another snorkle coming out the other side, so in my head it would logically work if I could route the air ducts to the snorkles, does this make sense? Thanks in advance.

swerve-driver

My car is a 91 camaro, so I looked on e-bay for a TPI air duct setup for a 90-92 camaro. I believe I picked it up for $25 plus shipping- total about $40.
Watchout, though, some of the ones I've seen lately are incomplete (only the top piece is included, or have broken/missing Dzus fasteners) and the price is out of this world- $50 plus shipping.

I bought the flex hose for about $12 from gmpartsdirect.com
I don't know much about the Trans-Am setup- it may or may not be the same.

I'm not sure what year your car is- I'd search the junkyards or e-bay for a TPI setup as close to your year as you can get.

Best of luck with your searching and build- post your results when you get done!
S-D
edit- I should mention- I get pretty good results on e-bay by searching for keywords: "TPI" and "air"

swerve-driver

Here is one:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...tem=2440476892

nelsm6324

well, on this website hot rodding the LO3
he talks about using the L69 dual snorkle, but I'll have to look into that. I'll also have to check out the TPI intake, but I was wondering....does it bolt right on?my car's an 89 RS by the way, woth a rebuilt LO3. I'll definetly keep you posted on my progress, although it may be slow. I'm drawing up plans on how to get the air around the radiator and what I'm going to use. I'm thinking 4 inch shopvak lines with fiberglass ends so It'll fit snug down by the fog light space like you used. do you think you could give me some more details on how ou routed it around the engine bay..I read what you posted, but I'm still a bit confused. Thanks

nelsm6324

Now looking at it I am assuming that it is used with the TPI intake? Thnaks by the way, I'm bidding now

swerve-driver

Yes that is correct. Since I have TBI on my car, I had to make an adapter that goes from the TBI unit to the TPI air intake hose.

This thread helps explain the rest of that project:

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...ight=alternate


S-D

r90camarors

This is a tbi aicleaner housing from an early '90s caddy engine. It will work as long as you have the hood clearance, i.e. it would not fit under my stock hood with my carb intake and adapter plate. I would have had to cut the underside of the hood as well as mod the housing assembly, but now that I have the hood clearance, I will be replacing the enclosed edelbrock cleaner I have on there now with this.
The pic is from CHEVYTOWN's site.