Nixon1

I know, I know, I already did my intake....(I am the ducting king!)..but I've got a few other ideas and figured I'd either give you guys some ideas of your own, or maybe you can just tell me I'm an idiot. Either way, this is what I drew in school today..two ideas. For the first one, I only made it a single headlight ram because it'd be wicked easy to do for the passenger side...nothing there...but the driver's side, you'd have to relocate the battery and work around the upper radiator hose. I like the idea of the 2nd one better, but I don't know how I'd get the parts fabbed and everything, so I'll probably do the first one.

Ragnarok_Tyr

Gratuitous 100th post.

krazycracka55

hmmm, my idea was to cut the slits all the way out of the front grill, and to run a pipe all the way down to there and have a big a$$ 9 inch cone chillin right behind, but then the idea of rainy weather comes to mind (its how the honda's do it!)

Gumby

Not in school two weeks and already day dreaming about Thirdgens???

joezero

I had thought about something similar to that where there was a large scoop under the nose of the car. I have actually seen on where it was a small scoop, like 11-12" under the pass. side, it looked kinda funny but the guy said it worked. Maybe that was even on this site, I don't remember. Anyway, I think you could get around the water part pretty easy by just putting a small hole at the back of the scoop that would let water out, of course it'd let air out too. Another idea (if you can call it that) would be to run the scoop during the summer, and when the rainy season came just put you stock airbox back on. I don't know about you but I don' t like driving in the rain at wide open throttle.
Another idea I'd had related to that was to attach the front of the scoop to the car with springs. That way it'd stay up outta the way when you were going through parking lots or whatever, and would get pulled down the by air resistance at higher speeds. That way you would be getting more of a ram air effect. But then you have to ask yourself how realistic is that?:lala:

Camar_Hunter_c

its called a flapper valve. Imports use them to get around the water/wet filter syndrome.

krazycracka55

well her in texas we dont have a rainy season, it just happens but it is a realistic idea though

Nixon1

Yeah..I've thought about simple stuff for the first idea, like building some sort of shield around the cone to try to deflect water...but I doubt it'd work very well and it'd just restrict airflow. I figured the 2nd idea would allow less water in because a lot of it would hit the back of the scoop and stop, assuming there isn't enough vacuum to pull it up.....but mist would go up easy. I looked at the *****'s bypass valves, for water ingestion...sounds good to me but they're like $50 a pop! BTW, Krazy, my current setup is 3 in. dryer ducting running from the flex tubing off of the intake manifold, down past the sway bar thing, and then really tight next to the air dam, and up inside, behind the passenger side of the grille, is where my conical sits. Sure it picks up great air, but it's a cheapo conical (one of those chrome $25 Autozone jobs) and there are so many bends in the ducting that it pretty much eliminates any gains made.

Ragnarok_Tyr

AEM makes a cold air-bypass valve to protect low-hanging CAI setups from sucking up water. If the intake happens to ingest water, the valve opens and air is drawn from it instead of the opening on the intake. Why can't I think of things like this? I would be rich now.

TomP

Did you see the one import magazine review of the AEM bypass? They extended the intake of an expensive sports car, like a Ferarri (I forget what the car was), and put clear piping on the end. They put one end in a fishtank full of water, with the AEM valve between the fishtank and motor. Then they revved up the motor, and were so suprised at how high the water rose in the tube! Seems like a hardcore sell for the bypass!

Of course if you put vacuum across any tube, the liquid in the tube will rise. You guys ever cut a drinking straw? Cut the straw an inch or two below the top, cut it like you're cutting the straw in two pieces, but don't cut through all the way. Bend the 2 inch long cut piece down so it blows "across" the rest of the straw. Now, blow (or suck) as hard as you can into the cut piece. Air will pass over the top of the normal tube, creating a low pressure area, and you'll see the fluid in the straw rise up.

But besides from that obvious mistake, the AEM seems like a good idea. It's just that their test was stupid. They should've tested the bypass against a water mist, not a blocked water tube.

TomP

Haha, I love the internet; here's a link with a picture showing what I'm talking about: http://www.uq.edu.au/_School_Science...ns/UNPh13.html Choose lesson "13.1.6"... and look at the two pictures. The "straw" idea is shown in the very last picture at the "pictures" link.

Nixon1

Yeah..right on, Tom.. That's the bypass valve I've looked up, the AEM one..it's pretty pricey. If you're gonna spend THAT much money you might as well buy a REAL Cold Air, because between the $5 ducting, a $45 bypass valve, and a $50 K&N conical ...well, I'll leave the math to others.

Brian K

we need a someone to make us a sheet metal intake so we can run a HUGE Throttle Body...

camaro89dude

I think my idea is good...ghetto, but good.

I cut water shields off (eek!) the air box, and put Two metal pipe pieces off....

it has a nice ram effect, maybe not so much as some devices by the rest of you guys, but it does a great job of keeping the hot engine air out.

Nixon1

That sounds like a pretty good idea for a 2.8.....unfortunately, I've got the goofy 3.1 filter in a can intake design, so...yeah, it's a pain. I'd LOVE to take those pipes on you intake all the way down right under the car and run them out, basically make them ram air. Or DOES it go all the way down? Hard for me to tell with that pic...

krazycracka55

hmm, u guys heard of the turbonator i think its like turbonator.com or something, but the idea is that its a miny supercharger, lol, i found a guy that gets rid of all the grooves from the throttle body so it has more airflow, he also shaves te screw so that it can open all the way, figure a CAI setup with the turbonator and the modified throttle body would be enough dont ya think , unless there are some bigger throttle bodys we can use on are rides

joezero

Are you talking about the eRam? If so don't waste your money. It's like $300 and will give you only 1psi boost under certain conditions.

krazycracka55

no this is only 69.95 and it increases hp and gas mileage
www.turbonator.com

confucius101

hummm lets see if anyone has ever tried this ????

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=130424

Ryan_Alswede

I know I'm going to start a flame here with this comment...

How much HP are you going to gain on the dyno?? Maybe 1HP if you can find it?? Is it really worth butchering up your beautiful 3rd gen and putting on hardware store junk.

I guess I love my Camaro to much to trash it putting on ugly tubes and taking away from the clean look of stock. The air cleaner system is good enough for a 305, your not going to gain anything other then trashing your 3rd gen.

It's getting to be like the rice boys putting on clear tail lights and junk that just makes a car look ugly and cheap. Go upgrade your valve system, exhaust system and ignition system and then you will have something.

krazycracka55

confucius101
have u bought this turbonator, im looking into it and just wanting more info on it

Nixon1

Yeah, all that vortex stuff is bullcrap. I've seen the e-ram...I almost fell over laughing. It only engages at WOT because it draws so much power, being electric...and it's supposed to produce, tops, 1.5 psi on its own, and add another simulated 1.5 psi because of it increasing aerodynamics and crap in the airflow paths..so yeah, 3 psi...HA, yeah right. And who can forget the Tornado? I thought the 2 liters taped together was very convincing!

stuart69427

I didn't read much of the post, so if this has been said, excuse me...

THe problem with a set up like this is that all the air that was soming from your grill (which is little as it was) is now not making it to the radiator!

There isn't much air getting there in the first place, so you don't want to be blocking the flow! Without that air, your car will run hot!!!! And hot is bad! The cooler the engine, the less wear on parts and the more horsepower you make! What good is it to ram all that cool air into an extremly hot engine????

The guy who posted this, your setup looks like its better, Check out the Tech articles, thers a similar setup in there!

joezero

That's not entirely true. The engine is designed to operate in a specific temp range. If cooler was always better, then why would you let your car warm up? And you gotta remember that you are using the heat of combustion to cause the pressure in the cylinder to build so high that it pushes the piston down. Now a lot of the heat generated is absorbed bo the engine block which is then transferred to the engine coolant. To the extent that you can run the engine hotter, you will lose less power to the engine block and put more power to the piston. That's why cars now run hotter than cars from a few decades ago. You just don't want to run too hot or else the rubber and oil in the engine will break down and then you got big problems.

Ryan_Alswede

220 is perfect combustion but I like 200, has more jump when it's around that temp

Ragnarok_Tyr

In a perfect engine, the air/fuel mixture would be very cold, until it was in the combustion chamber, where it would heat up, due to the head temperature and compression, to a point just below detonation. It would be extremely cost-prohibitive to produce such a setup, and is just one of the tradeoffs of engine design.

Nixon1

I've thought about just hacking up my thermostat so the car runs cold all the time. Let's see how long it'd last the way I drive it...hauls *** ice cold though. You should see it in the mornings! BTW guys, I really want to try the headlight ram idea..I've got almost all the materials I need for it right now, but I have no means of avoiding rain... Any ideas? Besides a freakin $50 bypass valve? Lol, hey, ya never know...

joezero

I would attribute that more to the air being cooler in the morning and thus more dense. One problem with always running cold is that oil is thicker when it's cold, that's one of the main reasons to let you engine warm up. You hit the throttle while the oil is still thick and you could send the oil pressure through the roof. Then you're looking at things like blown valve cover gaskets.

As for keeping water out, it's sort of a catch 22 situation. You'd have to put in some sort of obstruction that the water would hit and either be deflected away from the intake (like the stock setup) or something where the water would condensate and then drip off. Either way though you're having to create a restriction which also hinders air flow, which is the whole reason for doing this. Now you could always punch a small hole on the bottom of the tube going to the throttle body, but the air will also take the path of least resistance which in most cases means out the hole instead of into the engine. Probably your best bet (or at least the way I would go) would be to have the ducting from the headlight go at a 45* vertical angle. That way any water that splashed up would wash back down (hopefully) instead of going into the throttle body. Of course then you end up with some sharp angles that you're trying to get the air to flow over. Who knows, maybe somebody else has a tried and true method. You never know.

Nixon1

Thanks for the tips..I might put them to use. Have you seen the shielded conicals? Big plastic crap around them...dunno how well they flow or where they flow from but I figure using one might cut back on water ingestion..all I'd get would be small amounts of water and then water vapor..but yeah, bending the ducting upward a little is a good idea. Not much, but just enough so there's rundown back towards the filter...I'll have to see how much I can get it up and make hood clearance..I think I've got good room to work with. I've also thought about headlight louvers.. Considering the louvers in the grille protecting my current conical seem to do a spiffy job of deflecting water....only ONCE have I ingested water, and it was just vapor kicked up from a car in front of me..I was following a little too close. None got into the ducting really, it just wet the filter and cut my flow down so the car ran funny.

Nixon1

And believe me Joe, I know ALL ABOUT air temperature and density relationships.. I've driven my car on a hot day (like 90-95 degrees out) and mashed the pedal dead on ***** in the middle of my torque peak in 1st gear and felt the car barely kick..it was sad.

joezero

I haven't seen the shielded conicals, do you know who makes em? Are you thinking that you'll do kinda like a CAI setup with a conical and just putting the tip of it where the high beam used to be? I'm just trying to get a clear idea of what you're talking about. And ya gotta love those cool mornings when there's nobody on the road and your car's hauling ***

Nixon1

Totally... I'm not sure who makes the shielded conicals, but I know it's a ***** thing...I've seen quite a few. Looks like a plastic shield around the conical. Apparently, the thing still works? I've had a few ideas as far as how I wanna run the thing now..
Ideas:
#1-Get a thin conical and run it through the tiny hole there so the tip protrudes a little bit from the hole for the wiring and stuff.
#2-Same setup, but with the conical moved back a little so it doesn't stick out of the high beam hole..slightly receded, and with like sheet metal inserts to funnel air directly into it.
#3-Use my current conical (big & fat) and leave it all the way back, with the front pressed against the first metal part at the hole, and use the metal inserts.

I'd prefer #2 I think...but it'd be hard to find a conical that slender...the holes are flatter at the top and bottom, and they're definitely not 3 in...maybe 2-2 1/2?

Nixon1

I think it'd work totally AWESOME for ram air because it'd be a direct pickup with minimal ducting to the intake, with minimal bends...if I was gonna do it seriously, I'd use stainless steel tubing with rubber or a/c duct joints...something like that.. But the problem is just water pickup...with the filter the way I want it, when it rains, I think it'll pick up quite a bit of water....and a soaked filter isn't worth a damn.

Nixon1

Ohh, and that little EGR tube that goes into the flex part of the intake hose linked up to the throttle body...how does that pull out exactly? I wanna replace it with some bright blue silicone hose but can't figure out how to get the sucker out..I'm afraid to use brute force just in case it's not meant to come out by simply YANKING THE SH*T OUT OF IT

Nixon1

MAJOR thought flash. Like you talked about punching holes in the bottom, but you'd get unfiltered air in...how about cutting a square slot out of the bottom of the duct and covering it over with fins from a paper filter...so the water well soak into the filter and drip out when it's excessive...no water ingestion! WHen I think it's gonna rain, I'll leave it like that..when it's nice and dry out, I'll just make like a cover to cover over the slot so it doesnt take in air and mess my airflow dynamics up....what do you think? BTW, I'll run a K&N conical....I hear they dont have any problems dealing with water at all like a paper or foam or other kind will...

camaro89dude

At the moment, I have major exhaust leaks in my engine compartment. It gets extremely hot in there. Believe it or not I have noticed a difference.

Those tubes come out right behind my foglights, at the front of the car.

joezero

What I was saying was that if you had an openning in the bottom of the tube, that incoming air could go out of the hole instead of into the engine. Look at this way, around 60 MPH a ram air system will start to build boost. Now it isn't major, at top speed it may only be 2-3 psi if that. However, if you had a hole in the ducting anywhere from the openning at the front of the car to the throttle body, then you wouldn't necessarily build any boost b/c the higher air pressure would even out between the air in the intake and the air outside.

Here's a diagram (sorry for the crappy quality of the drawing) showing how you could do an inline filter and where to put the hole, assuming you just wanted to use this as a CAI and not for Ram air

Ryan_Alswede

LOL here we go again more butcher jobs on intakes that don't do anything or have any benifit.

joezero

Hey, some of us have a lot of free time and overactive imaginations What would you rather have us do, design and plan an intake that would cost $20 that somebody might do, or daydream about an engine swap that'll never happen cause nobody's got the money or time to do it.

Ryan_Alswede

I just don't want you as a fellow camaro guy to get laughed at by people.

Nixon1

Now there's an idea...route the filter in the middle of the ductwork..I was going to place it out front. What's your plan for the filter system? Lol..I was gonna stick a conical up front. So you're saying that there will always be enough airflow from the front that it won't take in air through the hole(s) because it'll have enough positive pressure in there? I'm getting all aggitated because I love this idea and really want to do it BUT there's the rain problem..I'm also worried about not just solid water that's going to collect in the pipe, but also that the filter will pick up vapor...water mist kicked up from other cars..and that it'll pull that in and not filter the water out so the vapor will go straight into my engine.

joezero

o.k., first off, a little mist or vapor is not a problem. Your engine is taking in a little bit of water vapor all the time because it's just naturally floating around in the air. If you think about it you live in Florida, where the humidity gets really high anyway. That's no different than getting a little mist into the engine. If anything, if you do get some mist into the engine, it'll help clean out carbon deposits. Remember that water will want to run to the lowest point. So if you have a gradual slope from the front of the car to the TB, then any water that gets in will want to run back out. You could also do a setup where any water that came in would get stuck in a valley in the tubing. As long as it didn't completely fill with water, the air passing over it would cause it to evaporate, along with the heat in the engine compartment.

As for the inline filter, you could just get ducting that was square on one end and round on the other. You just get two pieces and place the square ones together. Now you have a box for holding your filter. That way you could just put another piece that was square at one end where the headlight was, and you would be able to get a ram air setup.

Your biggest problem will be if a large amount of water got in and soaked the filter. Cause those things aren't made to get wet, and once it dried it might be toast. What I personally would do is to make the system removeable so that I could go back to the stock setup for winter. It's not like your gonna race some guy while it's pouring rain.

Ragnarok_Tyr

You seem to ave forgotten the simple principle that an I/C engine is nothing more than an air pump, and the more air it moves, the higher the output once you place a load on the engine. The stock 3.1L MPFI intake (I don't know what kind of setup the 2.8 motor has, I've never seen it) has major bottlenecks in it. Yes, upgrading the exhaust/ignition, etc. is a good idea, but you need to address problems wherever they arise. You cite the fact that other bottlenecks exist elsewhere in the motor, which is true, but restrictions in a fluid flow system (yes, air is a fluid, simply a very thin and compressible one) are CUMULATIVE. Therefore, any assistance you can give the system will produce an improvement, albeit in this case, a small one. Especially, in this case, where it is possible to improve the motor at no out-of-pocket cost (as opposed to your costly exhaust, ignition, and valvetrain upgrades). As far as ''butchering your beautiful thirdgen'' is concerned, I have seen many ram air/CAI/freer-flow intake setups that not only are very useful functionally, they are tastefully done and look very nice asthetically. It all depends on the time and effort one is willing to put into one's intake mods. Also, I hardly think that the pusuit of high performance is something that will get our fellow thirdgenners "lughed at by people". We v6 guys need all the help we can find, from our motors and each other. So, while I see the merits of your argument, I must respectfully disagree.

Whew! Turned out to be a small novel!

Ragnarok_Tyr

I agree about the fact that a little water, present in the air as drops or vapor, is not generally harmful, devices like the CAI bypass valve are designed to protect the engine from large amounts of water (i.e., if a low-hanging intake opening were to be briefly submerged. I know this isn't likely, but it happens.) A drain hole is insufficient for water evacuation in this case, as even a small-displacement motor can support a very high column of water (on the order of several feet). If the engine were to ingest a large enough quantity of water, and it doesn't take that much, well, get ready to open your block and replace some parts. Water is HIGHLY incompressible. (some of you physics-oriented guys will disagree with me on this point, as water does compress by a very small amount, but it is such an insignificant amount that, for all intents and purposes, we can say that it is incompressible). When a piston travelling an average of 180 feet per second (at 2000 rpm) encounters an incompressible material, it STOPS. As you can imagine, any number of internals will fail at that point. THAT's why such considerations much be accounted for when setting up a low-mounted intake, and why AEM is making lots of money on their little bypass valve.

Ragnarok_Tyr

Sorry about the long posts .

joezero

I've gotta agree, the only people that have ever laughed at my car, or what I've done/plan to do to it, are people on this site. I've got friends with rice rockets who think my car is cool cause of the mods I've done to it. And I've got other friends who have f-bodies who think my car is cool cause it a really clean and well cared for. The only time I've ever had ppl mock my car was when I get the "why waste your time with a six" or "that's rice" comments. So while I appreciate any concern over my reputation or whatever, believe me when I say I don't car what anybody else thinks.

joezero

I don't know if I would consider this a "low-mounted intake", considering that its on the top of the nose. The only way for it to be completely submerged would be to drive the car head first into a lake. what we're talking about here is like half a liter of water. That is an amount that could easily flow out of a 3/4" hole in the bottom of the ducting. And although installing a bypass valve would definently be a good idea, the cost of it would kinda defeat the whole purpose of trying to do this on a budget. I just had a thought, how do people with Ram air hoods avoid getting water into the intake?

Ryan_Alswede

I'm glad you said this, ok lets see if a 10th grade science experiment can help you under stand something.

Take a plastic newpaper bag and have a person hold the end up and make a 2 1/8 inch holes in the end. Now still with that person holding the end put the bag up to your mouth and blow, notice how hard it is to fill the bag. Now back up and hold the end the bag open and blow once, poof the bag fills WHY becuase of air pressure vacum. Make the holes as big as you want the principle still applys. The air pressure rushes to fill the space from the air that you moved thus.

Now lets put this in car terms. YOU HAVE A PLENTUM that all the cylinders feed off of. There is a VACUM in the PLENTUM from the air pump working againest the butterfly which is nothing more then a valve and on the OTHER side of the butterfly there is atomsphic pressure in the air cleaner. RIGHT Now, when you mass the gas the butterfly opens PLENTUM vacum goes down. WHY, because the atomsphic air pressure rushes in trying to make everything eqeal , but it can't because the the AIR PUMP works against it. The AIR PUMP can only pump out the air you give it do to the butterfly valve. Even at WOT atmosphic pressure is still WORKING to your ADVANTAGE against the AIR PUMP being the engine.

This is why in the end that SCIENCE is back up by the DYNO results and not butchered up intakes. PERIOD. AS LONG as the duct work is like it is and the hole in the end is the same diameter as the throttle hole there is no restriction.

GM has it all sized just right for WOT already, your forgetting they want max HP to.

Ragnarok_Tyr

So, according to your premise, you are saying that I could have an intake 50 feet long, which runs all the way around the car, goes up, down, and all around, with twists, turns, kinks, and elbows, which would still flow as good as the stock intake, so long as the opening in the intake was at least as large as the opening on the TB?

Incorrect.

As I stated before, flow restrictions in a fluid system are cumulative. That means they add up. The restriction produced by the TB limits the maximum amount of air that can flow through the intake at any one given moment, true, but then tacking on the stock GM filtration system further restricts flow. Your assumption that the whole system operates at the highest capacity of it's weakest link does not apply when there is more than one limiting factor. The aim of modifying the intake is to remove some of those further restrictions, and get the TB that much closer to operating at it's maximum potential. Again, real gains in airflow will not be seen until ALL of the major restriction are addressed (heads, plenum, exhaust manifold, etc.,) but it is incorrect to say that freeing up air within the intake is a useless activity. BTW, your plastic bag experiment is nowhere near close to approximating a complex system with many variables (such as an engine's air management system.) I have experience with this kind of thing, albeit on a larger scale (nuclear power cooling systems, to be exact. ) Different application, same principle applies.

camaro89dude

It seems like some of this arguing is about my intake, so I will say a couple more things.

I did not butcher any part of my car. The black box that the filters mount in was taken off another car (and I paid $5 for it). Mine is still in great condition. Nothing else has changed.

My engine compartment, again, gets very hot due to exhaust leaks, and I where is live, 90-95* heat is not uncommon. To have the tubes directing only the outside air in, moving air, helps me.

I am not claiming insane horsepower gains. The ram effect can't be measured on a ****in dyno anyway.

It just keeps the ****in car from bogging down when it gets real hot. OK?