[CodyTRX]

Just curious. Has anyone ever had a SRI and ran a cold air feed to it? The stock intake system has the inlet tube in the fender wheel where it draws in cool air. I'm going to say that nearly every member on here has some kind of aftermarket intake system. If you don't have a GMK, or NPG CAI then this would apply to you (granted you have a short ram). With the open air filter sitting in the engine bay it's subject to getting heat on it period, right? You can't really get around it. Especially depending on outside air temperature anyhow. You may not realize how it actually affects the engine. There's a lot of science behind cold air and why it's better for your engine

Nobody seems to get really technical about the intake system, how it works, why some materials are better than others, or ideas to make it better so I thought it'd be a cool thread. Constructive ideas only please. Kthx I'll probably do this to my car really soon.


Here. This is kind of the idea. I don't know about that thing around the filter but you definately see what I'm getting at - force feeding some good cold constant air to the filter. I imagine the cold air feed on our cars would come from the fender area just like a true CAI would..
Fitted cold air feed pipe to my K&n Apollo - Astra Owners Network Forum | MK1 - MK6 | VXR | T8 | T9 | Zafira | Astra Van

 

[Nemesis]

Its a good idea, but at full cruise your intake temps even with a short ram are still fairly close to ambient , maybe only slightly higher. However, heat soak conditions arise in stop and go traffic, where even a cold air feed will require frontward movement to generate a rush of cool air. Cold air intakes are still pulling air from outside the bay because it seals off the bay entirely.

 

[B3NN3TT]

My 2¢ - pretty useless. It's no good unless you are moving, which defeats the purpose entirely of having a cold-air intake. Even a heat-soaked short ram gets a breeze when the vehicle starts moving. You need a cold air source when sitting still, so you can have a nice dense charge for taking off.

EDIT: which is pretty much the same thing George just said :rofl:

 

[CodyTRX]

Yeah, you guys are right. Not totally useless though, IMO.

If your moving I imagine that it would be better just because of the rush of outside air hitting the filter where as if you didn't have the feed you can't really focus that air to hit the filter. I know some air comes through the fender hole where the stock intake was but not a great deal. The battery and tray pretty much block it from the front.

Getting one of those 'housings' for the filter looks nice. But I'm not sure if that's letting it breathe freely.

 

[CodyTRX]

After researching a lil' more I found that BAT inc has EXACTLY what I was talking about.
http://97.74.103.94/files/cengine.pdf
HA! Thought it was pretty cool.

 

[ND4SPD]

They blue snake'y tube thing? Yeah, I suppose, but I would stick with the tried and true method that Cougar people have been doing for over 5 years - extension pipes to relocate the filter outside.

 

[Tygerr]

That blue piping looks like a waste of money. You could get a cold air extension for a lot cheaper. Once we found out we could get a real cold air intake. No one's really bothered, because there's no need to.

If you're at the track, you can remove the drivers head light for a few runs. It actually helped me when I had a short ram, but it's not practical for every day.

 

[NanoVirus]

The CAI kit and the inlet pipe together come out to about $250, which is significantly cheaper and lighter than a standard CAI system. I just have 2 questions about it:

1. Would that work with the AEM bypass valve?

2. Is their inlet pipe required or would it work fine with the stock one?

 

[CodyTRX]

The CAI kit and the inlet pipe together come out to about $250, which is significantly cheaper and lighter than a standard CAI system. I just have 2 questions about it:

1. Would that work with the AEM bypass valve?

2. Is their inlet pipe required or would it work fine with the stock one?

You wouldn't need the AEM bypass valve with this particular kit. It forces air from outside TO the filter without the filter being outside. Any chances of hydrolock are pretty much non-existent.

I'm not knocking a true CAI at all, I'm afraid people are going to start sending me death threats, lol. This is just a different method of getting 'cold' air.

 

[Jasonspero]

You wouldn't need the AEM bypass valve with this particular kit. It forces air from outside TO the filter without the filter being outside. Any chances of hydrolock are pretty much non-existent.

I would take the odds you are wrong at vegas all day...

Forces air from outside... Yes Air and rain........ Dude let me know when you blow your engine mmmmkay...

 

[Devin]

just attach a box of peanuts to your filter...

 

[CodyTRX]

I would take the odds you are wrong at vegas all day...

Forces air from outside... Yes Air and rain........ Dude let me know when you blow your engine mmmmkay...

:goofy:

 

[ND4SPD]

You wouldn't need the AEM bypass valve with this particular kit. It forces air from outside TO the filter without the filter being outside. Any chances of hydrolock are pretty much non-existent.

I'm not knocking a true CAI at all, I'm afraid people are going to start sending me death threats, lol. This is just a different method of getting 'cold' air.

I wouldn't worry about that... I can't recall a SINGLE Cougar which has been a victim of "hydro lock". Many of us have driven through torrential downpours and have never had a problem.
Unless you are in water deep enough to submerge the air filter, there won't be a problem. And *IF* if you are in water deep enough to submerge the filter, you better believe you have bigger problems! :rofl:

 

[B3NN3TT]

JAMallott bent a con rod from water ingestion, but he was running a cold-air unit without any splash guards under the front bumper.

 

[NanoVirus]

I think it would be ok and wouldn't cause an installation issue if the bypass were located directy behind the filter. The thing about the blue tube is that it takes water in directly and if you're on the highway during rain it'll constantly be sucking up spray that'll condense into larger water droplets that will eventually travel up the pipe and saturate the filter. It's ribbed like a whale condom (couldn't resist) so the inlet would have to be mounted in the grill like a jet intake to achieve max airflow (e.g. not behind the bumper), otherwise it wouldn't perform comparably to the standard NPG extension on whatever brand SR. Not really worth mentioning is that the car has to be moving to force the air in from the grill, but who gives a poop when it's idling? On a side note, it probably sounds like poop and a blue "RV bilge hose" in the motor would look particularly ghetto without the fabulous. Also, there's no telling how durable the thing is. SO, weighing the pro (being price) and conS, I think it would be worth it to spend more for something that looks and sounds much better even if the performance happens to be the same. :smoke-t:

 

[B3NN3TT]

WOULD YOU LET THE BYPASS VALVE GO!?!?!

You can throw an entire bucket of water on your air filter, if you like, with no results. The intake will only ingest water if it is submerged.

I used to spray water DIRECTLY into the throttle body of my Saturn while it was running to release stuck rings. The steam created in the combustion chamber takes all the carbon off the piston heads and sometimes frees stuck piston rings, for which the Saturn S-Series was notorious. It's a common remedy that many Saturn owners use.

NOBODY USES A BYPASS VALVE on NECO; IT IS NOT AN ISSUE. Use it yourself if you like, but for God's sake, STOP BRINGING IT UP IN EVERY POST!!!

 

[skater]

However, heat soak conditions arise in stop and go traffic...

...which is the last place where you need a lot of power anyway.

 

[CodyTRX]

I think it would be ok and wouldn't cause an installation issue if the bypass were located directy behind the filter. The thing about the blue tube is that it takes water in directly and if you're on the highway during rain it'll constantly be sucking up spray that'll condense into larger water droplets that will eventually travel up the pipe and saturate the filter. It's ribbed like a whale condom (couldn't resist) so the inlet would have to be mounted in the grill like a jet intake to achieve max airflow (e.g. not behind the bumper), otherwise it wouldn't perform comparably to the standard NPG extension on whatever brand SR. Not really worth mentioning is that the car has to be moving to force the air in from the grill, but who gives a poop when it's idling? On a side note, it probably sounds like poop and a blue "RV bilge hose" in the motor would look particularly ghetto without the fabulous. Also, there's no telling how durable the thing is. SO, weighing the pro (being price) and conS, I think it would be worth it to spend more for something that looks and sounds much better even if the performance happens to be the same. :smoke-t:

Okay, worry wart. Look at it this way. Do you know how some FACTORY vehicles have 'ram-air' which is essentially what I'm getting at; a cold air feed to the intake? Well, do they use an AEM bypass valve? No, lol. They sure don't...With a TRUE CAI I would totally understand getting a bypass valve for insurance purposes but it's overkill for something like this. Even our STOCK intake systems use a cold-air feed in the fenderwell, lol.

Just when you put an aftermarket intake system on you get robbed of ANY cold air, basically. Which sux

 

[StuartGrant]

From what I can tell, this has it's own inherent bypass valve. Because the system can take air from both inside the engine compartment and from under the bumper. even if the cold air intake were submerged in water, as has already been stated you will have other problems, the vacuum formed by the intake action of the engine, which isn't that much, will do the least work to release that vacuum, so it should draw air from the engine compartment all day without a single drop of water coming up the CAI.

As for condensation inside the tube getting pulled into the engine, well it's probably better off than a standard cold air intake. A standard CAI gets splashed with water, but the filter stops any from getting in the engine when in a liquid state, allowing water vapor to be the only thing that gets trough which is generally harmless to the engine and is not generally filtered out with any sort of filter. Since the CAI on the system in question has a filter far removed from the ground, inside the cone filter of the SRI part of the system, there would less water splashed or misted on the filter than on a normal unit, but likely the same level of water vapor would make it to the engine.

With the question of hydro lock hopefully taken care of in a logical manner, the general effectiveness of this product should come into question. If the system can draw air from the engine compartment at and the bumper, logic would dictate that there must be some added resistance to drawing from the engine compartment that is greater than the resistance of that coiled tubing, which can be fairly high, other wise the system would do the least work, and draw from the engine compartment. This means that the engine does a little more work to breath, and will almost always try to breath cold air except under high load situations, such as high rpm when it would draw far more air and get a larger percentage than normally from the engine compartment, meaning larger net airflow and lowered resistance, and as George already pointed out, at cruise where higher rpm's are usually experienced, engine air temp is nearly at atmo. I haven't done any research into intake air velocity and how it affects vehicle performance though, so I cant say whether this would mean any gains, but from the generally idea I have gotten on the subject, i.e. more flow = more power, it should have some minute affect (I think that's the right use for affect vs effect). EDIT: ignore that last sentence, it was retarded of me to think that volume vs speed would change anything at all, since that air will speed up and compress down into the UIM to the same level anyways, potential difference and all that crap.

So, in short, safer cold air, but might loose a minuscule amount of power at low RPM's, with a potential for a very small added bonus at high rpm's.

Well, hope I made some useful and valid points here.

 

[CodyTRX]

Thought this was a good read.
. . . r a m a i r s s . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram-air_intake

Go down the road at 50MPH, stick your hand out the window and feel the push the wind provides. Imagine focusing that