Air intake mods

[Tagged]

Hey guys,

I've been thinking about this question for a long time...and finally, here it is.

We see people changing their air intake systems all the time. And the most common mod is to simply pull out the stock air-filter, and replace it with a shiny new after market one.

Does this kind of mod actually do anything at all? I mean....usually the stock air intake has a pipe that goes somewhere to the front of the car which improves airflow and enable the car to intake cooler air.

Now its replaced with a after market pod filter sitting in the middle of the engine bay taking in all the hot air....how is this any better???

I actually know extreme little about cars comparing to most people around here....so if this seems to be a stupid question please forgive me

and by the way what I described above is exactly what my car has....which came like that when I bought it...and im thinking about changing it if its not gonna be some huge pain...

[sergei]

If your car standard (no huge cams/aftermarket ECU) reverted to standard air box, it will have more torque and power across the board that way.

Perhaps on american/russian/chinese cars these filters have gains, but on japanese they only do harm.

[Dell'Orto]

Pretty much, an exposed pod filter will lose you power, as its just sucking hot air. Set up right, they can gain you power over the standard system.

[Tagged]

Pretty much, an exposed pod filter will lose you power, as its just sucking hot air. Set up right, they can gain you power over the standard system.

take this one for example; http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Motor ... 218885.htm

what would you do to have it set up right?

this levins air intake in very similar to mine, almost identical Id say, pod filter, stock air box totally stripped out

[d1 mule]

cheapest/easiest option would be return back to stock

however if you feel like spending a few dollard and having a bit of a challenge.

move the battery to the boot
put the filter where the battery used to be, build a cold air box around the filter to sheild the hot engine-bay air from the filter
run some sort of ducting to the inner front of the car/wheel well etc to "suck" cold air

sorted

similar to this s15
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Motor ... 200444.htm

[RobertC]

Pretty much, an exposed pod filter will lose you power, as its just sucking hot air. Set up right, they can gain you power over the standard system.

take this one for example; http://www.trademe.co.nz/Trade-Me-Motor ... 218885.htm

what would you do to have it set up right?

this levins air intake in very similar to mine, almost identical Id say, pod filter, stock air box totally stripped out

That will just suck in lots of cold air.

Here are a few options that should make better use of cold air available.

Pod filter in front guard in front of wheel.


Pod filter in front guard in front of wheel. (Acesnipers car)


Full arc setup with heat shield and duct fruuing from front grill. (BRZ4AGE's car)

[Tagged]

cheapest/easiest option would be return back to stock

however if you feel like spending a few dollard and having a bit of a challenge.
.......

I've actually had this in mind quite a while ago, however a little different. Instead of having the battery moved to the boot, it would swap position with where the stock air-box/filter would be. I've seen some one did this and I guess it would be less complicated?

And how much would I be looking at if I want to go ahead with this and where would be a good place to go?

[Dell'Orto]

Do that

[Tagged]

Here are a few options that should make better use of cold air available.
.....

thanks man these are actually really good~
I've seen lots of people using this ARC system, where do you get them and how much do they cost roughly?

[Kiwi-Corolla]

Short ram intakes where the filter sits inside the engine bay are a waste of time. They lower your power output but increase your fuel economy. It's very common for 'eco-modders' to make short ram intakes for the sake of getting a few extra miles per gallon.

From a performance point of view, a cold air intake where the filter is located outside of the engine bay or inside a sealed box is a much better set-up. Even a K&N panel filter inside the stock airbox would be more beneficial than a short ram intake.

I made a custom CAI on my AE100 Corolla by using a couple of 45-degree 3" intercooler pipes and a few silicone joiners. The pod filter is located behind the bumper on the passenger's side, high enough so that it won't suffer from hydrolocking, yet low enough so that it sucks up as much cold air as possible.

All you have to do is remove the factory airbox, ducting and the resonator box which sits between the passenger's side guard and the bumper. The piping leads from the throttle body, straight down and through the hole where the intake resonator used to be.

All it takes is about $70-100 for the parts and about 1-2 hours of your time. Simple and effective

Here's my original write-up:
http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/showt ... ?p=3259718

And here's a guide that was written based on my instructions:
http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/showt ... p?t=354338

Some photos of the finished product:

[RobertC]

Here are a few options that should make better use of cold air available.
.....

thanks man these are actually really good~
I've seen lots of people using this ARC system, where do you get them and how much do they cost roughly?

only available 2nd hand now. Price if one was to pop up on trademe would be about $500 for the pair of parts.

[Alex B]

Had that setup on the integra, saw a couple of very dead engines on NZH in heavy rain so put it in the engine bay. Prefer its getting warm air than hydro locked.

[Kiwi-Corolla]

Had that setup on the integra, saw a couple of very dead engines on NZH in heavy rain so put it in the engine bay. Prefer its getting warm air than hydro locked.

In order to hydrolock the engine you'd have to literally fully submerge the pod filter in water (past bumper height), and if anyone's silly enough to do that then they deserve all that they get . The photo is quite deceptive as it makes the pod filter look a lot lower than it really is (it also makes the splash guard look extremely close to the tyre when in reality it's miles away, lol).

I've never had a problem with my set-up, however if someone lived in an area which is prone to high levels of flooding then having the pod filter located next to the battery would be a better idea. Otherwise, it won't cause any issues

[Burning Angel]

I have this set up on the starlet, up high in direct frontal airflow beside the radiator.



It works really well, i have an iat sensor and dont really get much heat soak even when not moving.

[B_giB]

Oiled filters can be known to kill AFM;'s

[gt4dude]

From my experience a high flow drop in filter is the same as having a clean cotton filter.

Piping the pod filter into the wheel arch made a huge difference throughout the entire rev range on a 3s-ge as did modifying the acis opening rpm.

Pod filter in the engine bay is less powerful during the day, but better than stock at night. It's just there to look and sound cool

[sergei]

The problem with filter in engine bay is not only hot air, the air intake is tuned to be certain length/volume to fix torque dips otherwise you would get without.

First thing people do is chuck away resonators from the intake and mess with length of the pipes. This upsets whole acoustics of the inlet tract and where it was optimised to cure the drops in torque curve, now it will have massive holes.

People who put filters in engine bay and claim that in cold weather it actually better, all they feel is a massive dip in the torque curve which then ramps up back to normal as RPM rises, thus making them believe it pulls harder. Just like disabling TVIS on a 4AGE.

People cannot feel the difference between power outputs unless it is in order of magnitude higher. You can drop power by 50% in such way that torque curve will remain the same (while having lower peak) and people will not notice, but if you create dip on lower RPM (so it produces less torque on lower RPM) and bring it back up to normal on higher, and they will feel as if car pulls harder.

You can simulate the effect buy keeping 30% throttle until ~4500rpm and then flooring it - it will feel fast does it not? Although if you put same car next your one, and it will start off 100% throttle, while you do 30% until ~4500rpm, obviously the car with 100% throttle will be faster.

[Kiwi-Corolla]

The problem with filter in engine bay is not only hot air, the air intake is tuned to be certain length/volume to fix torque dips otherwise you would get without.

First thing people do is chuck away resonators from the intake and mess with length of the pipes. This upsets whole acoustics of the inlet tract and where it was optimised to cure the drops in torque curve, now it will have massive holes.

Very true. The factory set-up on my Corolla had a strange looking resonator which branched off the hose leading from the airbox to the throttle body (not to be confused with the large resonator box behind the front bumper). I never knew what it was for until I read an article in a Hot 4s magazine back in 2001 where they tried various sized resonators (things such as a Coke bottle, old oil bottle, resonators from different vehicles etc), which were backed up by dyno results.

I learnt that it wasn't just there for the sake of it or to reduce emissions, but that it was actually designed to match the particular characteristics of the engine and can have a huge effect on the smoothness of the power delivery and bottom-end torque. Most of us remove this part when we replace our intakes with a nice shiny aluminum pipe and pod filter, but by doing this we are actually reducing power.

According to the dyno results, removing the inlet resonator will see drops of around 3kW-5kW throughout the entire rev range, with things starting to return to normal around the 6000rpm mark. Manufacturers such as ARC now even have inlet resonators side-branched off some of their intake systems.

A larger inlet resonator will produce slightly better top end results, while a smaller inlet resonator will see slightly better performance in the lower rev range. The differences in power definitely aren't mind blowing, but apparently you should notice better response depending on the size of your resonator. Bear in mind that you must have a clean air filter or you won't see any gains no matter what you do.

So at the end of the day, if you have the option to keep the inlet resonator, do it. If not, then it's no great loss, but a loss nevertheless

[Makaveli]

Car manufacturer's spend millions of dollars in R&D to provide a best compromise between: fuel economy, noise levels (induction noise) and performance. Not sure how could someone come up with a better solution without doing a lot of testing and having some sort of qualification in Engineering.

There are various things to consider:
1) Ideally a filter should be stored in some some of an enclosure away from heat sources such as engine block and radiator etc.(most factory setups)
2) There is usually a duct that feeds cold air from outside the car into this air filter/box enclosure usually from the front grill or bonnet gap (most factory setups).
3) Usually entire air intake system is made of plastic. Plastic is better at keeping the heat away than say aluminum (most factory setups).

Aftermarket setups:
1) Shiny aluminum piping for "bling bling" factor
2) Whale P***s setups ups. Not sure how is this going to improve performance, considering the Throttle Body and intake ports remain factory size????
3) Pod Filters: more induction noise

The best way to find out if the aftermarket parts that you want to buy actually improve performance is to compare them to a racing car setup.

[1I1]

Don't the super GT cars have restrictors? (possibly got that wrong)


A bit of a read, but someone who has played around with intake setups on a dyno
http://nzhondas.com/forum/na-tuning/123 ... setup.html