Air Intake Exercise

[Steve-B]

Hey Guys,
Well im abit of a tinker-er. And i was thinking lately or pulling the front bar off, maybe getting a smaller performance battery and running a pipe from the passenger side fog light, up the the airbox and replace the less than perfect intake they have so far.
BUT,
on the train this morning, i had a different thought. If you turn the standard airbox upside down, so the turbo intake air comes from the bottom not the top, and the af meter would be on the bottom as well, then running abit of stainless 2 or 2.5 inch mandrel bent pipe from the now top hole, through the bonnet vent and towards the oncoming air...
So i was thinking, flip the airbox upside down, modify the air box to turbo inlet pipe shorter cause it will be less distance, remove the crap pipe that runs from airbox to over the radiator that really would pick up little to no air. then mod the mesh and shark gill bonnet grille, and get a piece of pipe bent to go from top of airbox, up and out of the bonnet vent and face towards the oncoming air...

So to start with, what i need to buy, cause i want to be able to return the car to standard if i have to.
air box to turbo inlet pipe ( modified smaller one )
new standard airbox ( i was going to cut the mounts off it so i can adapt them to the flip side of my airbox ) EDIT: screw that, too expensive, going to get some scrap metal and making some custom mounts for it.
some stainless pipe
New bonnet mesh to be modified
new bonnet grille to be modified.
Will try and get prices for all of them and go from there...Was thinking of getting some fine mesh to cover the inlet of the pipe that is getting air from the outside to stop bugs and etc, then drilling some holes in the stainless pipe so that water etc can drop out the bottom and not make the filter too dirty....

Thoughts ?

[GavinTan]

I think it's a good idea however I was thinking if the pipe was from the front fog lights when you're driving there would be a lot of high velocity and pressurised air that will be scooped into the air filter. However by having the pipe from the top of the bonnet the airflow was designed to flow over the car thus having less air being drawn into it. I remember reading an article somewhere on this...

http://autospeed.drive.com.au/cms/A_2518/article.html

http://autospeed.drive.com.au/cms/A_2081/article.html

I think there is enough information there to get you intrigued...

[27AME]

tingtw actually bought these things that replace your fog lights - they're an intake thing so maybe try using that.

[Steve-B]

yeah, tingtw just has an intake tube that has a bellmouth. Wanted to make something abit more custom.
I'll read up on those links now, cheers gavin.
My general idea was, a wrx has a bonnet scoop, with no internal fan behind the top mount intercooler, and that is seen as enough to cool the intake system. Also when the car is revving / driving, the air is being "sucked" in from the pipe, so if that is outside the car ( aka engine bay, away from engine heat), then its fresh, cool, undisturbed air.

[GavinTan]

The WRX has an air scoop at the top which catches the air thus creating fast air pressure into the bonnet (Venturi Principle). Without the scoop i.e. the Colt Ralliart bonnet the air pressure I believe is lower thus it is harder to get air the faster your drive the car. Very much related to the Bernoulli Principle of air pressure as well. The bonnet vents on the Lancer Evo and Colt R's are meant to just release heat for better cooling I remember reading from somewhere.

[Steve-B]

from looking at the bonnet, with the crest that runs up the middle and the bump before vent, it leads me to believe the air will split and bump, but the pipe i will have extruding, think of a 90degree bend from inside the bay, out the vent, then more pipe going towards the bump of the vent ( front of the bonnet scoop ) it would HAVE to work better than the silly pickup we have at the mo thats under the bonnet and btwn the raidiator.

[fuse01]

http://img170.imageshack.us/img170/9937/airlo5.jpg

this should help ..:)

by the way why are you on a train when you should be driving

[Steve-B]

hmmm, should work.

[Macca]

please take in to consideration the amount of rain the intake is going to pick up, i dont wanna see you poor engine dead from hyrda lock.

on comming out the bonnet vent will pick up alot of water

same with one on the bumper but not as much.

i also think that out bonnet vent with its lil lip would create a low pressure area over the vent, and with the incomming air from the radiator the engine would have a high pressure in it, thus the hot air would be sucked out of the engine and over the car, IRL the pressure differences wond be much, but enough to make a difference, and also hot air rises hehe.

[Steve-B]

hmmm water. would be a straight trip to the turbo...maybe a rethink is in order..

[hendo]

fog light intake wont work. have a look and u will see what i mean i wanted 2 do it but there is no room as far as i can see to put in a pipe

[Steve-B]

its worked on afew of the euro boys cars ive been told...

[ShortShift]

Why has no mentioned that because its a turbo this is all a bit pointless???
The notion behind modified air intake is to get more air flowing faster and cooler/denser air in the system. Highest flow + down low. Which can work wonders on an NA system especially considering the effect of varied intake length has on an NA engine.
However on the rcolt regardless of how cool the air you manage to get into your start of your intake it's still going to jump upteen degrees centigrade when it hits the turbo.
A single pipe from turbo to a pod filter with the MAF sensor built in is going to be the highest flow, most effective option.
There will be more noticeable gains for researching turbo>cooler>throttle body mods, wastegate adjustment, BOV, ecu etc.

[Steve-B]

just trying to do the most mods with my limited budget mate. Plus i know nothing of mechanical engineering and have no tools to fab up all those great idea's.