Can I just add,

How cute, people who think they know about cars… CAI’s are a favorite of the honda wannabe kids. Unless your car is horribly designed by idiots a CAI will not help you. Just like how a K&N filter wont help you, or any miracles in a bottle, or any special sparkplugs….

Hack a day is not the place to find REAL automotive information. Go find a website where real people are doing real stuff to their cars.

Posted at 5:48 am on Mar 17th, 2010 by fartface

I know of a miracle in a bottle. K Seal, I poured this into my radiator on my Nissan people carrier with suspected warped Head, confirmed by a Nissan dealer mechanic. Coolant would escape the radiator cap, and the engine would overheat. A further test confirmed it by a colour change in the test tool. Repair estimate just over £1000, K-Seal fixed it for £15, the engine temp never rose above normal. The engine outlived the car!!
Now, about this Hack. Stop slagging each other off. People want to learn and improve their cars. The stock intake is designed to keep engine noise to a minimum and reduce emissions. Obviously you have to mod other things to make a whole improvement, I find car forums full of people who scorn rather than teach, Hackaday provides information on a Hacked device, the OP’s car has been Hacked. Somebody do a Hack on there intake and do a write up. Provide us with hard evidence of what you have measured and teach us how to Hack our intakes. I personaly did my last vehicle, because it would jump out of first gear and I often stalled the engine when I pulled away in 2nd gear. Instead of revving more, I changed the air intake instead of my driving style and hardly ever stalled the engine.

Mike:)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_sensor

Might be a good reference article.

As for the repeated fingerwagglings over what does or does not do what? Hacking has a tradition to uphold. We used to be in the forefront of showing “Proof Of Concepts” as truly observable Fait Accompli demos. Yes, there’s always an element of not the final build methods so to speak. But lest we forget?

The first variants of however many different Hacks we share on some basic concept ALL add to our data bases of what “works and why or not”

Post new info- cool- dissing etc in a non-productive fashion is Zero Cool ok?

typo on the 14.6:1

Hi, Automotive Engineer here.

I’m sorry, but cold air intake systems are more or less a joke. If you’d like to understand why, install air temperature probes inside your engine, Yeah, yeah, you’ll have to drill some holes, but here’s what you’d find:

Yes, you are getting cooler air in the INTAKE TUBE. However, as soon as you enter the throttle body, you are faced with lots of thermally conductive metal which is at operating temperature – As the air travels through the throttle body, intake runners, and eventually into the cylinder head, it heats up. The temperature difference between air entering from a true “cold air intake” and your factory designed airbox is negligible. A *real* dyno test will show this – I’m not talking about the doctored dyno tests that cold air intake manufacturers show you; I’m talking about an objective test which plots your torque curve vs RPM, with the same conditions each time.

IMO, the small difference is not worth it. If you take the integral of the curve on some engine condigiurations, you will find that you have hardly gained anything, and have simply “moved” power from a lower RPM to a higher one, or vice versa.

Cold air intakes are for kids who like bling bling under their hoods. Nothing beats a properly tuned (professionally modified or stock) engine management system. These claims of huge power/economy increases with cold air intakes are 100% bunk!!!

Of course the big question is “did he really drop the temps 50f,” because I doubt he got more than a few degrees for his trouble.

Amazingly car manufacturers aren’t stupid, and neither are the guys selling after market bolt ons.

I agree with jim – there’s no simple way to gain much more efficiency from engines, because the engineers usually know what they’re doing.

But I did do this on my rav4 (for less), and did find slightly higher manifold pressures and lower intake temps:
http://picasaweb.google.com/otterpopjunkie/MyRav4ColdAirRamIntake#

The downside is you have to clean your air filter more often. But it does sound a little better and I did possibly yield 5hp more.

Seems this is a perfect example of to many people and too little knowledge. There is a reason import 4 bangers are so efficient and powerful. They use Turbos to get high compression, which equals power, but does nothing to hurt efficiency, where as US manufacturers use various Piston, connecting rod, and cylinder dome configurations to get higher compression for power. The US method is more wear on the engine, and lowers efficiency. The Jap method is more elegant, as it provides the power when you need it, while reducing fuel consumption and wear. The most efficient engine is a low compression engine, which is what a Jap engine is when the turbo is not spooled up. I am generalizing a bit, but if you want specifics, look at the NA 4G63 mitsubishi engine compared to the turbo 4G63 build. Both get great mileage. Both have cold air intake. They improve the cold air intake and add the turbo, with no loss on efficiency, and great power gains. Now take a same year US model 2.0 liter engine and compare (compare NA models to NA, or Turbo to Turbo)it to the 4G63. It lacks the power and efficiency of the Jap designed engine. The biggest issue is the stock compression ratio. Any external engine mods net you more power by increasing either efficiency or air flow. Increasing air flow does not harm efficiency, so either way, you get power with no loss, and possible gains. Any internal changes to net more power cause a decrease in efficiency with two exceptions. The first goes back to air flow. Porting heads and opening up valves nets power gains, while not causing losses in efficiency if taken by itself. The second is removing moving mass from the engine. Boring out cams, shaving mass off crank lobes, removing rotating parts that can be done away with (i.e. the balancing shaft of a mitsubishi 4G63), or even oil scrapers to remove excess oil from crank lobes. The only internal mods left all increase compression. This kills efficiency, but does net HP. You want more power, better gas mileage, and no loss on efficiency, try these things…. Cold air intake. Aluminum is NOT the best choice under the hood. It is great outside the engine compartment, but bad inside for the same reason. It has a high rate of heat exchange. You want that outside the hot engine compartment, but not in it. Plastic actualy is best inside, unless you use jet coat or another ceramic or other based heat shield on the intake under the hood. Try reducing driveline weight. I knocked something like 60 pounds off my drive shaft on a 3000GT VR4 by using a single peice carbon fibre shaft to replace the 3 piece steel one. The added gain was a rebuildable drive shaft, where as the stock one was not. Driveshaft was garbage because a $20 u-joint was not replacable. On my Hummer H3, 3000GT and eagle talon Turbos, I see gains from using lighter wheel and tire combinations. I also use these same techniques on bikes. If the vehicle is new, and has not seen many oil changes, flush everything and go with a high grade synthetic (do not do this on an old engine It will knock) The decrease in friction will improve efficiency, and net less wear for a longer life.

I’m writing this because I want to learn some things about my car & having to read a ton of ‘trash talk’ is sure slowing that goal down.
A few people have noticed that all these posts give more information about the writer than the subject.
Yeah, the webmaster is the winner, bringing out a huge crowd of people with relationship problems (name calling, etc. – ’cause maybe you can’t talk to your ‘Old Lady’ this way?).
This attitude is not helping any of the forums I’ve tried, but hey, I guess it’s better to vent here than punch somebody out – or not.