What do you think?

[ChevyBoy13]

^^^ what he said.

 

[jonwin]

Is there any performance gains compared to an open air element with a functioning cowl induction hood ? Just curious as I have been bouncing between the two options, and this looks really nice

Well a cold air intake is isolated for the most part from the rest of the engine bay thus sucking in cold dense air through the grille where as in a open element with cowl induction is open to the engine bay sucking in warmer air getting not as good of a combustion.

 

[vipergtrdj]

Well a cold air intake is isolated for the most part from the rest of the engine bay thus sucking in cold dense air through the grille where as in a open element with cowl induction is open to the engine bay sucking in warmer air getting not as good of a combustion.

hmmmm makes sense - do you notice any performance difference from stock?

 

[Chris]

Well a cold air intake is isolated for the most part from the rest of the engine bay thus sucking in cold dense air through the grille where as in a open element with cowl induction is open to the engine bay sucking in warmer air getting not as good of a combustion.

Lol, no. When you're dealing with wet manifold design, the temperature of the incoming air really doesn't matter that much. (unless you're driving through a wildfire with ambient at ~170F) Due to the fuel being introduced high in the intake tract, you get charge cooling associated with the phenomenon known as latent heat of vaporization. We already know that figure is roughly 150Btu/lb when measured at ambient, gasoline weighs 6lbs per gallon so in theory it's transferring in the neighborhood of 1000Btu of thermal energy out of the combustible volume for every gallon used. AKA - the base of the throttle body is always cold, even though it could be 100 degrees outside. The ducting OEMs use has more to do with introducing air to the engine at a stable temperature, than actually benefitting the combustion process. I agree though, cooler air can be of benefit seeing as it's denser, and more fuel can be combusted in that environment even though it's not increasing the actual volume of air introduced. Warmer air (to a point) is actually better for the combustion process, since it's less dense it causes less of a parasitic draw on the engine, and the warmer the air the more likely the fuel is to stay atomized.

 

[Southern Pride]

Chris you souind like a mad scientist. I've been wanting to go to the single stud open element kit, it won't hurt anything will it? (Is what I just gathered from what you said) and doesn't make a difference really on my TBI 350?

 

[Chris]

Chris you souind like a mad scientist. I've been wanting to go to the single stud open element kit, it won't hurt anything will it? (Is what I just gathered from what you said) and doesn't make a difference really on my TBI 350?

No, I just paid attention in college apparently.


No it won't hurt anything. It'll sound like ten thousand screaming ****** when you floor it with the windows up though. (may or may not be a bad thing)

 

[sewlow]

Instead of trying to cool the air for a denser charge, why not use the old drag race trick of using a 'cool can' to cool the fuel itself? The cooled fuel would be more dense than it would be at the ambient air temp, therefore more power.

 

[Chris]

Instead of trying to cool the air for a denser charge, why not use the old drag race trick of using a 'cool can' to cool the fuel itself? The cooled fuel would be more dense than it would be at the ambient air temp, therefore more power.

There's a reason tricks like that are called "old school," because people for the most part didn't know any better. Depending on the chemical makeup, some liquids will vary very little at all over the range of their thermal capacity. Gasoline is one example. Cooling it has no (by "no," i mean no substantial effect warranting explanation) effect on it's ability to flash into a vapor. The only circumstance a fuel cooler is useful is when a vehicle is operating in extremely high ambient temperatures that could possibly cause the fuel to boil under pressure in the lines. Maybe if you tried to make dyno runs inside a clay kiln you'd have that problem. On the street, notsomuch.

 

[sewlow]

LOL! Not the first time I've been told that I don't know any better! ("You just couldn't leave it well enough alone, could you?"-Dad!)

 

[darren250r]

Looks clean. Just wondering why you didn't build that setup on the passenger side where the cold air is already coming through the stock location on the inside of the fender?