Anyone here build your own cold air intake?

[JR]

It's hot down here in the Southeast, and I'm tired of my 70 sucking in hot air from the engine bay.

I really don't want to run a hoodscoop.

Looking through Google shows me some cold air intakes people have fabbed from Spectre parts, or the Ramairbox.com kit.





Another idea that's kind of out there;

I have a 69 Camaro chin spoiler, I thought it would be neat to find some ducts to cut into them, and  maybe tie the air intake into there. Like race cars do for brake ducts.


I'm not sure what problems that could cause in a practical application, though.

Any ideas, I'd like to see how you guys have done yours. I found a couple of older threads, I was hoping some more guys here have fresh ideas.

[68X426]

Spectre has lots of products to build a "custom" intake, many ways to go with them.  And seems like good quality.

I didn't go that route however, because after mocking up a system it looked so damn ugly and out-of-place (on my Hemi Road Runner) that I chose to not build one.  It was just too unconventional, and hurt my eyes. 

[JR]

I agree they can look ugly if not done right. I'm really not concerned with it looking original under the hood, if it makes the engine run better, I'm all for it. (So long as it doesn't look completely hack.)

I actually got to thinking about it after watching a Jay Leno's garage episode about his 66 Galaxy. He had the same issues (heat soak in a hot climate causing power loss above all else). They ended up 3d printing a custom breather assembly, and it turned out nice and functional.



Of course, I don't have the ability to custom form my own intake and print one on demand, but I'd like to see what solutions others have come up with too.

[WHITE AND RED 69]

I played around with some of the Spectre kits and tried to piece one together on my 69. I originally was going to move the battery to the trunk and build enclosures on both sides of the radiator but on mine the a/c compressor, a/c lines, and heater hoses ruined the flow of how I wanted to run the tubes. I also couldn't bring myself to cut holes in the core support to get the cold air to the enclosures so I scrapped the idea.

First pic was one of the kits I played with. I wanted a larger plenum but had to use their low profile one since all others hit the electric choke or the hood. The filters were meant to get cold air but couldn't get them where I wanted so it was more of a hot air intake.    I left it like this for a while till I built my current air cleaner.

The second pic is what I wanted to have mine look like but too many components got in the way.  

[WHITE AND RED 69]

Another idea I am going to try to build (I am planning on doing this for brake cooling ducts but it would work for an intake as well) is use a small section of the lower valance opening for cold air inlets. They would be painted black and fit the contour of the valance opening so it hopefully will blend in and not be that noticeable.

[JR]

Wow putting them in the corners of the valence is a really good idea. There are a couple of square openings already in my core support that could possibly be used for ducting.

At the risk of asking a dumb question, what material would you form the inlet scoops from? How are you going to fab those?

What material? Aluminum? Thick plastic?

[RamZCharger]

Aluminum all the way.  Great material and not too difficult to work with.  There is a bit more info on my build thread.

[RamZCharger]

You can also deflect air where you may want it to go.  I am collecting and channeling air from in front of the radiator support and through it to my intake.  I also had a gap under my radiator, so directed air up through it.

[WHITE AND RED 69]

Wow putting them in the corners of the valence is a really good idea. There are a couple of square openings already in my core support that could possibly be used for ducting.

At the risk of asking a dumb question, what material would you form the inlet scoops from? How are you going to fab those?

What material? Aluminum? Thick plastic?

Aluminum would be the best but I think I'm going to use some ABS plastic to form the inlet opening and then bond it to a pre-made duct (1st pic) to make it look like one piece. That way the tubing can connect perfectly to it without any issues. Then I would just rivet the inlet directly to the valance.

If the plastic isn't strong enough then I'll try it with aluminum and use something like these aluminum duct flanges (2nd pic) and weld it to the inlet for the hose to attach to. But I don't have much experience welding aluminum so I'd mock it up and farm out the welding to someone who knows what they are doing.

[JR]

Wow, thats really good input guys.

Really clean work.

Im thinking I may have to relocate the battery with my 440. Space is tight underhood here.

Im picking up a thermometer with a probe to measure the current underhood temps to get a baseline before i start tinkering with the breather.

And while were on the subject of reducing intake temps, have you guys ever tried water methanol injection? It seems really popular in turbo applications,  s
It seems like it would certainly help here.

[A383Wing]

I made my own on the Daytona....outside air is cooler than underhood air

[JR]

Well, playing around with engine tuning today, I learned a couple of things.

I got a lab quality thermometer with a remote probe, and decided to see how much hot air the engine was inhaling.

With an outside temp of 87 degrees, and the engine at running temperature,  190 degrees, the air in the filter housing measured;

Below 35 MPH: 145 Degrees.

45-65 MPH: 133 Degrees.

In this very quick and crude test drive, the engine is breathing air around 50 degrees hotter than the outside air temp.

I have no clue how much efficiency would be gained if the engine were getting the colder air instead, but im sure the difference would be worth the effort.

[myk]

Good thinking.  I tried to look up the different densities of air at different temperatures but it's all egg head stuff.  Bottom line is that the air is more dense and the question is by how much and how effective is it...

[Dino]

I wonder if you can route the cold air intakes through the inner fender inspection covers and down into the front valance so you don't have to cut into the body.

[JR]

I'm wondering that too dino. In my digging around trying to figure up how to fab it, I ran across this pic. Looks like Chrysler did just that with the 1979 300. Looks like an easy setup to mimic.



Also, for gits and shiggles, even though I'm running a mechanical fan, I stuck a box fan in front of the radiator while the engine was running at temperature, to simulate the effects of an auxillary pusher fan, and recorded a 20 degree drop in underhood temps. I may have to add one of those as well.