Ram Air bogged down by rain ?

JMD Engineering said:

im contemplating buying the MARCHPERFORMANCE underdrive pulley/ram air kit (claims up to 30HP, not bad for 245.00) but when i was talking to one on of my buddies, he brought up the point of "if the intake is in the lower air dam, when it rain and or hit a puddle, it will bog the intake and put water into my engine". Yet when i was talking to my other buddy (owner of a GTI- please forgive him), who has his intake in his lower air dam, he said he's NEVER had a problem with water getting into his intake.. and his intake is 7" from the ground. advice would be greatly appreciated.

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First of all, I don't believe that's worth anywhere NEAR 30HP. Maybe 5HP, but that's being really generous. It does pick up a lot of dirt/debris that will get your air filter a lot dirtier quicker as I've heard. You do run the risk of getting water into your engine if you go driving into a flooded road where the air ducts hang down into the water. Save the money for other mods.

Agreed. 30hp isn't going to happen, its kinda like when import mags say you can ge 15hp from a CAI. It might have happened one time on one car, but it's by no means the norm.

water does not compress. very bad to get into the motor. i would not mount a filter close to the ground at all!

i would put a free flowing gauze panel filter in the stock air box and spend the money elsewhere.

good luck.

The pulleys will be worth about 10 rwhp... That has been proven time and time again that pulleys give around 10 rwhp. I have the March Ram Air setup on my car. Been on there for, eh... I'd say 13-14 years? Never had a problem with water getting into the engine. Mine is the old school one that doesn't use the conical filter, but connects straight to the stock air box and uses a K&N Panel filter. Only thing is, the filter will get dirty quicker, especially if you get behind a dump truck with sand in the bed... lol... Had it happen before and the filter was completely clogged.

i have the march ram air, and i didn't notice ANY difference on my g-tech with the tube that goes down near the ground connected or not, i got it for 30$ on ebay, which is about the price of a replacement K&N filter, didn't really notice any difference in power at all actually, picked up some MPG though, the pulleys gained some for sure, but then i had to step up to an alternator upgrade which cost me about 100$ when it was all said and done, i would just look on ebay for a used ram air if you have to have it, but the off road H pipe gained more with the flowmaster than the ram air/pulleys did FOR SURE! i wouldn't do pulleys unless i was upgrading the alternator at all, and the ram air didn't gain me a thing, i say save the money, get H pipe, flowmasters and either have tmoss port the lower intake for like 100$ or get a cobra/gt40 intake. I got my off road X pipe for 75$ shipped on ebay, the flowmaster were 100$ out of local classifieds and for 100$ you can have the lower ported, that should be a soid REAL WORLD 20HP gain.

just my .02 though

If the air is routed up to the same height (as measured off the ground) as the stock filter, it is very unlikely that water will ever get to the filter. You would have to be traveling very fast (guessing about 100mph) when you hit a puddle to be able to force water that high, through contorting passages. I haven't seem how these things mount, but I would imagine the ram air funnel would bust to pieces, if loaded in this manner. If your driving at 100mph in the rain you deserve to blow up the motor. But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Still, there is no way a ram air kit is going to give any power improvement under 80mph. In fact most texts will say 100mph is necessary for airflow to be noticeable. The pulleys can yield a little power if you can accept lower charging from the alt.
A CAI or just a conical mounted in the engine bay will do as much (maybe more) as a ram air kit.