Ram air ideas...

...Well, I've gotten to the point where I need a CAI of some type on the 'stang. I've decided to build a true "ram-air" setup, I had one on my 'Vic, and it really worked well.
I looked at March's Mustang ram air setup, really expensive, even on eBay they're expensive. So I'm trying to think of something to use to make a rectangular air grabber, maybe 2" high X 12" wide or so, and at least a few inches deep. I can't find anything on eBay, and I haven't hit Home Depot yet.
Any suggestions? Anyone have a homemade ram-air on their car?
 
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At one point I had ram-air on my Mustang, basically what I used for the scoop was a 4" to 3" elbow. The 4" end was the scoop end and I had half of it sticking out below the front of the bottom bumper cover, and it was covered with screen and painted flat black so as to not be so conspicuous. From there I used PVC to connect it to a custom made airbox that I had on the car. I didn't have it on there very long, and it picked up all kinds of dirty and other crap, so I took it off.

Honestly, I think the hardest part is getting a decent airbox, not finding a good scoop...
 
Red_LX said:
Honestly, I think the hardest part is getting a decent airbox, not finding a good scoop...

I am going to go to the boneyard and get a Crown vic air box(late 80s, early 90s, wish I had kept mine off my old 'Vic), it has the right top flange(3") if I remember right and is the right size for a K&N cone/cylinder. Also they look nice, and have a clamp on top, with some mods I think it will work well. I think the stock bracket can be made to work as well.

The only problem with the one I had on my 'Vic was sand and dust in the air box, I'll have to wash that K&N pretty often.
 
tealtiger93 said:
I want to do some kind of Ram-Ait too. I was thinking about fabricating one comparable to March's, dump it right into the filter (w/o an air box) and put a heat shield on the engine bay side of the filter. Think that would work well without the air box?


Do you mean just inserting the cone filter into the tubing(dryer hose for example)and clamping the hose to the base of the filter? I guess that could work.
 
freakintiger said:
Do you mean just inserting the cone filter into the tubing(dryer hose for example)and clamping the hose to the base of the filter? I guess that could work.
I mean have the scoop come up toward the filter and cut off right in front of it having the air dump right onto the filter. But I guess if I do that I may as well put it in the pipe.
 
i have an SVO and i am running a front mount IC..i have a box i made from fiberglass that will place my pannel K&N filter under the Scoop in the hood...it has a 4" tube that runs down to the turbothis way its all up high and wont have the pinecone in the box and stuff like i used too..lol...i also vented my BOV to the box so it will draw filtered air and be louder when it vents.........................Hal
 
While taking my fluid mechanics course, I thought it would be interesting to calculate the pressure you would see by making "ram air" (this is called the stagnation pressure). It is pretty much not worth the effort compared to a simple CAI in the fender. At 70mph, you get an extra .09 psi. at 100mph, you get .2 psi. You probably don't even make up in hp what you lost in weight! at 70mph on a 100hp engine, you just gained .6hp. lol You undoubtably loose more than that from a K&N.
 
bhuff30 said:
While taking my fluid mechanics course, I thought it would be interesting to calculate the pressure you would see by making "ram air" (this is called the stagnation pressure). It is pretty much not worth the effort compared to a simple CAI in the fender. At 70mph, you get an extra .09 psi. at 100mph, you get .2 psi. You probably don't even make up in hp what you lost in weight! at 70mph on a 100hp engine, you just gained .6hp. lol You undoubtably loose more than that from a K&N.


Why are you trying to steal my joy man?

I know from expierience that there was a difference with the ram air on my Crown Vic(5.0), I'm not saying it was an awesome 5 bajillion HP difference, but just enough to make the project FUN and worth the time, effort and minimal expense.

Anyhow I am a visual artist and enjoy constructing things, so while it may not make but .0000006 HP on a 20* day traveling at 90 mph, I will still have fun doing it.
 
I know everyone says ram air really isn't worth much, but I SWEAR my '90 felt a little slower (especially going up hills at 50 mph and up) after I took the ram air off.

One thing I am curious about is how much the length of the intake past the throttle body affects performance. For a short while I had the air filter attached to a very short piece of PVC on the throttle body (as opposed to my usual setup where the filter is down inside the fender), and the car actually felt slower especially at high RPM's, but I don't know if this might have been because it was sucking in hotter engine bay air....