ram air

[o0Dan0o]

I haven't taken a look inside the shaker, though I can tell you there is no danger of hydro-lock since my buddy has it and we live in Houston (nearly as rainy as Washington).

However, on my WS6, the ram air, which lead directly to the filter, had a set of baffles in it. One coming up from the bottom angled back slightly, the other slightly behind it coming down from the top. There were drain holes underneath them so the baffles catch the water and then it drains out the bottom.

No car company would release a car that had any real danger of hydrolocking.
Dan

 

[klaw]

One trick that's used in these systems is based on the density difference between air and water. Baffles and bends are put into the airflow to rapidly change the flow direction. Air is light and changes direction rather easily. Water droplets are heavy and have alot of momentum and therefore don't like to change direction so they have a tendency to continue in a straight line thus hitting walls and baffles etc. The droplets coalesce together and essentially get sucked out the drain tubes because the pressure inside the scoop (that is, at the inlet end of the drain tube) is slightly higher than the ambient pressure at the outlet of the drain tube. The pressure difference is the Bernoulli stagnation pressure as explained above.

This same principle is used by dogs to dry themselves off. Their hair is light (and attached to their skin) and therefore changes direction easily. The water on the other hand is heavy and can't change direction so winds up spraying in all directions as they shake (each droplet heads off in the direction it was moving when it was last influenced by the hair).

 

[EvasiveS197]

One trick that's used in these systems is based on the density difference between air and water. Baffles and bends are put into the airflow to rapidly change the flow direction. Air is light and changes direction rather easily. Water droplets are heavy and have alot of momentum and therefore don't like to change direction so they have a tendency to continue in a straight line thus hitting walls and baffles etc. The droplets coalesce together and essentially get sucked out the drain tubes because the pressure inside the scoop (that is, at the inlet end of the drain tube) is slightly higher than the ambient pressure at the outlet of the drain tube. The pressure difference is the Bernoulli stagnation pressure as explained above.

This same principle is used by dogs to dry themselves off. Their hair is light (and attached to their skin) and therefore changes direction easily. The water on the other hand is heavy and can't change direction so winds up spraying in all directions as they shake (each droplet heads off in the direction it was moving when it was last influenced by the hair).

You said "Coalesce" and my mind went blank, I forgot what I was reading, and my eyes blurred and I lost my place. Congratulations on making my brain totally shut down by the use of one simple word...

I see what you're saying, though. Makes sense.

I haven't taken a look inside the shaker, though I can tell you there is no danger of hydro-lock since my buddy has it and we live in Houston (nearly as rainy as Washington).

However, on my WS6, the ram air, which lead directly to the filter, had a set of baffles in it. One coming up from the bottom angled back slightly, the other slightly behind it coming down from the top. There were drain holes underneath them so the baffles catch the water and then it drains out the bottom.

No car company would release a car that had any real danger of hydrolocking.
Dan

I wouldn't expect they would, but my mind just doesn't want to let go the theory of it being possible...

There's plenty of places in the airbox itself (where the air filter is) for the water to drain if it should happen to make it through the Shaker plumbing past the various drain tubes. The airbox is not air/water-tight, so water would not go past the filter and into the intake tube and the mass air meter (and ultimately the engine).

Now, because the airbox is not air/water-tight, we can agree that o0Dan0o is right that there's not really much postive pressure (i.e. boost) going on inside the Shaker system. Although, there is still a light ram effect and lots of cool air helping to make more power at high enough speeds.

The theory I had always heard behind the ram-air idea is similar to that of Cowl Induction. It's not so much supposed to provide "boost" as much as it's supposed to provide "resource." For example, if you romp down on the throttle from a stand-still idle, the car for a split second stalls because it's starving for air immediately around the intake. For that split second it takes air to fill back in the (now) vacuum, the engine is starved UNTIL that vacuum is filled, again. Having ram-air/cowl induction puts a pocket of air with a little bit of pressure right where the suction is so that if you DO romp it, you've got all the air you need without the lag. Hope that makes sense...

 

[chad9350]

I spoke to a Ford engineer that worked on the 03/04 Mach 1 about the ram effect of the factory Shaker hood scoop. I was told that in testing, Ford saw a 25hp improvement at speeds above 80 mph. Contemporary testing at dragstrips showed slower ET's when the Shaker scoop was plugged shut versus leaving it open, so there's some power to be had with this very low boost ram effect.

its just that its getting cold air, lower AIT's.... thats it....