Cold air Intake? - Not a Joke or Noob question

might be the K&N was over oiled and gobbed on the MAF. i wish i had access to a toyota scan tool... stay tuned...

 

well gents, this is taking much longer than I had hoped thou my time is limited too, had a chance to monkey some more and I got some pics too, could have taken those last week it did not look a lot different, just twaking it, there is nothing straight under that hood, took lots of cardboard blue tape, sheetmetal welding and grinding and some of my boys playdough, just ti get to this point, I am almoast there, just trimming it little at a time, trying to match those countours, the box is planed to bolt right under the hood GTO type RAM, at least that's what I could come up with, as the hood closes will seal the filter from the rest of the engine bay, when working in there it's out of the way, should get me lots of clearence, figured, metal will do for now, I am good with it, and it is trycky to get a shape, I could mold it in fiberglass when done we'll see if I ever finish it at this rate it may take a while, in the mean time warm intake still doing 50 mpg we'll see when all done might put it back to stock see if my test driver or the trip computer might notice the difference if any

 

I appreciate all your metal working skills and hard work but in the very least your now stuffing so much unmapped air in that TB it will just be a stumbling mutt to drive which is why your getting better gas mileage because if you give it the gas it will be very unhappy. In fact it's probably in limp mode its so far out of MAF range. Been here and done that. You guys refuse to understand more air needs more gas. Longer duty cycle on the injectors.
Tuner. Dyno.

The bad thing is your running the car very lean. In any modern car that's a very bad thing to do. Not busting your chops just talking turkey here. Nice metal work though. Your skills should be focused elsewhere and make some money not on this zero return dead end.

 

I do apreciate your input and concern, thou I do not understand how you figured that I am stuffing UNMAPED air in the TB, I went out of my way to make sure the airmeter matches the stock to a small fraction of tolerance, unkike comercialy available 2" aftermarket airmeters, this car has something like 1 3/4, I meticulously measured everything to make sure the airmeter diameter matches stock as close as possible, also the sensor is in the exact same possition as before, whatever air goes through it should be as precisely measured as it was on the stock setup, maybe I missed something maybe you missed a few posts, but the whole Ideea was to match the stock, just rearange a few things, as I need the space for other components,
as for the mileage, and loss of power for that matter, I believe it's because for a couple weeks we were running it with no box as I just finnished it, where stock it has some sort of a cold air, I have been running plain enginebay air lately, granted to this point that was no better than stock, however the airmeter has been working fine, it apears to acurately read the the quantity and temp for that mater, and matches the fuel acordingly, end result has been less power, more mpg.
I don't drive this car and the wife has never been shy about flooring it, she actually does it on a regular bassis, just noticed a slight loss of power
This much we can all agree, power is directly related to the quantity of air molecules that flow through any given engine, when done properly, more air ( read properly ) maches more fuel, results in more power, and the other way arround, this does not change the economy efficiency just power to cubic inch efficiency. Same princyple applyes to boost,
Highly unlikely it is running lean, nor in limp mode the lambda probes have yet to complain, allready ran a couple tanks through it, either way, if there is something I do not understand please elaborate.

 

keep in mind the motor does rock back n forth a bit; thats why they had those "shaker" hood scoops back in the day. if you mount it solid to the core support, it may damage the filter when it rocks.

meanwhile, and i don't want to jinx myself, but it seems my MAF took a dump just as i decided to remove the carbon filter. i did swap in a new denso MAF friday, put a couple 100 miles on it w/ no CEL. but its stayed off for most of a week several times before and then it would pop up every 10 miles or so. i hope it was just old... if it stays off, i guess it was a rotten coincidence that it $#!+ itself when it did.

 

do you really think the injectors are maxxed out? if we get more air the ecu will add fuel to keep it at stochiometry. its not like we gonna get 2x as much air from a CAI, especially w/ the atkins cycle and a joke exhaust system. if it was lean enough to put it in limp mode, it'd throw a code. only caution needed here is that k&n filters may gob on your MAF apparently, or maybe after 189k the MAF just takes a dump.
after your earlier recommendation to run a potentially lean motor hard for 1/2 hour, i'd not take any advice from you seriously.

 

not my first shaker, good point thou, pictures may not show detail, I'll post some better ones when done, I did use some sort of weatherstrip rubber door molding as a spacer if you will between filter and box, also between box and rad support but that does not matter much, the box is mounted under the hood, that pic is just for ilustration purpose, it comes up when you lift the hood, as for above the filter that box is only mouted to the foam heatshield, not to the actual hood, thought it could use the wiggle, only bolted to the hood by 2 bolts above the rad support area,
as for any negative opinions I always welcome them, maybe one knows more than I do, thou unmapped air and lean mixture, limp mode, I'm sorry but I just don't see how, if anything the car may run on a 90F day like it would stock on a 70F day or something along the line, there is no way there is so much more air going through it to the point its catastrophical, but like I said I don't know everything what am I missing, the whole point was to reroute the intake a different path, while keeping it all as close to stock, I can see that in a 2 inch housing and yet two on here run 2 inch and have not blew up yet, likely on a larger housing it will run lean however apears the lambda's compensate for that, they have not melted a valve yet
as for your sensor, no $hit after almoast 1/5 mil miles, monkey with it some and craped out, they are delicate you know? you are not the only one, I tacked the mounts with it on thought I cooked it turns out just smoked it, I hope thats what it was , cant think of what else, I did get those carbon pads, thou if yours does not act any more I may not monkey with them

 

i am curious to see how it works out when you get it all done. i always liked ram air setups.

 

it's more lite a judge setup rather than a cuda, the pickup was a shaker, this is a shield on the underside of the hood if you will, I did consider the rocking thou let's face it this is not a hemi, I dont see this twisting a frame some time soon, I believe I gave it enough wiggle room for any rocking, just closed the hood tonite , will see how it wears and run keep you posted, figured I'll run it like this rust and all for a few miles before I go to the trouble to finish it up

 

first trip to work started off with 100 miles on this tank, it went up a point in the 10 mile commute, it did not help that the wife was idling in the driveway this morning but she always does that, bad habits I guess, and for the sake of comparison why do anything different, can't comment on performance if anything she got used to it, nor was she racing anybody this morning , normally she does and that was the initial complaint about a slight loss of power, so far so good, we have 300 more miles on this tank, I think I'll leave it be for now to get an Idea of how it works, if I don't forget I'll see about plugging in the tester on the way home get some real numbers.
to Jeremy/just did it:
you are running that coolant bypass, I wonder how hot the intake gets, I was checking my setup all this time, the manifold is pretty warm to touch ( I have a laser thermometer somewhere ) but the airmeter and the metal flange in the filter stayed pretty cool. , granted there is the stock rubber insulating the meter from the TB, at the same time the manifold is bolted to the engine and aluminum is pretty good conducting heat, wonder if that bypass made a difference, since I am in Michigan I was debating a 3way valve to be able to easily turn it on in the winter, I will probl run my evaporator off these lines too, I looked at some plumbing schematics in the links you posted, looks like one of these lines comes off the heater core, I know this car is funny with the reservoir, control valve and the special heater core pump, I wonder if those lines only flow coolant when the cabin heat is on, that would not be good for my evaporator, I need a constant flow to it, any thoughts on this are much appreciated.
if memory serves me right you had a brass nipple for the bypass, I wonder if it is hot at the end of a trip, that would indicate constant flow, also, not sure if it maters much, but which one is from the water pump and which is the return? I hope to do this right the first time so I don't have to open the system too many times, I hear it can be tricky to bleed, also considering a flush when time comes.
George

 

The TB gets hot to coolant temp 190F. The only real difference it makes is you are removing 190F heat off the TB's very expensive TB motor assy. It removes the heat stress off that $2000 TB. In Florida its not necessary. I don't think I have ever had the car heat on once in my car.
It had made a performance difference in other cars I have like my old 240SX and Prius feels better when you pass but hard to tell without a dyno. In Michigan it's essential to hook it back up in winter time though but it's worth the trouble to bypass it imho.
Those lines flow engine coolant all the time. The nipple is always hot. But do not now which is flow and which is return.

What are your plans with this and evap?

 

planning an lpg conversion, I had my kit delivered about 3 weeks ago, thou I studied as much as I could before, once I had the parts in hand I realize I can't do as good as I would like with the old intake in the way, hence the CAI modification, mostly to free up some space under the hood, it's not like I am trying to get an extra 10% HP, as long as it's not worse than stock I'd be happy, and so far so good, I still don't know what your earlier observations were about, it does not make much sense to me but if there is a point to be made by all means please do, I tried to duplicate stock as best as I could just reroute the path, whatever you noticed that may be off please point it out.
the evaporator is a component that warms the lpg therefore it needs constant flow, I don't believe the direction maters, just wondering, best place I thought of installing it is where the old snorkel was, and get coolant from the tb circuit, maybe fit a couple 3way valves while at it to bypass the tb in the summer. Thou in my case with 10 mile trips at a time it may help, I wonder if any longer that tb would still reach 190F the manifold gets rather hot granted at this time I have coolant through it, but I recon it would warm up eventually anyhow being bolted to the engine head.
Thanks for the input, by all means don't be shy, any point is worth considering weather I understand it or not.
George

 

Yes that would work. I would get in series with that TB coolant circuit for your evap warmer. Good easy routable source of hot water. May not be worth your while to disconnect it from the tb just for summer given the extra work for the LP conversion extra valves and all.

 

figured a couple brass 3way ball valves may do the trick just a thought, as you can see I don't have too much trouble fabricating stuff, couple brackets to mount the valves while I am at it would not be too much trouble

 

I ment to give you all another update tell me what you make of this, afterwork we took an odd detour about 25 miles freeway, most of it 75+mph ac blasting first time this year, the computer showed an average well below the 50 mpg mark, more like low 40s, thou it only changed the average by 0.1, met with a guy about a used enginer kit, he folowed us home through town, and I showed him this when we got home, I only had a prius since fall so I figured he knows a bit more, on about a 8 mile town trip windows down no ac we got a straight line about 70mpg, for 15 minutes, granted the first 5 were junk as usual, that was something else he could not belive it either, may be a fluke who knows, I'm not complaining he was getting 85 with his engineer, trailing behind us the tank average was right back up.
needless to say i'll be monkeing with an enginer kit now, I was planning to run this as is for a couple hundred more miles to get a base line, only got one day so far, that engineer may have to wait a bit till I figure out what I have here before other mods.

 

I don't have a temp tester yet... but I wouldn't mind getting one. What is it you want me to check on once i do?

 

With the bypass the intake manifold still gets pretty hot as it sinks engine heat but the TB itself is always about 90F degree's cooler than engine coolant temp as reported by my Scan gauge readings. Velocity of intake air through the TB throat does a good job of keeping the TB cool
once the engine coolant loop is removed off the TB.

Of course that velocity cooling kills you in the winter without that coolant line installed.
So for northern climates it must be coolant looped.
I cannot tell you for sure if there's any performance increase as you have to drive the car very hard (wot) to really reap any benefits. I do not drive my Prius like I did the other cars I've owned with a bypass. Those cars I could beat on and did so without mercy. But my 07 feels pretty good passing cars. Maybe a little peppier. But my goal in bypassing was to protect the TB motor by removing that excess coolant loop heat. That's sold as a TB assy and very expensive.

The Prius is a poor choice of car to drive hard enough to reap the benefits of any performance mod imho. It's Achilles heal is its electric motor windings coatings. There covered with tough as nails coating but excessive internal winding heat eventually compromises that coating. Even a microscopic failure in that coating exposing bare winding will result in a winding blow out and flash over at the current and voltage the MG runs on. It will throw a hi volt ground fault and the transaxle must be replaced.

MG2 windings do not enjoy sudden and big current draw. This is greatly exacerbated by going up a steep incline with extra weight and demanding full power out of the car especially on a poorly maintained car with very old trans fluid and Inverter coolant. Those both combine to make a poorly cooled transmission.

 

Just gonna leave this here:

 

Lol where the guy grabs the other guy's as@ at 2:18.

Worth it to watch the video just for the Skyline. Bad nice person car.

 

they should have tested a non turbo car too. and i'd love 3kw - about 5hp- but i don't think it's gonna happen.