Im gonna be buying an Accord wagon soon, either 4th or 5th gen. Really just whatever I find around here, and wanted to start exploring my options as far as upgrades.

So all the intakes I've seen for these Accords are the typical pod filter CAI setups. From what I hear, they really don't add any power at all since they sit inside the engine bay taking in mostly stationary air and no matter how much you try to shield them it's still hot air from the engine bay.

So I was wondering how hard would it be to fit a proper ram air intake to these cars that takes oncoming air from outside the car. Preferably without using a hood scoop?

I own a 98 Camaro that I will be selling to fund the Accord and it's very easy on those since the air box sits at the front of the engine bay ahead of the engine and with a pretty straight access to the grille and airdam underneath the bumper. Which allows you to make a very straight and wide duct with minimal restrictions that will go from outside the car directly to the airbox. Those generally give you a good 8-10hp increse because it takes in actual cold air from outside and the slight increase in intake pressure at high speeds.

But due to the position of the airbox and intake manifold and just a generally cluttered engine bay it seems that would be much harder on the Accords without using ugly hood scoops. Atleast from the pics of the engine bay I've seen.

 

A SRI (Short Ram Intake) sits inside the engine bay. A CAI (Cold Air Intake) takes in air from behind the turn signal in the bumper where it gets colder air.

Being completely honest, it's not worth your time/effort to try to do something like this. You're not going to see power from it and you're not going to pony up the $$$ to tune the car to take full advantage of it so why bother? The F22 doesn't really respond to I/H/E as well as other cars too, so that's going against you as well.

Do maintenance and clean everything up.

To answer your actual question, there is at least a few members who cut out their high beam on the passenger side and created a duct through the headlight to the air filter area and relocated the battery. This provided direct airflow from the front of the car to the filter if you had a SRI or turbo.

 

if you really want "ram-air" start with reading all the articles on Autospeed.com about intakes.

this is a good one to start with.
this is also very helpful and informative.

I'll probably never use an aftermarket, cone filter, off-the-shelf intake again after reading through that site.

Like MuffinMan indicated, you're money is better spent on a tune-up and getting the car in good working order. However as you'll see, the tecniques in the articles are very low cost.

 

Well I will be swapping the engine to an H22 sooner or later. So there's that. Probably won't do much on the original F22. No sense dumping money into an engine that's gonna get tossed eventually anyway. But for the H22 I have quite a few ideas already planned out.
Secondly I have reconsidered hood scoops to an extent. After seeing NACA scoops, they look like a pretty low profile and unobtrusive way to get some airflow where you need it.
But your typical hood scoop is pointless since anything low profile that I would want on the car is not functional due to the boundary layer, and anything that's functional is fugly.

As for cost, I would fabricate one myself, so it would be pretty cheap. Figured if it's just the cost of materials, why not?

I guess I can get a better idea when i actually get the car and have a look in person at what's going on.