anybody done any cold air intake system on their turbo cars?

i know it may sound stupid coz the coz air will just get heated up by the turbo but if it is sucking hot engine bay air and then heated up again by the turbo, you've got to have a pretty damn efficient intercooler to cool it down to near ambient air. wouldn't it help the intercooler to effectively do it's job if the air wasn't that hot in the first place?

what do you guys think?

for people who've done cold air intake system in their turbo cars kindly post some pics..thanks!

 

Everytime I ask about this, I get one of these three answers:
NO (with no supporting evidence)
YES (with no supporting evidence)
Don't you know anything about Thermodynamics? (with nothing else)

No, I don't know much about thermodynamics. There are plenty of smart people on this board, I figure at least one of them could come up with a well thought out answer with some easily understandable supporting evidence.

 

Well if you just think about it--how much of a temperature difference is there between a CAI setup and regular filter setup on a turboed car?

And also would you want to risk sucking in small droplets of water into your motor? even if a filter is not submerged, if enough droplets of water get splashed onto the filter it is possible to suck up those droplets up into the intake tract.

I know this because I have done it on my Civic Si with INJEN CAI. I didn't hydrolock it but it did bog when a bunc of water kept splashing onto the filter and the droplets got sucked up in the intake.


[Modified by BlueShadow, 1:19 AM 1/23/2003]

 

I'm not qualified enough to answer this one so here goes.
Imagine pulling air from a heater core and trying to cool it down to ambient after you just compressed it by 15psi.
If you understand Air Density you'd know that the hotter the air is the thinner the gases will be spread in the given volume, even when being compressed by the turbo. With this in mind think about how much denser it would be if it wasn't so hot. When your done thinking go put a CAI on your car.


[Modified by tzsir, 3:31 AM 1/23/2003]

 

Lets set theory aside and think about practicality...we all know that colder air equals more power so it's no use trying to argue that point, you're just preaching to the choir.

Now what we're left to think about is where do we put the filter so it can get that "colder air". A lot of turbo cars route their IC piping through the hole in the fenderwell where your stock airbox and a regular AEM CAI runs through. What other options does that leave you for a filter location? If you are one of the few people that doesn't route their IC piping through that little hole then yes you could route a pipe from the compressor to the lower fenderwell area. But now you run the risk of getting water onto the filter...I've already bogged my car down because it sucked up enough droplets of water. So I know that the filter does not need to be submerged to get water in the intake, all it takes is a bunch of little droplets getting sucked along the intake tract.

This option is only really safe if you live in an area where it doesn;'t rain to much. So if it never rains in you town, then go ahead and do a CAI intake for your turbo, you're not gonna hurt anything...you just have to figure out how to route the piping.

 

yup my present setup is sucking the hot air that pass thru the radiator so i'm thinking of making a cold air intake system. you're right it's not pratical to have a CAI when it rains a lot in your area but i was thinking of routing some ducts to direct outside air to the air filter. and making sort of an insulated air box to house the air filter.
i've already wrapped my charge pipe with heat insulation and i've noticed that the charge pipe is not that hot anymore compared to uninsulated. the only part i couldn't wrap was the small flange area where the BOV is connected but every time i come home from from work i pop the hood and feel the flange and see if it's hot. the neck that connects to the actual flange is not that hot, the actual flange is hotter but not as hot as the BOV. the BOV is really hot, guess the flange gasket helps in isolating the heat.
so i guess the heat wrap helps a bit to lower the intake charge temps. it may not increase in power but it will help reduce the chances of detonation.

 

I dont see a point in sucking in 10-20 degree colder air to have it heated up by the turbo. The job of cooling is done by the intercooler not the intake on a turbo car. also you lose tq with a cold air as opposed to a short ram. thats something that honda guys cant afford to give up. if you want to do a test put an air temp probe just before the throttle body with a cold air and a short ram and see if there are any changes.

 

or if u have a hondata u can just do it w/ the datalogger. i would prefer to have cold clean air, but i wouldn't want it in a place that would be risky when wet out. if our intercoolers are as efficient as i would like to think they are then you wont see much of a change.

 

AMEN, you summed all my frustration all these time.....

thank you

stan

 

Two things,
1) If you guys are worried about getting water into the engine, what do you think water injection is?
2) CAI loses tq? Maybe on an N/A car. A CAI on an N/A car not only cools the intake charge but speeds it up as well right? But on a turbo application, there is a turbo in between the intake and the throttle body, so it is a moot point.

Also, to the guy that says it's pointless to cool down the intake charge 10-20* before the turbo. Would it be pointless after the turbo? No, of course not. Even though it would not make as much of a difference, colder is still better.

Oh yeah, I had a CAI on my GSR (when I had it) for almost a year, through rain and snow, and it NEVER bogged EVER. I'm talking about really heavy rain at times too.

 

stu where did you come up with your plethora of knowledge?? I have tested both on a turbo car. we have ran a an aem cold air intake and then switched to a blitz short ram and picked up torque. so in my testing it picked up more torque.

next, did you read what i said about the intake temp after the turbo? i stated the job of cooling is done after the turbo which is called your intercooler. you are welcome to run an aem with filter after the turbo. let me know how it works with a filter in you intercooler piping

 

With water injection though you know the amount of water that gets injected. With a turbo CAI, you dont know how much water is getting sucked in there. It could be a lot or a little, or in the case where your filter is too low yuo have to worry about it getting submerged.

 

MotorMatrix, even tho I haven't done any testing, I think whaty you're saying makes sense. The small temp reduction in the CAI setup I think would become negligible as the turbo would heat it up again by a significant amount. I guess it all boils down to how efficient the IC is in cooling down the intake charge.

You said u swithced from AEM Cai to Blitz short ram and got a torque increase. Could it be also that the Blitz cone flows more than the AEM cone adding to the torque increase as this is an unknown factor. Did you also test the Aem cone using short ram to see how it compares?

Just my 2 cents

 

If you're smart enough to get your filter submerged, then you deserve what you get. Plain and simple.

Big puddle? Go around.
Flood? More important things to worry about.
Didn't see that large puddle? Tough cookie.
Fell in lake? Well, good going.

 

does a 10 deg cooler inlet temp mean 10 deg cooler at the throttle body in a turbo car since an air/air intercooler rarely cools to ambient??

 

ok guys,
i bought a short ram intake from a parts store awhile back just to try out the cold air setup...

i have a drag gen III on D-series motor so the charge pipe doesnt go through the hole on the 92-95 civics..

so i took the filter and ran it down through that hole and it plced the filter right in behind one of my vents on my front bumper..

so i get all of this together and take the car out for a full boost sprint.(16psi)
and immediatly i notice i am reaching full boost a little faster (by 200-300 rpms faster) and the car seems to run a bit better.. now this is by now means a dyno test,but anything that promotes spool up has to help in the power curve..
HTH
Brian

 

I think you are missing what they are saying....the CAI is not after the intercooler or turbo. it is BEFORE. and no one makes a CAI for honda for a turbo so I am not surei f it was a honda that you did your testing on...

Now just stop and think about this for a sec, say compressing air to 10psi increases the temperature by 30% (totally random number) and the intercooler will lower temps but say 25%, if we start with a temperature of 90deg (random) that ends up at 117 after turbo and 87.75 after the IC...now what if we start at 75deg it goes to 97.5 and then down to 73.125...hmmm....I dunno but that seems colder to me...again these numbers are completely random but the concept still applies. The only reason a CAI would not help out is if the turbo always put out the same temperature air afterwards no matter what the temp coming in is.

 

I think we should change your title to "Captain Obvious".

 

You would think, but if we are debating this then its not as obvious as one would think

 

We all know that you'll get some sort of gain from a CAI, you are the second person to say so---but saying that is only pointing out the obvious.

I'm sure that what everyone is dying to know is HOW MUCH power are you looking to gain? and is that gain worth the risks that I covered earlier about the water.

 

No one can tell you how much, its just not possible, it all depends on your setup, your location, and a million other varibles. People who ask how much power will addigna CAI add are NOOBS the only way to tell is put one on your car and go dyno it! there is NO OTHER WAY, you can get a general idea but that is no better than yes you will see a gain...not too mention the post I was replying was saying that a CAI would do nothing for you and not ot do it


[Modified by reXem, 8:03 AM 1/24/2003]

 

Rexem - If only everything is as simple as just playing with sums, we would all be livin in a perfect world with abundance in everything. I understand ur logic but I don't think its as simple as just adding and subtracting figures, cuz thermodynamics iz in play n its deeeeep.

Any Thermodynamic Professors out there??

 

Although I am not a thermodynamics wiz but the concept can simplified, in the end it boils down to the simple fact that a CAI will help. Pulling air from right beside the block and rad is not as good as pulling air from the wheel well. Using basic physics concept if you start with colder air, you are goind to end with colder air, and we all know that colder is more dense, which means MORE oxygen which means MORE power

 

Yes I agree if the car is N/A; but when you have a compressor and intercooler in between and the vast temperature changes that takes place from the turbo inlet to the intake manifold, I think all proportionality goes out of the window.

 

How can you say that? physics is fairly linear, even expontential growths would show the same results just not as huge as a linear (maybe larger depending on the relationship) in the end the basics still apply and always will....