Ram Air intakes (prepare to be insulted)

I was going to post this in one of the many other intake threads but it likely warrants its own thread.

I think that all this ram air intake business is rather silly. The shear volume of air that engines take in is immense and no matter what kind of funnel you have at your hood, you are not going to be making a significant difference.

People also argue that these suck in cold air instead of hot under-hood air. This MIGHT apply if at or near a stop... but as soon as you get going, there is so much air rushing in from the grill and below that there is no time for the air under the hood to heat up.

On a Benz forum, one member made just an open underhood setup which could also be hooked up to a cold air intake from underneath. With or without the cold air tube, he got the same mileage results.

I would do some sort of removable setup on my truck but is far from drivable right now. So... pretty much all these claims are just that, claims. But I challenge someone with a ram/cold air intake to do a test run with their fancy intake and then just hack open the intake and leave an open element. Maybe a set ~100 mile course with a refill after each run.

Prove me wrong! I love to learn from my mistakes. But if I am right, I might save some people from all kind of troublesome fabrication of intakes for little/no benefit.

Thanks for putting up with me.

I would he curious to see a temp gage in the intake to see if there really is a differance.

No insult taken here. Its a valid question.

I do remember making 200 mile trips back when my truck was N/A and still had the C6 tranny. I added the ram intake for more flow more than anything else. I had some early teathing problems with my intake and was forced to make a couple of those runs without the ram intake connected so the engine was drawing air from under the hood. I noticed about 2 MPG drop in economy and the engine had a little more trouble on the longer hills. I never did try and repeat the testing now that it has all the other upgrades on top of the ram intake.


If you take a look at the blow molded air duct at the front of the air intake, you will find that it bottle necks near the front closer to the actual intake. Mine is a minimum of 4" diameter all the way to the front where it opens up to the actual funnel. Is the funnel itself actually compressing the air enough to make a difference? I have no idea, but I do know that my intake is less restrictive then the OEM part. All I can say is that it works for me.

Gale Banks introduced the Banks Power Pack in the early 80's. He had graphs and charts, and bench flow pictures that showed the problems with the factory air intake. I forget the HP increase he claimed his kit gave you, but he dyno'd it and had the proof in the numbers. Now if you choose to believe that was a real product, and actually did make a difference, and that he wasn't lying just to sell something, then I guess trying to improve on the factory air intake makes sense. If you think his charts and graphs and dyno reports were just lies to sell something, then trying to make your intake better probably doesn't make any sense to you. I personally feel that most designs are the result of comprimises of sorts. For example, Ford could have used a smooth moulded intake hose, but instead they used that flex duct that has tons of resistance to air flow on the sides and adds lots of turbulance. They could have left the soup bowl out, or the restrictor plate, but they were selling an engine that was already too loud to a market used to gas engines. If these compromises make sense to you, don't do anything. If however, you're a bit of a mechanical engineer, and feel you can do better, that's what you should do. Nobody is going to take the time to "prove" you wrong. That's just a waste of time, since it's what the individual feels is best, that should be done. I don't work on my truck to make you happy, and no I'm not insulted. Your arguments are logical. Just remember when your in stop and go traffic, and your air cleaner heats up to 200 plus degrees, that it will take a few miles of driving for that temp to come down to a reasonable level.

I am not arguing that the factory setup wins and nothing is better. This is likely never the case.

Nice call... mechanical engineer student (close enough)

I realize that there is going to be some heat soak when the engine is just idling but I just cannot see this as really mattering because there is still gallons and gallons of air rushing through the plumbing. It does not make sense to me that any significant change could be made to the temperature of the intake air with that much volume going through.

Also, I am not demanding that everybody go and do this right now. If it sounds like this, I apologize. But I guess it was more of an invitation for someone in a better situation who may have some similar thorughts to give it a go. The way I see it is that more knowledge cannot hurt anyone here.


Another thought... turbo vs. NA. Maybe turbos are more or less sensitive?

This is a very simple way to look at the problem. The motor is basically a glorified air pump. Anything that improves the flow of air into and out of that pump will improve it's efficiency. Something that reduces or hinders the flow of air into or out of that pump will decrease it's efficiency.

Heath

im not trying to be a smart @ss in any way and im not trying to offend anyone in any way,this is just the only way i know how to say it, want to see what ram air is? stick your hand out the window doing 40 mph, now do it doing 70 mph at that point it wants to break your arm off thats ram-air, back in the late 60's and early 70's there was rar-air hoods on just about every thing, and it worked for them, when i done my ram-air i went for a test drive, i could tell a huge diffence with my butt dyno, no i dont have any numbers from a real dyno but i know what i felt and i know how muck better my truck run than before and it even smoked less, and i went from 15 mpg to right at 18 mpg i would call that worth your time and money in fabbing one up, and i only have about 50 dollars in mine, most of that was for the filter.

dyoung14 said:

im not trying to be a smart @ss in any way and im not trying to offend anyone in any way,this is just the only way i know how to say it, want to see what ram air is? stick your hand out the window doing 40 mph, now do it doing 70 mph at that point it wants to break your arm off thats ram-air, back in the late 60's and early 70's there was rar-air hoods on just about every thing, and it worked for them, when i done my ram-air i went for a test drive, i could tell a huge diffence with my butt dyno, no i dont have any numbers from a real dyno but i know what i felt and i know how muck better my truck run than before and it even smoked less, and i went from 15 mpg to right at 18 mpg i would call that worth your time and money in fabbing one up, and i only have about 50 dollars in mine, most of that was for the filter.

Click to expand...

Was this comparing the stock intake to your new one? ... or an open element intake to a ram intake?

what i was talking about there was stock to ram-air, my dad is a big open element beliver on his 7.3 he has an open element, i seriously think mine has way more power than his, but heres one thing about dyno testing one with an open element verses one with a ram-air, well ram-air does nothing setting still strapped to a dyno, so if it was run on a dyno it would probly be less horsepower than going down the road, i cant prove that ram-air is better than an open element, but i know how both trucks run, mine is a 6.9 and his is a 7.3, we raced them one day, he had for about the first 200 feet but after i got moving and got the rpms up a beat him by about 2 truck lengths in a race probly something like a quarter mile

Going from a stock intake to just about anything will be a huge difference. my question is whether it is worth it to go for the full ram-air effect.

When comparing 2 different trucks, there are so many factors that can come into play and it is hard to narrow it down to one different feature.

Thanks for the input.

ok, then i will do a real test of it, i will get my dad to let me borrow his open element filter and i will hook it up on mine and see what mpg i get and how i think it performs and do a wot 0-60 and a smoke test. and i will post all the info on here and we will see which one wins on my truck.

Wow... cool. Can't wait for the results. Thanks

I knew into a guy in Maine years ago jsut after I got my 84-6.9 .He was all excited about his banks power pack.He restored antique fire trucks for a living. http://www.fireflyrestoration.com/ He said it was amazing how much his power and Fuel mileage changed. He was no fool.
I personally have noticed from years of driving deisels that they run stronger in the cold New England winters-anf my F350 used to love in the summer when the sun went down and it cooled off a little.
Personally any temperature drop is worth the effort.

i will get results when i get the chance to drive my truck again, probly tomarrow, tonight i got to go play basketball so probly not tonight

To add to the rant. Replacing the factory filter housing and switching to a small conical filter. Come on guys you want more surface area not less. To me thats a downgrade not an upgrade.

I did replace my soup bowl lid with one from a 7.3 housing without the bowl and switched to a two stage foam filter. I could be nuts but it did seem to help the power a bit.

My exhaust is still stock though So thats not helping anything! 2" tailpipe Sounds like a fat kid breathing through a straw