could i do this to my factory intake?

1345 Views 7 Replies 8 Participants Last post by thecandybar, Jul 31, 2002

Johnny Quest

Discussion Starter · Jul 11, 2002

i have a 1990 legend ls coupe (auto

) and i have that big black factory intake that goes around the battery and sucks air from round the corner near the driver side. well, The combustion process uses oxygen as a catalyst. Unfortunately the air we live in is only made up of 10% oxygen. So the more oxygen you can feed your engine, the greater the combustion (and power) it can achieve. Cold air is denser, which also means it contains more oxygen. Unfortunately your engine get really heat up the air in the engine bay, which gets sucked into your combustion chamber. (from legend.org) if i can somehow maybe suck in more cold air would that be of any problem? i was thinking u know how a pc has that fan that keeps the pc koo right? if i can somehow find a pc fan like that and attach in front of the factory intake's outlet (the other way)and when it sucks in the air it would cause the fan to rotate and suck in more air (mayb) which would circulate it more into the factory intake... would this work?
keep in mind it is only an idea even if it doesn't work...please give me your feedback...peace.
-John Q.-

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Esti

· #2 · Jul 11, 2002

someone already has a powered fan that fits into the intake tube on the market- I believe the fan activates at WOT. I'll try and find the link.

or there's always the great tornado

Esti

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firestorm

· #3 · Jul 13, 2002

What you are talking about is basically the principal of forced induction. It's prolly gonna be a lil more complex to achieve the pressure you want with a fan. Now, maybe if you used the fan to bring cool air in to the engine bay around the intake. Or have it blow hot engine air away. I would just go with a ram air intake or cold air intake.

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89LCoupe

· #4 · Jul 16, 2002

ghetto turbo? - Go ram air of CAI

You would need a powerful fan to achieve any significant increase in air pressure over atmospheric. Turbos work pretty hard to provide extra psi, so I seriously doubt a pc fan wil even scratch the mustard.
A big fan pushing air from outside the engine bay may help in terms of cooling the air down, but the gains you make here would more than likely be easier made with a less restrictive stock intake.
It's not just the temp of air, its the path it needs to take to get into the throttle body, and the stock intake has lots of bends and funnels down to a small cross section by the time it's drawing air from behind the headlight.

I'd have to agree with Firestorm, ram air or cold air.

I removed the stock intake assembly and bunged a cone filter on the stock tubing - it has made throttle response much better, given a little more high end seat-o-the-pants and improved fuel econ.
Results?
I used a video camera to film the speedo as I floored the auto before and after the mod to try and capture any difference. I know this is a cheap-arse alternative to a dyno, but it was all the comparison I could be bothered with.
Keeping everything as 'same' as possible - same ambient temp, same road, same load, same fuel in the tank, same time o day etc. The cone filter shaved about half a second off my 0-100 time, taken from a mean of 5 runs for both conditions.
Fuel econ is better from 20 to about 23 mpg (I get a little over 100 ks per 10 litres).

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SLEEPNL

· #5 · Jul 16, 2002

I believe Esti was refering to the E-Ram product: http://www.electricsupercharger.com/www-electricsupercharger-com/Autoframe.htm

It has only 1.7 psi. Not much, but I find the claims in the add a little hard to believe. Sounds much like the good ole Tornado product.

SLEEPNL

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lilboi tony

· #6 · Jul 22, 2002

Well heres the deal. That pipe from the intake on the side of the battery. Is just for cold mornings. You need warm air into the intake so the car will start off.

2nd intake is a easy bolt-on mod that dose not give too much power.

Forced induction will probably make your car fast, but it wont run efficently. Which can lead to other problems.

If you would like to tune a car, the best things to do are. Keep the stock intake, and get a preformance filter. Get a new muffler. Try some cam gears, cam shafts, fuel regulator, spark plugs, MSD ignition, pistions, rod's. There are so many other things you can do to your car. Intake and muffler are a rip. And its too common now, if you have the money you should do some other work to your car.

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skatman

· #7 · Jul 31, 2002

Johnny... I suggest you spend the money and time not on thinking about how to stick a pc fan into the intake, but rather on reading an introductory book in chemistry. There you will find a few things such as:

1. In a process of combustion, oxygen plays the role of oxidizer, not a catalyst.
2. The air we live in composed of 21% oxygen (by partial pressure). In fact the absolute low for humans to survive is 12% oxygen, so if you lived in 10% oxygen, you would not be writing that email.
3. What you're proposing is a perpetual motion machine. Air gets sucked in because the fan rotates... the fan rotates because air gets sucked in... get the picture?

While you maybe disappointed by my such forward answer, I can assure that people who designed and built your car know all of those 3 things really well. So I strongly suggest you read up on this stuff and, pehaps, tell us what you learned.

Best of luck my friend.

Some more notes:

Well heres the deal. That pipe from the intake on the side of the battery. Is just for cold mornings. You need warm air into the intake so the car will start off.

Hmm why is that? And what about hot mornings? Engine doesn't get cold because of cold air.

Forced induction will probably make your car fast, but it wont run efficently. Which can lead to other problems

On the contrary my friend, forced induction gives you control over the total pressure head available for the engine... something you have no control over on NA car. Ever seen turbo cars at altitude compared to NA cars? The better control you have over process variables, the more you can tune your process to your liking... efficiency, if you so desire.

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thecandybar

· #8 · Jul 31, 2002

good stuff!

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