which air intake is better, a "cold" sorta ram intake fabed by myself, or get the racing beat white one that has the open sides or, fabe the other where its just the top open, thanks the car is no emisions pb&j carby and rb system, thanks

 

Any time you can get clean cool air into the engine you are going to get a denser charge of air. Think of an engine as an air pump. The more air you can get in and out of the engine, the more power you will build. Basic physics.

 

I'd go with the racing beat one, or something similar from rotaryperformance, ISC racing

i just think cold air intake and think ricer.


but that's just me

 

why pull in air that is right off the header and off the top of the motor and recycle it right back through, doesnt make since to me. Just cause its a cold air intake doesnt mean its a ricer, if its fully functionable and adds to the performance i dont think its "ricey". Im with Bad 83, cold air is better, the carb hat shape is what racing beat is going on, and with a carb i dont think its a big deal, just get more air in there and as cool as possible.

 

think of it like this. A supercharger, turbo charger FORCES air into the engine. Turbo chargers have intercoolers to cool the air before it enters the engine. Superchargers usually have some kind of injection that cools. Nitrous instantly almost freezes air. Think about it. I'd get a TII scoop and put it abobe your carb with a K&N flow through air cleaner lid. Hope you've seen em, and try to use it with your stock air filter base. People think its ricey to put air intakes on their cars which is true if its done wrong i.e remove stock air box and put on a cone filter. Basicly it does the same thing with MAYBE a slight change in air flow. But its more or less getting hotter air than before due to most stock air boxes bring air from outside the engine compartment.

 

make a big scoop up front to a pod filter to a carb hat made a diffrence on my honda hahaha

 

great information, but i seam to still get mix feelings, should i get the RB Hat, or fab up the cold air intake, an for the cold air, any pix of others or ideas? just piping the same size of the mouth on the blue intake, thanks

 

I would probably guess that if it were a dramatic difference in performance then you would be able to by ram air or cold air kits for our cars over the typical carb hat assemblies. And on all the faster FB's I've ever seen, I've never seen one with a ram air or cold air intake, as the top of the carb is where the air is gathered. I have the entire Holley Street Port setup from racing beat, and I think it works really well.

 

The carb hat from racing beat is a very functional one. It has always been the goal to get more air into a carb'd version. To keep the air alittle cooler with a header i recommend a heat shield that bolts onto the lower intake.

 

Yeah, a heat shield would be an excellent idea. Sorry, rx7doctor. I look at your words as something to follow religiously, and I just had to let you know that.

 

I would recommend the RB unit for the sound alone. Gives the engine a nice throaty roar when you open up the secondaries.

 

im still going to back the intake that gets the coolest air in, its basic knowledge. here is what i did, built my own intake and im now working on making my own headlight scoop to get air right to the filter. with my intake and cone k&n you can hit the gas and you can hear the thing breath its an awesome sound. mine is solid aluminum to soak out any heat that is in the air and also its 4 1/2 inch O.D piping and filter, whicih if measured gets just about as much filter surface area that the RB powerpulse gets
here is a pic

 

I like that a lot. If you or he were to go that way..http://www.mariahmotorsports.com/ sells headlight scoops and cold air boxes.

 

I would get the rb power pulse intake. My friend has it and it has a cooler sound, look and better performance. It's pretty good for $50 bucks

 

While what I have is for an SE, and I know you're talking about the 12a carb system, you could certainly rig something up that's similar that would perform the same function. As the others have pointed out here, the idea is to get the shortest path from the outside to your carb while also allowing for some sort of filtration. Just drawing air from outside or in front of the radiator will have a performance enhancement because the density of air is directly related to temperature. Higher air temperature carries less O2, and as such, you'll have less efficient combustion the higher the air temp goes. With that in mind, here's my installation;


Mariah Motorsports air duct leading directly into the stock SE airbox with K&N filter. What you can't see here is that if I shine a flashlight into the duct from this angle, you can see the top of the filter inside the box, so it's a straight shot, and gets some 'ram' effect at higher speeds, aiding in both filtration and flow.


This shot shows the internal ducting between the back of the headlight lid and going into the airbox. Notice that I used the stock SE airbox duct material to make it look as stock as possible. What SE owners will know is that Mazda designed in a cold air intake from the start with the EFI 84 SE's, as there was already a 90deg bend going from the airbox to in front of the radiator shroud. This pulled in cooler air from this high pressure location, but the downside was that crossing any kind of water of greater than 4" depth would cause water to blown up into the duct, soak the filter, and the car would die. In the 85SE's, Mazda extended the front duct all the way across the front of the radiator and it came BACK into the engine bay just in front of the battery, on the other side of the engine bay. While fixing the water problem, it still draws air from inside the engine bay.

My installation corrects this, gets a short path to the stock airbox, uses the stock AFM and piping, and I think it makes a difference in both performance, appearance, and sound. With the car running, you can stick your hand into the NACA duct and feel the air being drawn inside - when someone revs it up, it roars from the front end, which is an improvement in my book. HTH,

 

But really how much cooler is the air? Not much. If the car is moving, and especially if you have a stock fan there's a good amount of fresh air getting blown through the engine bay. Plus, with an air intake assembly like racing beat's, air is flowing in from all 360 degrees, not just one pipe.

IMO, racing beat, or any other manufacturer for that matter would've made a "cold air intake" for our cars if it was that much better. And who want's a nasty looking dryer vent in their engine bay? Too much "home depot racing" for me.

~b.k.

 

Been there done that with my 12a in my 83gs. I had the header and added the rb air cleaner as well. My suggesting, eliminate the hot air tube from the exhasut manifold, cut part of the plastic tube off the factory air box snout (for a larger duct), the go to the wrecker and get some black air intake tube off a caravan ($) and pipe that from the air box through the opening on the right side of the shroud and turn it "downward" slightly toward the front of the car. Then add a K&N filter. You will have a factory appearance and improved airflow for little expense. Next thing, do the electric fan mod from a 3.8l taurus, fits very well with little modification, make sure you use relays and use and aftermarket temp control unit for it. 2 cheap mods that will net a precious few hp for under $100.

 

Enough said.

 

Yes, but it all seems so restrictive once you start piping your air. Maybe underhood temps will rise at a stop light or something, but once moving there's a lot of air moving around I'll bet. Keep it simple, and free flowing as possible in my opinion.

 

I live in AZ. Daytime temps are around 115F, with heated air straight of the roadway up to 125-135F. Underhood temps are really high, and every little bit helps.

So, yeah - it makes a difference.

 

If youre talking about the hose that connects the exhaust manifold to the air cleaner, thats there for when its cold out it will help the engine warm up faster and keep it running if its really cold out.

 

what?? im talking about with a RB power pulse the air pulls right off the header and engine. im not talking about the stock setup

 

well take my reasoning and put it toward the power pulse peice then, that would be my only logical thought why it would be engeneered like that

 

The true reason for the shape of the pwr pulse cover is for the awesome sound that they make. It works like an amplifier and gives the breathing end of the car a nice throaty roar when you open it up. Who cares if it might be less than perfect? And it looks nice and clean, too.

Now, LongDuck's setup totally rocks, and I have nothing significant against it. But to me it just looks like a very pretty restriction. A cold restriction, but a restriction none the less. Right now, I'm in more of a mind to keep my setup simple but effective. But since LD has an SE I guess that isn't an option for him anyway.... Still one of the nicest looking examples I've seen. Very tight car.

Now, on to the heart of the matter. Here's the important thing to consider;

If I was running up hill with a fat lady on my back (these things happen now and then), I'd much rather breathe hot air through two nostrils, than cold air through one... But then to be perfectly fair, LongDuck does have a funnel stuffed up his one nostril so the air is being (slightly?) rammed up his nose. Very, very cool.

And of course (jumping back to the heat issue here), if you're at full throttle then that means that you are probably moving pretty fast and that means that there is a lot of air movement under the hood. No way is the engine/header going to heat up all that air under those conditions.

So, to recap; LongDuck's setup is what I would consider to be at the extreme "we have the technology" end of the scale. My setup is more down towards the "if that doesn't absolutely have to be there, then I want it the hell off my car!" end of the scale.

Anyway, that's my ever so humble opinion on this matter...

 

Well, the way I see it, Mazda had the right idea in the 84SE's with the EFI required airbox and MAF sensor as one unit, but the implementation of having it draw air from in front of the radiator was flawed. When they tried to fix this in the 85SE's, they just made the tube longer and the 'straw-up-the-nose' that much longer and harder to breath through - AND, they connected the other end of the 'straw' to another hot air source; the worst of both worlds.

At least in my solution, the 'straw' is pointed at the front of the car toward the incoming air, and I'd put my one-cold-nostril up against your two-hot-nostrils in any uphill fat chick hauling contest in my home state.

You up for that? Well,... are you?