RX-7tII88

iTrader: (1)

Post pics of your custom made air boxes. Im going to build a new one for my fc and want to see what you guys have done

ZeroDrift

iTrader: (1)

Its not from my FC, but may give some help!

Digi7ech

iTrader: (1)

I made one for my NA a few years ago.

Here are some pics I grabbed from my old website.









I can't vouch if it really worked but it gave me something to do.
It did heat soak pretty good although it probably kept heat bursts from spirited driving from directly entering the intake's air.

I made a template out of cardboard and then made it with fiberglass.
That was my first ever attempt at fiber glass so that's why the second layer made it look hideous. Thus the spray paint came out to make a better end product

ZeroDrift

iTrader: (1)

^^Thats actually fairly cool.
i went for the whole ram air, function>form route.. its loud, and works really well! throttle responce went thru the roof on my stock b16, especially when traveling 40mph+

oakback

vaughnc

here's the one from www.mariahmotorsports.com

jacobcartmill

iTrader: (6)

i REALLY need to make a cold air intake for my piece.

Flem-Ball

Ditto... Just a pod sitting there atm with no cold air intake or heat shielding... = bad.

More pics, giving me some inspiration!

Makenzie71

What exactly do you guys think you're gaining with these?

Wastes of space and engine bay clutter...

MrDirt

Have you ever made one? The theory behind it is extremely simple. It is a far more effective mod than just a cone filter alone. I had noticeable gains on my 88GXL as opposed to the cone filter alone.

jacobcartmill

iTrader: (6)

makenzie71, you really have no clue how much these help. especailyl cruising on the highway. also expecially in a turbo car

Makenzie71

noticeable gains over an open filter? no you didn't. your mind may have "told you" you felt something different but you wouldn't have even seen anything sitting on a dyno...probably lose some do to having a constricted enviroment.

if you guys aren't going to buy or built a real CAI, you'd be better off sticking with the stock intake and dropping in a k&N or apex'i filter and running the cold air intake Mazda spent real money developing and selling with the car to begin with.

speed_monkey

Yeah, the stock system pulls cold air from infront of the radiator. Have you ever looked at the AFM? Its a little restrictive door that flows less than the rest of the intake to begin with. You have to remove all the restrictions to yeild a good improvment.

MrDirt

Wow, you must be an expert in thermodynamics and chemistry. Restricting engine bay heat allows a denser (more molecules per given volume) air charge to be introduced into the intake. Therefore, you would need less air (by volume) to give you the same AFR. Plenty of air can still escape into the box from outside. My "noticeable gains" certainly were not scientific, or verified by any instrumentation, but I had previously never been able to break my tires loose shifting into 2nd gear (only chirps before). That, coupled with my own feel for the car, as well as that of my friends who had no idea that I changed anything, was enough to verify that it did indeed make a difference. What benefit would there be in using the stock airbox? Stock airboxes generally are designed to be quiet, not to produce maximum horsepower.

As far as the CAI goes, notice that some of the guys have tubing routed in from outside of the box. Also, no one makes a cold air intake kit for the FC (short of what's included with one memeber's IC piping kit), so they would all have to be built.

MrDirt

I would also reccomend sorting through pictures of road racing and rally cars. You will see tons of air boxes exactly like these (which is where the idea comes from). I guess that means all of those professional rally teams are full of idiots too.

Makenzie71

Glad you're amazed. The people running aftermarket boxes in race applications don't do for horsepower gains. The ones that do run aftermarket or custom boxes for power gains run sealed boxes designed as plenums...and they're attached to ridiculously modified engines (look at indy car applications). You might want to do some looking around yourself, becuase you'll find many more race cars that do not use a filter box then you will the opposite.

Also, stock boxes have very little to do with noise reduction and aren't designed with that as a prioraty at all. An open element filter is barely noticeable around the rest of the engine noise. Stock air boxes are designed to neatly protect a filter and supply adequate amounts of atmosphere to the motor. If they can make the car a little quieter in the process, then they do it...but the air box is about the least restrictive portion of any stock intake system.

I guess you've never seen a stock FC intake?


See first statement. Cars that use them typically do it for one of two reasons:

...the owners are like you guys and think a box is cool business or something with no real insight as to how it works, what it's supposed to do, or if it actually is anything more than engine-bay decoration.

~or~

...they're run for added protection in extreme enviroments.

Something that you WILL see with boxes used on professional race cars is that the are completely sealed...a lot like your stock cold air box and not like these hack jobs seen here.

...the one with the headlight scoop is the best...

speed_monkey

Yeah, when your lights go up the flow is cut. Also those holes in the headlight covers are way to small to be effective, and you have to cut some stuff.

ZeroDrift

iTrader: (1)

Makenzie71.. actually the air box on the civic actually made a significant difference. Many of the air boxes dont do much unless it has a enough of a direct flow to fresh air.

-An ideal material for any airbox is alluminum, or stainless steel. Both help prevent any heatsoak, and would allow the charge air to remain cooler. The reason for removing the headlight was to allow the maximum ammount of fresh air w/o cutting the body/chassis. Mind you the front end is a hackjob as it is :P.

Makenzie71

The stock civic doesn't have a very good air supply. I bet an aftermarket box won't see any higher a gain on a civic than with an open filter.

jacobcartmill

iTrader: (6)

i installed a CAI on my 91 TII, and my intake air temps on the highway dropped THIRTY DEGREES. previously, i had a filter sitting on my compressor inlet.
you're trying to tell us there is going to be NO gain when going from a heatsoaked open filter sitting in the engine bay to a custom CAI?

that stock airbox is a restriction. it was DEVELOPED BY MAZDA for stock cars, stock boost, and slow NA's. have you ever installed a cone filter on a TII that has a full exhaust? what happens?

have you? it may be a source of SLIGHTLY non-heatsoaked air, but its a huge restriction on anything that is making any kind of decent power. please stop arguing, you seem to have no clue about this.

MrDirt

I'm sorry, but almost all of that is false. Most modern day cars have several seperate air chambers and mufflers for the purpose of noise reduction. Increasing the capacity of the intake system can make a drastic difference in noise, and it IS a primary concern when engineering a car. Even in an intake system such as the factory FC, where the pre-filter tract is very short and not as restrictive, there still is not a lot of noise generated by the system. When changing over to an open filter, most people will notice quite a bit of difference in engine noise. I can verify this by experience with installing systems on about 20 different cars. On cars with stock exhaust, the intake noise will completely drown out the exhaust.

By kit, I was referring to the aftermarket, as well as non-restrictive open systems. Even still, as said before, the factory intake sucks air from behind a plastic shield which is above THREE heat exhangers.

Regardless of what you think, even the crude air boxes as shown will make a positive difference. Heat is a bigger killer of potential power than the small restriction found by blocking engine bay air, and if you want me to show you the math, I can. If you are still not satisfied, I can more than likely produce dyno results from a highly modified S4 13BT (comparing open filter to airbox) in about a month. Hack jobs or not, an air box is better than an open filter sucking extremely hot air, two feet away from a turbine housing or exhaust manifold. Any effective barrier from heat will do the trick. As for questioning the intelligence of the people in this thread, I for one had every bit of insight as to how the system worked, both in insulation, and in protection. If I had no intention of preserving the latter, I would have just run a velocity stack out through the hood. I am sure the rest of the people had a pretty good idea of what it would do as well.

I'm sure it seems like I'm getting more bent out of shape about this than I should, but this is a worthwhile modification, and I would hate to see people skip over it because one person wrote it off.

Makenzie71

That's stupid...why would you put it there to begin with? I'm suprised all you saw was 30*. The idea is to feed the car cold air...you'd have been better off sticking with the stock intake.

Is it a restriction? Yeah, but much less of one than what your AFM is, plus it's already fed cold air. Removing the box and the cold air feed and replacing them with an open filter is stupid...if you're going to do it, improve on the design.

These unsealed boxes you guys are throwing up pictures of are going to as effective at supplying your car nice, fresh and cold air as chewing bubble gum. Ultimately, it's not very bright to waste resources and time to build or buy another box when you should be focusing on just plumbing in a single, free-flowing pipe...which will be far more effective.

BuffDaddy915

Hey MrDirt, I personally would like to see the differences on a dyno from open filter, air box, and a CAI build-up. Could you do the CAI? You didn't mention it.

jacobcartmill

iTrader: (6)

god makenzie, please stop posting.

Luke_Tech

I designed my own that i thnk works alot better than anything else i've seen and its a true cold air. But hell i post pics and some company will patent my idea and make all the money off my hard work. lol its the same concept just taken a little further