Hey, a friend and I are thinking about relocating my Apexi intakes into my front bumper, we plan on putting them in the inlet on the passenger side (see pic) and make a sheet metal box to enclose them from everything but the inlet in the bumper.



I know this will work as a very effective CAI but I am a little worried about getting water on the filters when it rains.

So my question is, should we do this or not, and is it going to be a problem when I drive in the rain ( I live in Oregon and it tends to rain a lot).

Give me your opinion

Thanks Justus

 

Well, I had the same question awhile back since I put on the scoot hood that has large vents so when it rains, water gets to my intake filters. So I asked a specialist at a local import shop and he told me that with a natural asperated vehical I do not want to get water near the intake because water would go straight to the engine which could cause a problem. But with a intercooled turbo vehical he said it does not really matter to get alittle water on the filters or in the intake because it has to filter through the intercooler first and that the alittle water wont make it to the engine. I'm not sure if that is totally true, but I drove in the rain for weeks straight and I had no problems.
Erik

 

Pic of my vents that invites water straight to my filters.

 

syder: i always have been a fan of the masdaspeed front bumper. car looks very nice. but a nice big fmic would finich th look.

 

Thanks for the replies,
RX7INSAC - I didn't really think about the intercooler catching the water, also it would have to travel up the intake piping which will be pretty vertical . . .
If some water did get into the engine, it would probably be less than the amount people w/ WI put into theirs anyway.

ProjectD - Thanks for the complement, a FMIC is in the future, I just need to find a place that makes good cores and end tanks for the right price

Keep the opinions coming.

Justus

 

Justus, looking at your car from this angle puts a whole different opinion on things. I don't think you'll get much water on the filter unless you do alot of fwy driving. Driving around town will not get lots of water in the intake. You'd have to drive al least 50+mph to get anything in there. And like I was saying before we can make a shield in front of the filter just in case

 

You should check the 2nd Gen section. Those guys have done this years ago. Most of them only noted that their filters got dirty 50x as fast without the same level of performance gain.

I don't think you are going to gain much out of the mod performance wise, but it would be something to keep you busy for an afternoon.

 

If you do this, it might be easier with K&N filters . The apexi intake is shapped too oddly for it to go anywhere but where it's supposed to.

 

I would be interested to see how you would route some type of flex hose all the way to the front....I have thought about it but that's as far as i have gone.

 

Would it be safe to say when your moving with a vented hood the airflow would keep water from leaking into the vents? But i think once you stop and water gets in there and your boosting the water will get sucked into the intakes...i think you should be ok, you wouldn't really be driving hard in the rain would you?

 

little water dripping into the engine bay is fine it wont damage anything..

I have had a few intake setups mounted in the bumper with the intake filter completely out of the engine bay.. It always worked great.. the first place is was in front of the rad tucked up behind the bumper so it didnt get that dirty.. great setup ice cold air.. and 2nd the filter is sitting where the stock fog light used to be in the passenger side of the car..

 

i had an aluminum cover to seal that area shut

 

True, but if you have a bling bling engine bay it will leave water marks all over it.

 

Generally water is not a problem when it comes to an intake set-up. As long as your not going through large 1foot deep puddles and sucking all the water up.

I recently moved my intake filter to under the passenger headlight assembly. Where my air relief canister (acv muffler) and windsheild washer fill bottle use to belong. Because i no longer have an AFM i can pretty much move the filter around where ever i want, providing i have enough pipe. Keep in mind, the longer the distance, the better low end tourqe, the shorter the distance the air has to travel (IE: filter mounted directly to the tb elbow) much nicer high rpm gains..

I've had my filter like this for 3 days now, yesterday it rained, HARD, very bad downpour all day long and the engine did not suffer one bit. Heck a little rain mist on the filter while the engine is running couldnt hurt, they've been useing intake set-ups like this for years on race-cars (yes their filters get wet), ( no the engine doesnt get hurt)

Good luck with whatever setup you do, pesonally, i like the filter behind the bumper like the picture above, ALOT of good cool turbulence and less chance of driving through a puddle and damaging (sucking up alot of water). I'll try my current setup and change accordingly.

-Markus

 

spyder where exactly do you plan on running the intake pipes??? There is only a very small area between the side wall and the flip up lights to get a tube through. Even if you chop the frame there still is very limited room for one or two pipes to slip past the head light. I've done it so I know. I didn't look to see if you have a sleek light conversion...that may change thing a bit.

 

Hey guys, Thanks for the comments.
Glad to see the 2nd Gen, guys jumping in

widebody2 - We are planning the pipe(s) where you described we haven't figured everything out yet we have just been speculating so far. How did this workout for you, good?? Ohh do you know what size piping that is? 2.75"??

LT1-7 - I was hoping you would see the thread.

Mahjik - Thanks for the tip on the FC guys.

Thanks again guys,

Justus

 

since you have that long narrow hole in your bumper, you could also fab some kind of air duct from the back of that opening over to wherever your intakes are.

when i had an e36 bmw, they made a cold air "area" underhood simply by boxing out the area where the open filters are with aluminum and some heat absorbing material attached. they measured a significant decrease in temps at the filter with just that. note that it did have a fresh air source coming in from where the brake ducts are similar to the location in the fd.

 

Dont forget that the temperature is higher when closer to the ground, because of the heat vapor and all the air coming out from the exhaust in front of you. . . . . Of course, there are more dust too.

 

'... some kind of air duct' - like this perhaps?