ram air?

hey I think i got a good idea let me know what you think.

i've been thinking about cutting a hole in my hood and making a hood scoop like the WRX or the firebird out of fiberglass, then fabricating a air filter and some tubing to run the air right into the throttle body. I figure it has to be better than that stock piece of crap. I don't really want to get just a cai or something like that. i'm thinking something unique. I figure this way the air blowing into the hood will be cooler than anything coming from inside the engine compartment. also the speed of the air going into the engine will be faster the faster i go.

who knows, just my latest thoughts.

If you don't mind inhaling everything that your gonna get in the scoop it'll work. You'll have to clean/change the filter more often. Make sure it can't fill up with water because if you inhale a big slug of it, it can hurt your engine.

If you don't mind inhaling everything that your gonna get in the scoop it'll work. You'll have to clean/change the filter more often. Make sure it can't fill up with water because if you inhale a big slug of it, it can hurt your engine.

Hurting your engine is putting it lightly. If you get water in your cylinders, just pray that you can find a good deal on a new motor.

You could just go with a ram-air hood... I got one from Cervini's(www.cervinis.com). It doesn't actually route the air from the scoop to the intake mani. It's purpose is to bring cooler air into the engine bay, effectively reducing the temp of the air going into your intake... In this instance, it would still be a good idea to get an aftermarket intake. And it doesn't really matter if you get a bunch of water in the scoop, cuz it's not going directly to the air filter...

A cold-air intake is probably your most cost-effective way to go though. Unfortunately, my headlights prevent me from installing a CAI without some serious modifications to the tube and/or car, which is one reason I went with the hood.

BTW: The big scoops on a WRX in the center of the hood aren't intakes. That's where the intercooler goes.

Jusg: That would be pretty sweet if you could just up and make a ram air hood, but it takes a lot of skill to use fiberglass or carbonfiber correctly. Good luck and make mine after you are done with yours. ;)

ci5ic - why would you need to modify your headlights to fit a CAI on your car, my friend has a 91 hatch with a CAI and he only had to remove that stupid resonator box.

ive also got a ram-air type hood on my car, its the aerogear predator:
heres an old pic:

http://us.f1.yahoofs.com/users/5b42e972/bc/My+Car/Crx+Front.jpg?bcfMG58AtpYO12cH

Cuz I have after-market projectors that protrude into the engine bay a few inches more than stock, effectively blocking the hole for where the resonator is.

Originally posted by ci5ic
Cuz I have after-market projectors that protrude into the engine bay a few inches more than stock, effectively blocking the hole for where the resonator is.

oh, stupid projectors, cant you just move them out some, with the holding screws?

Originally posted by jusg19
hey I think i got a good idea let me know what you think.

i've been thinking about cutting a hole in my hood and making a hood scoop like the WRX or the firebird out of fiberglass, then fabricating a air filter and some tubing to run the air right into the throttle body. I figure it has to be better than that stock piece of crap. I don't really want to get just a cai or something like that. i'm thinking something unique. I figure this way the air blowing into the hood will be cooler than anything coming from inside the engine compartment. also the speed of the air going into the engine will be faster the faster i go.

who knows, just my latest thoughts.

Your heart is in the right place... but the WRX scoop blows air onto the intercooler (not into the engine). Y'all are correct when you say it'll mess up his engine, not only water but increasing airflow without altering spark or timing will BURN YOUR VALVES OUT because you're changing your air/fuel ratio!!!

I agree that the best route is to blow the air ON a cold air intake.

Have fun!!!

This is another idea I just thought of... I haven't looked at my car to see if it would really work, but I was thinking about picking up a 90º elbow of PVC or aluminum piping (@ 2.5"-3" Diameter) and attaching one end through the hole for the resonator with the other end pointing towards the front of the car (through an opening in the bumper or something). This would bring cooler air directly to the cone-filter...

Any thoughts?

JusG, I just saw this link, thought it might interest you...
http://www.jdmfan.com/technical/performance/custom_intake/

You could probably make this work for a 4th gen...

Mike: your heart is in the correct place too, but unless you seal the airbox/filter to your new tubing it will not get any ram air. It might lower the temp of the air you suck in, but wouldnt ram.

I'm aware of that.

Well Good :jump:

thanks everyone for so much input. now i need to reevaluate what i'm gonna do. I think i'm still gonna make some type of hood scoop to get the air into the engine bay. I know i can make the scoop because i work with fiberglass all the time. I make my own surf boards, so if anyone wants surfboards too.....j/k

how much air is too much air into the intake? someone said that i'd have to change my timing to avoid blowing my valves.

Alright time to set some rumors straight. Engines CAN injest some water without problems. Racing cars do it all the time and in fact one way that has been used in the past to increase horsepower is water injection. You just don't want to hose it down bad. Look at the hot motorcycles some time. They have factory ram air.

2nd. The fuel injection system should be able to adjust for the change in intake pressure no problem. That's why they have all those nifty sensors. The pressure increase isn't that much on a ram air

JusG!

I'm in the process of building a fiberglass enclosure for my subs, amps, etc. One method I was considdering was to take a large block of styrofoam (like those used in dock pontoons) and carve it to the shape I want, then cover it in a few layers of fiberglass, then carve out (or disolve with acetone) the styrofoam... I was just curious what type of foam you use to make surfboards, and where I might purchase some?

the foam I use for surfboards we call it sea foam. its white and comes in 3" thinkness, 3' wide and up to 15' long. I'm not sure of a name, because i just get the foam from the local surf shop very inexpensively because I make them boards to sell. It's really not durable at all. it dings and dents so easily, i can't see how you'd benefit having it in your car at all. find something more sturdy.

Originally posted by jusg19


how much air is too much air into the intake? someone said that i'd have to change my timing to avoid blowing my valves.


And they were very very wrong.

There is a lot more to an engine that air in and exhasut out.
The amount of air allowed into an engine is controlled buy the throttle body, the valve sixe, the port design, and the cam profile and timing.

Allowing more air to reach the throttle body (which is all your doing) will not get any extra air into the motor. It will simply allow the motor to take all the air it needs when it needs it.
Besides which all your US Civics are injected, and the ECU is able to increase the A/F ratio to more than compensate for any extra air.

Useing a Ram Air if designed correctly might force some extra air into the intake, and have a similar effect to a Turbo or S/C (i.e. it forces compressed air into the intake) However again there will never so much extra air that the ECU wont be able to handle it.
They also only work at very high speeds, (i.e. above 60mph) and becasue of the way air flows will often only work with in a limited speed range.
They are also very very hard to design to work correctly, and a poorly designed one can actualy create a vacume that sucks air out of the intake.


However all that said, having a short ram intake in the engine, combined with vents in your hood that worked with the current air flow patterns in your engine bay may cool the air temp in the engine bay at speed to a point that its almost as good as having a CAI.


Basicly on anything but a very heavily modfied car bonnet scoops and ram air intakes are totaly worthless as performanc enhancers, and usefull only for looks.

Originally posted by jusg19
also the speed of the air going into the engine will be faster the faster i go.

Before getting carried away, rethink what you said and work out how fast you have to be going to get it far enough over atmospheric pressure to make a difference. :D

Sounds like you're working on the SCRAM-jet principle. Have you seen the velocity those suckers require to get them to work? :p It's not worth it really, especially as you are killing your aerodynamics to get no real improvement ;)

This was kinda the same thing as what I was gonig to do with my twin carb engine. I was going to extend the intake down to the front of the bumper and use some kind of pipe with bumps inside similar to a vac tube, I thought that the bumps would help stop some of the water and other bits, also the tube would be gonig vertical upto the air intake to this would also help a bit.


I have been told that with the carb engine i could reset the ECU and this would sort out the Air/Fuel ratio thing or well should do anyway :). Not sure about the injection engines.


oh look two new posts have appeared while i have been typing this or did i miss them hehe.

Originally posted by MKS

I have been told that with the carb engine i could reset the ECU and this would sort out the Air/Fuel ratio thing or well should do anyway


alas more mis information.

With a carb engine more air is a little harder to deal with. Basicly it requires tuning the carbs to supply more fuel. (not that hard, but harder than doing nothing on an injected car)
The ECU on your car does very very little, has some control over ignition and prehaps the cold idle. But the engine can be made to easily run with out it. :D

Tunning the carbs is not that hard if you know what your doing, but it would require either finding a book with the details of the carbs in it, and a tuning precedure, or taking the car to a proffesional who knows how to set up a set of carbs.

In really extreme cases (and this wont happen to the honda) you might have to change things like Jets or Needles in the carbs, or even go up to a larger size.
My old Triumph was so under carbed from the factory, and the stock intake so restrictive that when I added a set of Piper X filters it leaned out so much it wouldn't run above idle. The only fix was to go from the 1 1/2 inch carbs up to 1 3/4 inch carbs. :D

Thats cool as well..

I cant really do anythnig myself with a carb, I have taken one or two apart but never got them back togeather again hehe, But I know a man who can hehe. Just wish I could find a Mechanical book for my honda... what r the books called Hays or hayes somthing like that I just cant find one for the 4th gen I guess I shall have to order one :)

There's actually a tweak to the twin-carbs that you can do involving a few drops of glue that improves throttle response. I'll see if I can dig out the info as a friend who works for honda did it to my GL.

Don't mess with the carbs unless you know what you are doing. A lot is factory sealed and messing with it may requiree rekitting - besides, balancing them is a bitch.

Sounds interesting :)...


If anyone else knows any little tweaks plz say :)