Constructed an Air Dam the other day

[TalonEclipseMixGsx]

So I got bored 1 day and figured I'd make an air dam. It's been something I planned on doing for awhile but just never got around to it. All of the stuff I either got from Lowes, or just had lying around.

Got that thin sheet metal in the section where they sell all the lumber and aluminum siding stuff.

Then I got that foam stuff that I put around it in the plumbing section.

Used a marker, some tin snips, and some cardboard from a 12 pack of coke. Oh and I had about 7-8 beers while doing this.

This was also on the vfaq, which is where I got all of the ideas.

This was before


So I started with taking off the MAF and tracing the outline of where i needed to cut on the card board. Then I did some rough measurements on how much i needed to cut. It doesn't matter if its exact because you do the fine cutting when you're almost finished.



Be careful not to drink too much. I got a little tipsy and thought i'd be slick and stab the sheet metal where I was going to cut, kind of like a ninja. Anyway it didn't work out to well and I had to do it over.



So I did all my measurements again, sobered up some and started doing the cutting for the maf, and the rough cut to fit it in.


Then I installed it on the Maf, and proceeded to install and uninstall the intake several times, trimming small pieces off each time. While doing this each time I'd close the hood. I did this until finally I could close the hood without hearing the sheet metal hitting.



After that was all done. I cut little sections out of the foam to put all around the edges to make a tight seal, and prevent hot air from the engine bay to get around the cracks. These are after its all done





When I finally finished I took it out for a drive. The logger showed 80 degrees intake temp on start up. After making a few WOT pulls I checked it again and it reached 85 degrees. Only 5 degrees increase of ambient air temp isn't too bad. My next project will be making a kind of ram air deal to direct air flow from the front bumper up through that hole that the factory UICP wen through and connected to the SMIC.

[vanilla gorilla]

Sweet deal. Looks pretty good actually. Though I don't see the point in trying to keep hot air off the air filter since its pre-turbo. Yeah your intake air temps may be lower at the MAF sensor (doesnt the logger reading for intake air temp come off the mass airflow sensor?), but the airs just gonna get hot again from the turbo right? Not trying to bash you at all, or anything, it just seems pointless to me. Its still a nice piece though!

[SilvrEclipse]

The colder the air going into the turbo the cooler it will be coming out of the turbo. Its still going to heat up, just not as much.

Nice work man, it looks good.

[TalonEclipseMixGsx]

Thanks. I do believe the intake temp does come from the MAF. I should have mentioned, the day before, I took it out on a 90 degree day and the intake temps reached close to 120 after a few WOT pulls. After putting the damn on I was only getting a 5-6 degree max increase. So it's not like I could feel a noticeable difference, but I'm sure it helped out at least a little bit.

Edit - Also, you can't see from the pictures, but there is a hole under the air filter where the stock UICP went through. It gets fresh air from that, but that is where i was wanting to to make an air foil to point new air directly to it.

[steviek]

Looks really good I told you it was worth it !

[Blackcrow64]

Very nice... I think I will move this to the Tech Articles section too.

I like how many good articles with pictures are being written lately.

[ned032002]

I know when I do all the fun stuff on my car I'm going to take pictures of everything along with a pretty smooth write-up too. Trying to find good information that contains pictures is hard to find even on tuners. The air dam looks good man good job.

[SilvrEclipse]

Our tech article section use to pretty small and not to many good articles. Now it has become pretty good, we have a lot of great articles that can be very helpful. Keep them coming guys!

[TalonEclipseMixGsx]

Originally Posted by steviek

Looks really good I told you it was worth it !

Yep, definately worth it, and only takes a couple hours to rig up, and the cost in parts is about $10 if not less. I wasn't expecting such a decrease in intake temp. I'd recommend it to anybody.

[vanilla gorilla]

Originally Posted by ned032002

I know when I do all the fun stuff on my car I'm going to take pictures of everything along with a pretty smooth write-up too. Trying to find good information that contains pictures is hard to find even on tuners. The air dam looks good man good job.

Off topic but I was wondering what kind of car do you have? I thought you had a 1g and sold it.

[gthompson97]

2g gsx

[rock0134]

why the foam on the edges?

[steviek]

Originally Posted by GSX RIDER

why the foam on the edges?

1 so it makes a nice seal with your hood
2 so you don't cut yourself on it.

[david-b]

I bought my bro a CAI for his GMC Sonoma and it came with this air box thing. Same deal, but all precut and everything. Acutaully came together really nicely and even had the foam for all the edges.

Looks good!