hey i just wanted to let everyone know that THIS cold air intake system for a 93-97 camaro will fit on the 3rd gen.... at least my 91 rs

http://www.ebay.com/itm/220865519958...84.m1439.l2649

apparently i can't upload photos or link to them.. grr



If you are using the stock 3rd gen cruise control, and/or if your harness is out of a B or D body, then you will need to flip the intake towards the battery. if you haven't relocated the battery to the trunk, then you will need to cut a few inches off of the tube where the filter attaches...

you will also need to extend the wires for the mass airflow sensor if it goes that direction... but... if you're like me and your harness isn't completed yet, then that should be no problem, and..... it isn't a big deal to splice a few wires in either way.

but long story short, that's the cheapest intake option i have found if your car didn't come with a TPI motor with the intake plenum etc. and.. purchasing the OEM parts is pricy as hell. just the little piece that goes from the intake to the mass airflow sensor is more than this entire kit. trust me, i went through all of the options.

personally i didn't have to do any fabrication, i just moved the battery a little further forward and strapped it in. worked just fine.

 

there..... got it..


note.. it's not completely installed.. lol just kinda set it all in there so i could see if it fit, which is why all of the clamps and the filter are turned weird directions lol

 

the factory TPI setup hooks right up and jams cold air from in front of the radiator into the throttle body and looks a ton cleaner. there are V6 cars in the junkyards that can donate the parts for dirt cheap.

 

Thanks for the information , I have a question that first elbow doesn't seam to be a 90 degree bend on your set up but on ebay it does, Is that the way it comes like on yours or did ou set ti up like that?

 

O-o wow... didn't notice honestly..

let me go look...

---

well... it looks like it's a 45 on mine. and it also looks like mine is a lot longer than theirs.

interesting thought. then again, theirs may not actually be a 90, and may not be longer, they may have just shoved the tubing further into the couplers. the funny thing though is that it advertises better air flow, but you wouldn't have better air flow if you shoved the tubing way deep into the couplers.. you'd end up creating a space for air to turbulate. .... turbulate... i guess that's not a word, but it is now.

as for looking cleaner, and junk yards and cheap parts, personally, i like the modern look, though, i DID look all over the internet for a cheaper OEM alternative, and couldn't find one. like i said, just the boot coming off of the intake is 45$ from hawks. usually the front part of the intake is 190$ on ebay... and you really don't want to find a used rubber intake boot at the junk yard, it wont last.. or .. may potentially not last. they are a high replacement item. the rubber goes hard and cracks etc.

junk yard:

problem is, i own a business, i can't really leave, and the nearest junk yard that -may- possibly have one is about 70 miles from me, and i won't know until i waste an entire day searching for one, and if i do manage to find one, there's no guarantee what the condition would be.. so.... i opted to go this route.

and if you should feel so inclined, a little more tubing, and a few more couplers could easily make the intake mount in front of the radiator. you can wrap it completely around the car or stick it out your T-tops if you want to. you just need to buy more tube. and i'd bet it would still be under $60 total to do it that way. rrrr... well not out of your T-top but definitely in front of the radiator. in fact that's not a bad idea. If i do it i'll post pics lol.

oh.... and the other reason i went after this is because, it provides me with some of the tubing and boots i'll need when i boost this thing so i don't have to buy it later, granted i'll have to chop it up at that point, but it will be there for me none the less.

What you said does make sense for a lot of people if they have access to junk yards and the time to go search through them, and i truthfully DID want to go that route, just couldn't make it happen on my budget and time constraints, so posted this alternative... actually, i also posted it because i had a bunch of people tell me that the 4th gen intake wouldn't fit. not necessarily on this forum though.

cheers!

 

LT1?? in a 91 RS, hum we are getting ready to do 2 LT1 swapps into 91 RS's mine a vert, my sons, a HT how do you like it by now?

 

well.... mine isn't running yet, i still need to finish up the wiring. i'll put it this way.. as far as man hours, and being my first swap, it took me probably 15 labor hours to pull the motor out, put the lt1 in, mount the transmission, swap the fuel pump, and lots of other little minor things..

granted, i didn't know what i was doing really... i mean.. i'm mechanically inclined, just didn't know much about doing these swaps.

i could probably do everything i've done to this point in about 6 labor hours...


but with that said, we've spent 4 saturdays, about 6 hours each screwing with the wiring trying to get the old harness and new harness mated together.

the first saturday, we just poured over the wiring diagrams, second weekend we stripped out the unnecessary wires from the old harness, the next one we did the same for the lt1 harness, the next weekend we started plugging crap into the motor and making connections between the two harnesses.

and again, we could have hacked something together and had it running the second weekend, but....... i'm trying to maintain a factory look, and be able to use the AC and all the other crap that the car and motor come with that should be plugged in. sensors and such... and it takes time to route wires, measure everything out, figure out mounting brackets for things, figure out which wires you're actually working with etc..

the other thing that's made it take so long is that we're using the car's fuse box and the wire block on the firewall, so have to match everything up that way..

i could have saved a lot of time also by sending it to the dude on here who makes these things, but, i'd rather do it myself so i know what has and hasn't been done and can verify the quality. not saying he wouldn't do a good job, i'm just fairly untrusting, especially given the amount of money it would take + the limited budget i have. so i'm doing it myself.

you can also buy harnesses that do the same thing, but... they are basic and don't include -everything-.. just what you need to make the motor run more or less. though a lot of people go that route. and if i had the money, i'd have started with one of those and added in all the extra crap as needed.

beyond this, i still have to figure out fuel lines, radiator hoses, where to mount the trans cooler, a throttle cable, and various other things. then i need to finish installing the steering box i put on it (old one was crap) and start welding the Y-pipe, put a bung in for the extra O2 sensor, install those, weld the rest of the exhaust back up, fix all the holes in it, put my gas tank back in and reassemble the rear portion of my car, blah blah blah blah blah, i still have about a month's worth of work if i worked fairly frequently on it...

my goal though is to get it going by the end of november because....... that's when my tags go out...


but yeah...

it's not a difficult swap....

but.. it's not easy either..

i'd seriously -seriously- suggest going LS1 if you can afford it. it's a much easier install, since it has it's own harness dedicated specifically to the motor and doesn't crawl in and out of the freakin' car every other wire to accomplish the same stuff.

not to mention, there's more of a power gain right off the bat.. i went with a caddy motor, which is the least powerful of the lt1's from the factory, but, most of that has to do with intake and exhaust.

got the intake part taken care of (the point of this post lol) but don't have headers.....

don't have a cat on the car, and am running 3" exhaust, so that's a plus.. but still need headers.

over all this has been a few month project so far, and no real end in sight.. BUT.... i've only got maybe 1600 into this project total, and almost have a running car aside from a few nit picky bs things i still need to buy for maybe another 200..... so... much much cheaper than a $3500 LS1 motor.... and.... we're installing it the RIGHT way..... the way that's least likely to see problems vs just hacking crap together and hoping for the best... so.. hopefully it will maybe add a little value to my car, and i could at least break even if i decided to sell it later.

 

Wow! that was a book LOL! Ok here is my deal, I am an electronics tech w/ 31years experience, and a fair mechanic, plus I am a metal fabricator as a hobby, IE the screen name, there is a better way to do the electronics on this swap, but you are just about there. if you need wiring help, I may be able to offer some gideance? this will actually be my 2nd and 3rd LT1 swap.
P.S. I have been doing EFI swaps since the TBI came on sceen, with 12 conversions under my belt now

 

How exactly ??

I had a thirdgen rubber boot up to an LT1 MAF today and the boot fell into the MAF. The MAF is also too large to properly mount on the air cleaner end. Not only is the LT1 MAF a little wider then a the thirdgen style - but it's shorter too.

What parts are you using to get a 4the gen MAF to connect properly to a 3rd gen port injected air cleaner ??

 

This is blatantly wrong, the LS1 harnesses are layed out just the same as an LT1 harness.

 

Unless you've got a dried out boot, it'll stretch right onto the maf.

 

I gottcha'.......

Ya' the boot I had was an older boot. I'm sure the heat gun will soften it up a bit ! I'm betting that a coupler on the other side would allow the MAF to mate up to the air cleaner itself, probably adding the little extra legth needed too.

Thanx !

 

Yes a coupler is needed between the airbox and the MAF, the hardware stores have some couplers that have corrugated metal around them with a hose clamp, if you remove the metal they are a thin wall coupler and flex well.

Good idea on the heat gun.

 

 

^ He wins this round

 

it looks like the same thing but black lol. which...... is actually an option that this same guy sells.. black black blue red

i plan to powder coat mine matte black as well.... i do custom powder coating here at my shop.

 

Not even close, but i'm not surprised you think that either.

 

wow.. dick... why don't you enlighten me then?

Are you just pissed off that i didn't send you my harness? Or are you actually NOT being rude and it just sounds like you are?

 

The intake he posted is 4", the one you posted appears to be 3" Huge difference when you bottleneck things down like that.

I'm not bothered at all by you not sending your harness, though I definetly dont appreciate the voiced doubt about "quality", especially when your harness will have quite a bit of splices and patchwork, and one converted by me will not.

 

patchwork no.... we're doing it the right way i promise..

but...... i want to apologize, i really didn't mean that to sound as offensive as it obviously did. i really could have worded that better now that i read it again. It sounded different when i initially thought it. most importantly, i wasn't trying to say you do shotty work, in fact, though i didn't elaborate, i did say i'm sure you would do a good job.. i should have elaborated, but i tend to type way too much as is.

But. I didn't mean to make enemies out of you. You've been a lot of help to me and i still appreciate it.

 

I definetly wasnt saying I wouldnt help you if you needed help in the future, i'll go out of my way to help someone whether having a harness done for them is in the budget or not.

However, like I said, patchwork is generally what happens when someone does a conversion harness, i've seen this to varying degrees, the worst being multiple colors and sizes of wire to make up one wire.

Its just something that just gets done, sure it works, but when you do that multiple times in a harness it just makes for the possibility of more problems later, say you're working on the coolant temp wire to the C100, it ends up too short, got a nick in it and needs to be cut out, etc, so you grab some wire, make the connection, then you've got to put a connector on the end for the gauge, unless you've got another harness to cut the opposite end from and make it just one connection, so now you've got a wire with 1 or 2 splices in it, compare this with one i'm converting, wire is too short ? I grab a spool of the right color txl wire, grab the oem terminals, and replace it all, with only the oem connectors at each end, no splices. Now if this were something that was required once or twice in an entire harness, wouldnt worry much, but when there are harnesses people are doing themselves with 50,60, 100 splices, thats just silly.

 

Also that guys intake I forgot to point out appears to be done using a plastic intake kit, it'll avoid heatsoak and generally keep your iat's down.

 

Also on the subject of good intake kits for the LT1 swap, i've been convinced for years that the K&N display intake thats usually by the filters is perfect for the swap, unfortunately I've never been successful at convincing the people at the parts store that they should sell it.

 

^Bingo, its an Airaid UBI 4" kit (plastic), I was having a restriction shown in my datalogs (I tune my own car), the problem with LT1 is the mass air flow, but I think the LT1 ecu can run in SD, at least I think I remember reading that somewhere.

There also MAYBE an other option, I'm in the middle of tuning a twin turbo TPI, the owner bought a MAF called DBX from a company called Abaco, its a programmable MAF, they sell a 3 1/2" and a 4", I think it would work prefect for TPI and LT1 cars that need more air.

The guy bought the MAF cause the stock one didn't fit in the engine bay, anyways I programmed it and so far it works perfect, I'm thinking of buying one to test out on my/others car.

 

LT1's MAF (excluding something like the L99's, maybe also the bbody ones) is 3.5" unlike the TPI's maf, I havent looked into it but you could probably also use one of the 85mm mafs from the Z06 LS6.

 

The problem for the MAF guys with TPI is that the MAF for there cars are Voltage based and the LT1 and later are frequency based, this is what I like about the DBX its programmable for any car, frequency/voltage can do both.

Anyways I dont want to steel anyone thread here but I've see on my one car even with a 3" pipe its restrictive, and since we know a 4" can fit why go smaller.

 

NICE,..... Was it a master kit 1 you used ??

While looking for something aftermarket for my conversion I really wanted to stay away from anything that was metal. Battery wasn't relocated in my car and the air needs to come from the drivers side - and will run right along the upper radiator hose as a result.

The thirdgen airbox is an option; but I can't find any flow numbers for the stock LT1 set-up to compare to the TPI airbox flow numbers. Everyone says the TPI airbox is too small for the higher reving LT1 and I can't find any reason not to believe it myself.

The Holley LT1 kit appears to fit OK in my ThirdGen after removing my Cruise Control, and Evap canister. It slipped right over the top of the relay center I added to run my engine accessories. I will be test fitting the K&N LT1 CIA sometime next week.

 

No just the pipe it's self, bought the t-bolt clamps and silicone hoses separate, I didn't want it to look cheap so I paid for high quality clams, all in all I paid $130 without the air filter, I the filter so that saved me some money.

 

LT1 K&N FIPK2 will (Probably) not fit. At the very minimum a large hole would have to be cut thru the drivers side battery tray and I'm not getting into that right now. Even though I was 'turned off' by cutting a hole right now,..... It didn't seem like there was enough space around the drivers side corner of the (3rd gen) radiator for the large K&N plastic duct to fit.

The old school Holley kit was Plug-&-Play !! I even had enough space while using an 8" air cleaner to re-install the small battery tray 'brace" that mounts in the corner.