I am running an open-element 14" filter on a carb, and I was thinking of making a cold air intake using the louvers on my 85 TA hood.

Cutting out the framing and fabbing up tubing to get to the louvers would be easy enough to do, but I was wondering if anyone knows how useful/feasable it would be.

Would this location provide enough airflow to even warrent such a mod? From what I can tell, air just kinda flows over the car at this point. The high pressure zones at the front of the car and the base of the windshield are usually where the manufacturers put intake stuff like this.

The tubing would have to come very close to the radiator (Griffin aluminum). Would the heat from the radiator being so close cancel any gains I could expect?

In South Florida, rain is also a concern. Would water be able to make it through an air filter? Would leaving the screens in the louvers help this at all, or would it only hinder airflow?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

 

I had contemplated this before with a TPI intake. When you close the hood there is almost no room for air to flow from those vents straight back to the intake. Maybe it is possible to route it around the radiator, but that would probably cancel the effect.

 

those louvers look like they were almost designed to be used in a cold air intake, so everybody who has ever seen them has probably has the idea. but does anybody know if this has ever been done and made it work?

 

As with all induction hoods, in order for it to work at all, it would require a good seal to the bottom of the hood, which is the easy part. The problem I see is that the louvers are flush with the hood and might create a low pressure area or vaccuum, so it could actually work against the engine and hurt performance.

 

That was one of my worries. is there any way i can test this other than taking my car to a wind tunnel? I heard somewhere that these cars spent some time in the wind tunnel during their design. is there any way i can get ahold of those results? the only way i can even think of to test it is to drive down the road with someone on the hood, because i dont thing even a big exhast fan is big enough to generate the kind of wind i would need to get a result.

then again, a body on the hood of the car would create its own turbulance, disrupting any test results. maybe i could rig up a MAF from a TPI car to my laptop?

looks like the only way im going to find out is if i buld it. but then if it goes wrong, i will have a hole in my hood, and air flowing the wrong direction through the engine compartment that could hinder cooling. any suggestions on whether i should just built it or not?

I'm not looking for the "ram-air" effect with positive pressure on the carb, im just trying to feed my carburator cooler air. is there a better way without buying a new hood?

 

does anyone have any idea how much air is hitting the car at, say 30-45 mph? i have access to some 3/4 horsepower carpet drying fans that boast 3,000 CFM. would two or three of these at close range be enough to test positive or negative pressure on the louvers, or should i just giive up now?

 

You're probably thinking about it too hard.

 

probably, but im pretty obsessive, and stuck indoors due to rain.

i just took some clay measurements. there is just over an inch of clearance from the hood to the radiatior. which means that the air intake is gonna have to have some pretty extreme dimensions to be feasable and still fit. like 15-20" wide and 1" high. that seems a like a great way to heat up the airflow.

so what is everybody else using to get cool air to the carbed/tbi engines? other than a new hood. i like my steel stock hood. its pretty. and free.

 

think about fourth gens.. their air intake sits right over the radiator, and they still get gains when they put on the slp ram air package. its possible you could see gains from it, but i doubt it would be worth all the work. when i switched over to a cowl hood and a k&n filter and lid, i only saw about a tenth in the quarter.

 

alot of people run drop base dual filters that came stock, drop base aftermarket air cleaners, the "ram air box" thats advertised in the back of all the car mags, and I know one guy that modified a turbocharger/centrifugal supercharger hat and runs mandrel bent exhaust tubing to both fenders and filters with cone type filters..don't know how well it flows, but it does look interesting

 

There was a post on here a few months go about a guy that was running an ATI carb hat and a 3-4" pipe set up from the stock airbox location, on the passenger side. He was running a decent set up, and gained 20-30hp just by go back to a regular open element.

I have also found a pic of a guy that made a fiberglass overlay that went from under the airfilter base, to the front of the hood, with open vents, so its been done before. When i get home ill try and find the link to the guy, it was a White TA i think.

One way to test the areo is to get a leaf blower, or a few

If you can find a place that is snowing, drive in it, and have a friend in another car watch the snow go over the nose, i know my firebird, when i get above 15mph, almost no snow will even touch the windshild, so im afraid that there might be a vacuum over those vents.

Cowl induction, or going to a new "Ram Air" hood is probly your best bet in getting a very functional cooler air set up

 

so much for that. i was looking for something that i could build that wouldnt cost me any money. cuz im broke.

I've got bigger fish to fry now. like trying to figure out where i went wrong on the fan relay.

thanks for all the input. saved me days of useless fabrication and a hole in my hood bracing.