BlueZee28

iTrader: (30)

Lengthy title, but I hope this will give you guys some inspiration for those who are not relocating the battery to the trunk and want to do a huge cold air kit over to the driver side.


The issue that most seemed to always run into with a big intake with the LSx swap is that when you run a massive 4" tube over to the driver side, the upper radiator hose wraps over the top of it, touching it in various places making the idle air temperature to be much higher than it should be. I had experienced this my first attempt at my intake and have since decided I was going to make it work better.


The parts that I am using:

(2) 90* couplers
(1) 4" to 3.5" reducer coupler
(~18") 4" diameter intake tubing
(1) K&N cone filter with 4" on the pipe side


To make this work, I cut a circular hole in the driver side tray where the cruise control and vacuum ball were, but I cut the hole slightly larger than the 4" coupler that would be sitting there. This way, I could tilt the coupler more at a 60* angle and lower it down into the hole, which resulted in the entire intake tube to sit about 3/4" lower than it originally did with my old setup. I tried using a 45* coupler in the hole but the angle wasn't right, so I did it the more home-made way.

On my old setup, the 90* coupler sat at a perfect square to the tray and I had kind of rigged up some tape holding the pipe somewhat in the coupler which resulted in loss of metered air, and the pipe was touching the coolant hose. With my new setup, I've got a good 1/2-3/4" between the tubing and the coolant hose, and my air filter under the tray ***** towards the center of the car at a slight angle.


*I realize what I'm typing may be very confusing, but I WILL have pictures most likely within 24 hours of this thread being posted. It's dark outside and my garage lights aren't sufficient enough to show what I'm talking about, so I'll get on the photos tomorrow*


To make a long/confusing story short, the 4" cold air kit does work, and clears the coolant hose which I have not seen anyone else do on the driver side, seems a lot of people just move the battery to the trunk and route the intake over there, but I didn't want to do it that way.

3.1EyeCandy

iTrader: (3)

eh. Pontiac put the battery on the driver's side. CAI then goes to the passenger side. This only leaves the steam tube and/or the radiator overflow. Think this would help the situation any? Mine's only a 3" CAI I believe

BlueZee28

iTrader: (30)

Yea I forgot Pontiacs had the battery over there. I guess in your case it would depend on how big the overflow tank is and where it's mounted, if aftermarket.

mille_3

iTrader: (3)

The firebird I'm working on has the battery on the passenger side. I ran the CAI to the driver side. Had to cut the hose "holder" or whatever that things is on the radiator shroud but otherwise no issues. I had panned on 4" tubing but being that it slims down to 3.5" at the MAF creating a restriction I decided to stay with 3.5. Oh and BTW....ttiwwp

88FormulaKiller

iTrader: (8)

i decided to use a 4th gen coolant tank mounted under the battery to solve that issue, thats one route to go.

1ADan

iTrader: (4)

tagging this one for use later, thanks for the info! I picked up a cheap 4" GTO CAI ($70 on ebay) that I've been meaning to modify to fit into the 'bird (psgr side battery stock), but waiting for my throttle body to arrive first.

406TPI

iTrader: (1)

What...you mean like this? LOL Been like that for 4-5 years I think...doesn't touch.

BlueZee28

iTrader: (30)

Close, but not exactly. Mine is a true cold air kit, the filter is mounted under the tray right in front of the driver side tire. So it took a little more work to get the angles correct since there is limited real estate to work with when cutting a hole in the tray.

406TPI

iTrader: (1)

Oh, I see...Getting it through the tray would require another 45....just didn't feel it was all that critical to go through it. Maybe that will change now with the maggie set-up.

White'89

iTrader: (8)

I'm going to start building my CAI tomorrow and I'll be using 4in exhaust tubing. I'm crossing my fingers that if I diagonal cut the 90* right at the throttle body it should line up and have a nice straight path to the driver side battery tray.

BlueZee28

iTrader: (30)

Here's the pictures. You can see under the tray, a little bit of that second 90* elbow is sticking under the tray, because I lowered it down into the hole to get the tubing to clear the radiator outlet.














By the way, I changed out my tubing today for a polished aluminum piece that I bought yesterday. It looks so much better than the raw aluminum tube I had previously. I'm gonna give it a good polishing too and make it crystal clear.

Spike-Z

iTrader: (4)

Good stuff man! You'll definately love the sound the engine makes when you snap the throttle.

RaverRacerX

have you thought of making a weirdo pseudo 4th gen airbox and drawing air from the bumper?

BlueZee28

iTrader: (30)

Cool idea but my 4th gen windshield fluid bottle is right in the way down there.

White'89

iTrader: (8)

Well, I'm out. My intake pipe and upper hose are basically hugging. But I'll fix that later once I've test driven it.

Orr89RocZ

iTrader: (20)

Looks good. if you got more 'fancy' with the pipe bends i'm sure you can get it away from the rad but makes it harder to get into the tray area. Need tight radius turns or just pie cut

alan91z28

you can swap the battery back and forth pretty easily... that is what i did as i moved it to the drivers side so i can have my air inlet on my ls3 iroc on the passenger side

blue zee one thing is what is your thought though on water ingress... i never intentionally drive my car in water, but the only thing to think about is the issue that justin had on his last year when he got caught in a down pour

BlueZee28

iTrader: (30)

Mine hasn't seen rain since probably 2007 or 2008. I don't drive it without watching the radar. If by some chance I were caught in it I always have a small tool kit that I can remove a section of pipe and move the filter under the hood temporarily

I also have a rubber flap/shield in front of the tire that keeps crap from being flung into the filter.