I finally got some spare time to take pics of my engine bay recently so I figure now is as good as any to share my thoughts on building a ram air. I didn't think cold air was simply enough for our cars, I figure if the air had at least even the slightest bit of velocity that would help our engines a lot. TBI's drink from straws, but if the straw is pushing air under pressure it may be more than enough than gasping.

So I came up with this design.

Real pics included today....

 

looks good man it will work for both pontiac and chevy's right? ANy hope's on making the product or no, if so i prob be interested on getting 1 since looks like a little cheaper than a new hood with a scoop.

 

Parts used:

TPI/V6 air cleaner box
TPI air cleaner housing
aluminum sheet metal
aluminum tape
various screws
silicon window sealer
TBI plastic elbow
cheap fram filters

I decided to cut up my rad fan plastic shroud. The size is the width of a fog light box, one cut for each fog light box. It's a rectangle shape with the top side still attached to the housing.
The lower side is then screwed into the bottom part of the fog light box thus producing a scoop.

This scoop is still inefficient so so sealing of the passage way is in order. The majority is blocked off by aluminum sheet metal cut like a box shape. The gaps between the metal and the plastic is sealed with silicon and aluminum tape. May switch to fibreglass mesh in future.

With the lower part of the housing sealed, some cheap fram filters had the gasket cut from them to act as a seal between the housing and the box.

 

To connect the tpi box to the stock air cleaner required some manipulating of the air cleaner box with some pliers and channel lock. It's sealed tight once again albeit facing forward now.

I wanted to use the v6 rubber hose to connect the air cleaner box to the tpi box, but this would require some cutting I will do in future. My el cheapo solution was to cut the plastic elbow in half and tada!

 

Here's a pic...

at least this way, it connects more or less trouble free to the stock housing. I recommend junking the thermac valve else it defeats the purpose.

I had bought a k&n filter for the stock housing so I wanted to keep that investment and figured it be best just to seal the part where the box meets the housing using tpi air filters sans air filter as a gasket.

 

I tested my "ram air ver 1" design on track vs running no air cleaner box.

My results showed ram air was like running no air cleaner box. No change in my 1/4 mile times or speeds.

I trap at an avg 90-91 mph and 15.4xx times.

this is with stock headers, intake, tbi, cam, heads.

since running ram air ver 1, I made ram air ver 2, this design you see.

Ram air 1 had a flaw of 2 1/2 inch shop vac tubing routed to a single fog light box with too long tubing, and too many bends and creases. It ran like running no air cleaner box.

Now I've increased the area that can scoop the air, I've cut down on bends significantly and its sealed pretty well.

This year I've also ditched the stock shocks and struts for kyb's, put in 4th gen rear springs, getting sub frame connectors in a few days, have a slp design y-pipe stainless steel with pre cat cut out. I've got headers itching to be put in once powdercoated and air tubes installed. Got posi coming soon too to match the 3.23 gears I've got.

I'm hoping for maybe 94-95 mph trap speeds and possibly high 14's like this.

Wait till I do cam, intake, heads...