After replacing my spark plug wires because the stock air cleaner was resting (ha, thats an understatement) on them + the dist. and they wore thrrough i decided to do something about it. The only air cleaners that would fit and not hit the wires, dist., or the hood would be something to the tune of 9 x 2 3/4. So rather then use an aircleaner the size of a hockey puck i went and made one out of aluminum sheet metal and plastic pipe. The air filters are k & n's, one of them i scavanged and the other i had to shell out 35 (!) dollars for. One thing i can say for sure is what a difference. The stock air box would gag my motor and it would hit a brick wall after 3500 rpm and just fall flat on its face. Now it pulls out to around 4500 and has a nice gentle roll off rather then plummiting like a rock.

 

Looks good, although I would have just done an open element.

 

i wanted an open element but with the tbi adapter movign the tbi so far back, the 14 in. open element would sit on top of my dist. Even with the silencer ring and the clearence area on the stock air cleaner, the stock air cleaner wouldnt actually sit flush on the tbi because it was sitting on top of the dist. cap and the boots. The largest air cleaner i could use was, maybe a 10 or an 11 inch low profile air cleaner, which would have only had about 60% of the filter area. Beleave me, i really wanted an open element but i dotn ahve the hood clearence or the space. The box itself is actually only about 1/8 in taller then the tbi itself and theres only around 1/2 in clearence between it and the hood. The stock aircleaner always hit the hood when i closed it.

 

That is pretty cool. Must have taken alot of time and work to do that. Does it work good?

 

seems to work pretty well. The only part that was kinda hard was bending the sheet metal by hand. I wish i was still back at college, i could have really used the sheetmetal tools in the shop.

 

thats pretty cool. Too bad it doesnt get any cold air.

 

Looks cool, I think I am going to try and do something like that. The only thing I would try and do is run those fileters up to the front of the car and try to get them to sit about where the snorkles would be. Possibly use those holes to secure the filters.

 

Dude!
Performance gain or not, that thing looks awesome
I just wish we had more room to suck in cold air like the 4th
genners do, *shrug*

 

Wow.:hail:

That looks awesome man; I bet you get some ooo's and ah's when you pop the hood ;-)

 

:hail: :hail: :hail: that is abolutely an awesome mod!! in fact, i would actually pay ya to fab up one for my car, which is a pristine '89 RS with the origional TBI unit. no joke. get back to me on that.

 

that is the coolest mod ever. good job:hail:

 

That looks good- nice workmanship.
But if you fabricate a custom air box, why not just extend it to a stock TPI setup so you're not sucking hot air off directly off the exhaust manifolds. Things get pretty toasty under the hood.
I have just never seen the sense in pulling hot air into an engine with and open element or other similar setup when there is a very reasonable alternative pre-made (TPI stock setup).

This is what I wound up making to get around the problem. Hood clearance is kosher and it is working well.
S-D

 

after the winter i had witht eh stock air box and no thermac i decided against it. The cold air adversly affected the evaporation of the fuel. The hot air doesnt actually effect the tbi that much since the air is cooled quite a bit by thte fuel. After driving it the tbi itself is cool to the touch becase the gas cools the intake charge so much. I do like your airbox, though. it looks pretty cool.

 

dun dun DUNNN! results of the airfilter change.

Tested both air filters today, the stock air box, the one i made, and finally no air filter at all. I managed to calculate RWHP through the cars acceleration and heres what i got. Stock airbox produced 170 RWHP @ 3900 RPM. Switch over to the homemade one and i managed to produce 180 RWHP @ 4200 RPM and finally, with no air filter, it made 200 RWHP @ 4350 RPM. Looks like the homemade one is a definate improvement over the stock air box, but not as good as no airfilter at all.

Now for the *** covering/disclaimer:

I know how much people like to flame around here on the tbi board, especially with clames of engine power output so ill head it off at the pass. And im sure your all curious as to how i extrapolated it all.

Heres how i calculated the horsepower, first, i checked the VSS output against one of those police checkpoint things and found that it gave nearly the same number (+/- 1 mph) I also cross checked the VSS output against the speed calculated against that calculated with rpm and gear ratio, and ofund that to be within +/- 2 MPH. I finally assumed that the car and myself weighed 3400 lbs. Keep in mind that these show the general trend of power output and are estimates only. I suspect that theyre close but they could be in error quite a bit.

 

For what it's worth, I bought an offset open air element that really does give me quiet a bit of clearance with my distributor. It's center is more forward of the motor.

 

That's cool, I'd like to see what the old dynamometer says.
a 30hp split is pretty big.

still looks cool as hell

 

Dimented,

What are the dimesions on your box? I am going to try to build one. Also what thickness aluminum steel did you use? Thanks man.

 

http://store.summitracing.com/productdetail.asp?p=4558


Saw this on summitracing's site the other day.
Custom fabbed is definitly cooler, but if you don't have access to the tools this is an alternative.

 

Thanks. That is cool and will be alot easier I think. Have you made any revisions to where you are drawing the air from or are you still pulling right from the box? Just wondering.

Bill

 

the material i used was, i think 22 gauge aluminum sheet metal. Very easy to cut and bend by hand. I wouldnt use steel, not only does it rust, but its harder to work with if you use the larger gauge. Ive seen sheet metal and aluminum sheet metal at supermarket type HW stores like home depot so that would be a good place to start. The k&n would be good but youll probably want to check the dimensions first to make sure it will bolt up and clear the hood. The nice thing about mine is its only about 1/8 in taller and around 1/4 in wider then the tbi so it will fit wherever the tbi will fit. So thats one less thing ill have to worry about when i get around to moving my efi over to my s-10 when i get another motor and tranny for it (carbing the camaro soon). I would definatly buy prefab first though, its easier.

 

I called summit about the prefab one. They want like $165.00. I will definitly be making my own now. So you used 22 guage aluminium. Did you do any welding? Probably definitly did.

Bill

 

i wish i had a welder of my own. Wouldve made things alot simpler adn cleaner. I used sheetmetal screws adn metal impregnated epoxy puddy (dont worry, its fuel resistant) to seal the seams intermally.

 

Actually, looking into it I found that the one on summit is really not big enough for most of our applications. Even with a 4" inlet,
the technical details recommend it only for V6 and low revving V8 applications. I don't know if that is a flaw in it's design or if it
is a universal problem with using a remote filter on a TBI
application.

I need to take some basic fluid dynamics courses LOL

 

Hehe, fluid dynamics.....

Well assuming the energy equipped equations of continuity (taking into account the compressability of air), we can assume the air will fill every point of vaccum within the air cleaner. So the equation of continuity for compressable flow we have:

dp/dt + u*(dp/dx) .... = -p * (dux/dx + duy/dy + duz/dz)

This takes into effect the compressing of the air, and decompressing as it goes to the area right above the carb. Though you can get a fair amount of air through that 4 inch wide inlet, but I don't think at high-flow it would be somewhat of a constriction, especially with the diffuser effect that it has on the inlet going in probably is it's biggest defeat, since it slows the velocity of the air down a signifigant amount.

 

Jackal, your equation is impressive looking, but meaningless without defining your variables.
Please.
S-D

 

dp/dt + u*(dp/dx) .... = -p * (dux/dx + duy/dy + duz/dz)

*sigh* So many times I'd like someone to define vars for me

dp/dt - is the rate change of density per unit time

u- is the velocity vector

dp/dx- is the change of density in the direction X

... - is the skip over of the y,z part of the equation(which looks just like the x: <u*(dp/dx))

p - is the current density

dux/dx,duy/dy,duz/dz - is the change in velocity with relation to direction

A better explanation of it all can be had from a search on Navier-Stokes equations

Hopefully this helps!

 

stupid fluid dynamics... I hated that class when i took it.

 

good idea, but look what they say about it:

Specifications:
* Minimum clearance required above the carburetor flange: 3 1/8 in.
* Outside diameter: 9 in.
* Center of plenum to snorkel distance: 6 in.
* Works best with small displacement engines under 200 c.i.d. or low revving V6/V8 engines. If the engine requires more than 45 sq. in. of filter area, then this plenum should not be used because the carburetor will have to be re-jetted and a loss of high rpm power will result.