Got an Open element air cleaner for christmass. got everything hooked up like it says in the tech articles. anyone know how much power is improved? I can't really tell any differece in power but it makes a loud sucking sound when you get over 1,500 RPMs
but I am happy with it anyway, looks better than stock too. I also took out he weather striping in the back and removed the hood insulation.

I was going to post some pics but it says the files are to freaking big or something

 

I don't think you can expect to feel any power gain, as it would be very minimal at best. The sound you are hearing is the easier breathing afforded by the unimpeded, exposed filter element. Is it a K&N or something? Maybe 1 or 2 hp, but doesn't it sound better? LOL, seriously, move on to some other mods now and build a more noticeable gain. Good luck with everything.

 

I noticed a serious gain with mine. My car really woke up and I felt and heard a noticable difference. I thought it was one of the few mods I did that actually had a noticable impact on the butt dyno. On a cold day it is easily 10hp mod. Now get a 95 degree day with 80% humidity and its not worth much over stock.

 

shifty,

i'm running an 84 305 ho cowl induction air cleaner with a k&n filter. on the dyno, the difference between that air cleaner and no air cleaner was only 4 hp.

on the gtech, ran 5 runs with air cleaner, 5 runs without. no discernable difference.

in my opinion, you don't start seeing noticable benefit from the improved airflow of changing the air induction till you make exhaust/intake improvements.

 

.

 

Yea I agree and at the time the car did have a ghetto exhaust set up that didn't have a muffler. Better than stock but not as good as a cat-back. Maybe that is what I felt. There was deffinate throttle response increase after the install though. Did you dyno with the stock air cleaner compaired to the open element. That would be interesting to see. Just the other day I installed an open air element on a board members car and he to felt a slight difference.

 

no, i didn't do an open element, but you can't get any less restrictive than no air cleaner at all.

i believe the difference you're percieving is the change in sound you get when you swap over to the open element. it sure sounds a lot cooler.

 

Actually, having no air cleaner will flow less then a properly sized air cleaner on a TBI, since TBI's can only use air flow from the sides and the air cleaner tends to help direct it from the sides straightening it and preventing turbulence.

An open element air cleaner will make less power then a properly tuned setup with the same size element and a proper snorkel routed to pick up cold air. In most cases, underhood air could be 100* or more warmer then outside air and cooler air is more dense and will make more power.

 

In regard to hotter temps under the hood... I am planning on puchasing an ASCD SS hood or a cowl eventualy so that should help get cold air in there.

 

first, i agree with you on the snorkel/cold air setup. i think you need to have at least a 3" snorkel and pull your cold air from outside the engine compartment to a noticable gain, though.

i completely disagree with you on the "no air cleaner" issue, however. while there may be some validity to your argument when the car is moving, the car is stationary when it's on the dyno. there is no turbulence. there's also nothing that flows better than completely unimpeded air.

the bottom line is that, in stock or near stock form, there's only a 4hp difference or so between having the air cleaner on and and no air cleaner at all. this indicates that there are other restrictions between the throttle body and exhaust tips. since i'd just done a full header/exhaust install, the suspected culprits are intake, heads and/or cam.

 

Easiest way to do it is to just use the factory snorkle setup that bolts over the top of the battery tray. One should be big enough for most TBI setups. If you really want to go with double snorkels then grab an aluminum topped pre '86 5.0 HO air cleaner off of a ford (any of the 5.0 HO engines, not just the mustangs, you can find them in the junkyard if you look around). The best way is to make an air box like the one that SLP uses for their TPI setups… basically one that connects the snorkle to the triangular opening in the front inner fenders. I made a relatively compact setup like that that connected to a 4" tube and used a slightly modified full size truck air cleaner housing (dead common in the JY's), they've got roughly a 6x3" inlet and their ducting connects to a 4" tube…

There is turbulence around the injector pod. Turbulence is about as good as just blocking that part of the opening to airflow with something solid. I have no idea what it does on a dyno, but I could care less.

At the track (testing using my full size truck with a L05) no air cleaner in the housing cost right around 3mph. No housing or aircleaner cost about 3.5mph, and an open element (I used the stock housing with the lid flipped allowing about a 2" opening all around the air filter) cost a little over 1.5mph (I got about 9 passes that night, tried each configuration at least 2 times). This is all compared to running the stock air filter housing with a K&N element and the "muffler" removed out of the inlet snorkel and replaced with a 4" tube going straight to the air inlet in the fender. I've gotten similar results in my crossfire TA but it was longer ago and I don't remember the exact numbers, but I found that it ran much better even with the much undersized filters factory then it did without. The truck is also more representative since it uses the same TBI assembly as the L03 and traction and such is a non issue (I can do a burnout with the 33" tall AT tires + 3.42 gears, but I do not spin them off the line at the track, and all the passes were done in D so shifting should be a non issue also, making it very nice for back to back tuning)

4hp will not make even a 2mph difference at the track, much less what I saw. So that may be the case on the dyno, but not real world. The biggest restrictions with the stock LO3 engine in order are the heads, then the exhaust manifolds, y-pipes, cat, cat back, and then finally the intake.

Good headers/exhaust, decent heads (milled vortec's to keep compression the same with the felpro thin headgaskets to get the compression up a little + matching Edelbrock vortec/tbi intake would be my choice) and cleaned up TBI should put a stock L03 short block into the 12's. Add a stock LT1 (or some of the TPI cams) or better cam and you'll be solidly in the mid 12's (assuming proper tuing).

 

ummm....12s? ist that a little optimistic?

 

I've run 13's in my '83 with a stock long block (including heads and cam, never disassembled), modified crossfire setup on a stock base, headers, custom exhaust… you don't think that you can run 12's with every part of your 305 being a better part? If you can't you're doing something wrong.

 

look, there are ppl here with the exact combo you suggested that arent outta the 14s yet with proper tuning. there are ppl with far more aggressive combos that havent broken the 13 sec. barrier, again, with proper tuning. im not gonna argue about it as i dont have the knowledge to argue about it. however i can say that i have read almost all the posts on this board since ive been a member, so i know what ppl are or are not runing. with the combo you suggested to that man, he is NOT gonna get in the 12s without the squeeze. as a matter of fact, to get a N/A 305 in the 12s would take way more then just upgrading its internals. ans as for your crossfire, totaly different ecm. but with stock internals, id have to see a time slip to believe your claim of 13s. then, id have to see the motor broke down, lol. no hard feelings mate, this is MHO.

 

heh... WV... you shouldn't be that far from me here in the DC metro area. A tree fell on that car during Isabel and I'll be parting it out in the next couple of weeks... If you are really curious you can stop by and do all the dissasembly you want. As far as a time slip I can show you a pile...

 

im not a bit curious, as i dont believe it anyway...

 

love to see pics of that. sounds interesting



first, only an idiot would run up and down the road without an air cleaner. my point was simply that running no air cleaner at all doesn't make much of a difference, neither will an open element. and i still disagree with you on the turbulence. the last time i was at the dyno, i talked to a guy with a tbi truck with an open element. he put one of the new k&n extreme lids on it and saw no loss. that lid breathes through the top.


dude, the only way that combination's going to run 12s in the 1/4 is if you tow it with john force's funny car. if you're lucky, you'll get 250 rwhp out of that. low 14s. maybe ... MAYBE high 13s if you can get it to hook up. the biggest problem you'll have is the edelbrock tbi intake is designed for low rpm torque. aside from the fact that too much low rpm torque will do nothing but cause you to spin the tires, the better breathing heads and bigger cam are designed to move the powerband up in the rpm range. your cam and heads are going on one direction, your intake in another.

 

and how do you split the quote like that so it stays bold and your response isn't bold?

 

I don't have any pics of it installed on the car right now, but you can get some idea of what the air cleaner looks like in one of the pics that I just put up in this thread. WRT to mating it up to the air box, really you only need the fender flange off of the SLP box, which is a piece of cake to duplicate in fiberglass (I occasionally make whatever fiberglass parts I feel I need…). You'd have to ditch the stock coolant valve and reroute some of the plumbing to make it fit well.

I won't argue about the original edlebrock TBI intake, but you really don't need much more then that either.

WRT to what you "need" to accomplish that. 250hp (about 310 at the crank)at the wheels would be close to what you need to run a 12.8 in a well setup, 3400# f-body. I've run a 13.5@100mph in my L98 formula (cold air, cat back, otherwise stock) which dyno'ed at 231hp at the wheels and weighs 3710# (I weigh over 300#, and firebirds start with a base weight 160# heavier then a comparable camaro… With a 150# driver in a 5 speed RS you'd be right around 3400#). My brother has run 11.59@119mph in a 3400# car that dyno'ed at 326hp at the wheels.

The combination that I listed should get someone that knows what they're doing safely into the 12's. If I was into the ragged edge thing I'd tell you that you don't need much of that. You really need about 310-320hp at the crank to go high 12's @ ~107 mph in a 3400# f-body. 315hp is about 420cfm worth of air (about 4700rpm @ 100% VE, about 5600rpm at 80% VE), which the stock TB should be able to supply. You'll need intake/head ports that flow about 155cfm to move that much air, which is pretty close to what you'll get out of the stock heads. I have not flow benched the stock L03 intake so I don't know how close it would be to working, but if not just about any upgrade will. With just minor clean up on the intake/heads (if any), killer exhaust (1-1/2"-1-5/8" primary headers, good, custom cat back, I don’t know of any that I really like, flow isn't the problem, it's turbulence…, I make my own), a cam that will make it's HP peak around 5000-5500rpm, 5 speed or matching converter (somewhere in the low 3K range) and roughly 4.11gears with a 25.5-26" tall tire (I'd use a street radial, but I've run 1.71's on stock radials, most people would need a DR or something like a 26x8.5" hoosier, a bigger slick will just waste power) will get a good driver into the 12's.

If you don't like it, that's not really my problem, but it can be done. Just because it seems that everyone needs 500hp to run 12's that doesn’t mean that is the case.

look here, it's linked to every reply window on this board. I actually wrote a quick VB script to do it automatically for me but you could just cut and past the correct VB code as you need it.