blackbeauty

I've read heaps of posts, but I haven't seen anything that talks about this.

My 82 has the induction cowl hood with a single snorkel air intake. By replacing the closed lid with one from an 84 HO Trans Am (and using no ducting), the hole in the lid made my car a maximum of 4MPH and 0.5s quicker than with the original lid.

Later I scored the cowl ducting and wired up the flap to open via a switch. I did back to back runs down the track and the car went no faster with the ducting in place or removed.

With this in mind, I've got a few questions...

1) Do you think I'd stand to see any performance benefit on the track if I installed a home made dual snorkel unit with the HO air cleaner lid over what I've got now?

2) Would an open element filter be better than a single snorkel with the HO air cleaner lid?

3) If you are driving at speed and are not using ducting, would cold air be drawn into the cowl or would hot air from the engine bay escape? Or would hot air escape through the fender vents?

Thanks for any thoughts!

blackbeauty

anyone?

sellmanb

as-is what i've read... the windshield is a dense air spot, and will be cool air. With the cowl hood, you would benefit from this with an open element aircleaner... I hope that helps to answer your question somewhat

blackbeauty

Thanks for the reply, but sorry, no, it doesn't answer my question.

I know that I'd stand to gain benefit from an open element filter and cowl bonnet over JUST a single snorkel, but how does a single snorkel intake with the 84 Trans Am ram air lid and ducting compare to an open element or even a dual snorkel? I haven't seen any thread that talks about this.

The reason I want to know is because I already have the single snorkel with the ram air, and if there's no benefit of this over the open element or dual snorkel then I won't waste my time converting over to using one.

paulmoore

Well, if you want to get really creative, you can get your dual snorkel air cleaner, and then extend the ducting down to the fron bumper and have them go to where the fog lights would be. That way, all the cold air in the front of the car would go straing into the ducts, and then into the air cleaner. And if you have one of those front license plate thingies(you know the ones that say either Camaro, or have the bowtie on them) then you can put some black wire mesh behind it, and noone will even see the ductwork so long as it is black.

Nevermind, I just realized that you have a firebird and not a camaro Sorry.

safemode

iTrader: (1)

when you're traveling really fast and allow air to flow under the hood (as you would with a cowl hood) then the air in the engine bay is roughly the same temp as the air you'd get if you ducted it. Many drag racing cars dont do the whole cold air huge tube induction route, it adds flow restriction that outweights the little temp gain. I'm talking about mendrel bent tubes too, if you use that retarded bendable ridged tubing you would be better off with a stock single snorkle with THERMAC enabled.

If you have a working cowl hood, go open element, large as possible. That is your best bet. Adding any sort of ducting would only hinder flow and wouldn't give you any better air temp.

Look at it this way though, you dont need any more intake than you have room for exhaust. All you can do once you allow your intake the volume of air equal to the volume your exhaust can put out is to free the flow and cool the temp. An open element definitely allows the volume issue to be resolved, a cowl hood takes care of the rest.

blackbeauty

Thanks safemode, I think that pretty much answers my question. Open element it is then.