I put a cowl induction system from an '84 Trans Am onto my "88 Formula to see how it would work. I removed the solenoid, wired open the internal flap and added the lid to my stock air cleaner with the factory element. I confirmed it was pulling air into the scoop with a paper towel while revving the engine. After driving the car I can say that my performance was not nearly as good as the 73-75 Corvette air filter and lid I had used on it. The Corvette's air filter is an inch taller than the filter used on the air induction setup. I kind of suspected that the taller air filter would win out. I certainly can feel the difference in acceleration as compared to the air induction setup. Any thoughts?

 

Yes. How are you measuring "...my performance was not nearly as good as...."? Are you using the world famous, SOTP meter? If so, I'd recommend re-testing both air cleaner set ups using an objective measuring device, then post back.

My guess is that the difference between the two systems would be about "ZERO" on a stock or stockish car, but seeing real data would be interesting.

 

It's my car, my seat of the pant's feel and that's good enough. But thank you for your "seat of the pants" reply because I asked for opinions. The Formula is stock, but that why we do mods on our cars because they challenge us. I'm not interested in race cars. Low milage cars like mine are becoming hard to find so "stockish" is OK for me. I'm just having fun.

 

As long as you're having fun, that's by FAR, the most important thing.

I'd like to share this short story though, for future reference...
For a while, I had a C6/manual and a '92 C4/manual at the same time. The C4 and the C6 felt equally fast. No BS. They did. Friends of mine agreed. Anyone who drove both, agreed. Wife agreed. The C6 was 1 second, and 10-12mph faster in the 1/4 in our rarefied atmosphere, and would go 20 mph faster than the C4 on UMC's full front straight. They felt the same. MY SOTP meter works good enough to WIN ME A POOL....but it's still so broken that I felt that my C4 could somehow be as fast as my C6, when objectively it wasn't close.

We all like to think that our SOTP meter works, but the tool doesn't work. It's a broken tool. If you're just having fun....HAVE FUN!! If your making hp/perf claims...ya gotta back 'em up with some real data.

 

I'm assuming this is on a tbi equipped engine.
if it picked up 0-10-15 hp, the sotp meter must really be tuned in to pick that low of a number up..
seriously having fun is where its at. For giggles, take it to the local track, run it a couple times stock and then run it with the lid inplace. Just to see the difference, to me, that would be fun!

 

I had this setup on my car when I bought it. Stock TBI car and I dont think it helped one bit and looked bad in my opinion so I took it off.

 

Well I'm keeping mine. I just hope the hood clears the dual-snorkle air cleaner. The Edelbrock 3701 I just installed is about 3/8" taller than the stock intake manifold...

 

Probably worth 5hp on a stock TBI motor, not going to make much difference in performance. Sounds good at WOT though and that's cool. If you open up some of the other bottlenecks on that motor, the freer flowing cowl induction will do more.

Think of it as a system. Just one change usually doesn't do much, but the right package of changes will work together and make a noticeable difference. On a 305TBI motor, there are some good, relatively easy mods that make a difference if you are interested. I would do them in this order.

-Advance base ignition timing from 0BTDC to 6BTDC and run 93 octane
-Dual snorkel or T/A cowl induction intake (you did this already-check)
-Swap rear end gears to 3.42 or 3.73 and add a posi
-Change exhaust from the manifolds to the tailpipes. Either use HO/TPI manifolds or headers, 3" cat and 3" cat back.
-1.6 Roller Rockers

Will never be a rocket, but will make the car much more lively and sound good.

 

More than a decade earlier, the same conditions applied to the Ram Air scoops on Firebirds. Technically it made some difference under just the right conditions. In practical use, it was little more than a sales gimmick. As the father of a friend would describe it, it was an Impractical Truism.

 

I did the same on my '87 Formula. Sounds cool, but probably not as effective (SOTP) as the dual snorkel HO set up.

 

I've tried to devise a way to make the scoop on my Formula functional, without using the factory airbox, and also keeping water out.

The problem is that the opening really isn't very big when you start inspecting it closely.

 

It's not very big, but it's intended to be used to supplement the single snorkel intake tube that pulls air from behind the driver's side headlight. Using both together gives a decent amount of free area. If you were just going to use the opening in the hood scoop on it's own, it would be pretty restrictive.