So I was perusing around my local Lowes Hardware store picking up parts for a new homemade CAI - and I saw this metal duct that looked perfect to make a short ram with. However, this was not my intention but I chose to grab it any way ($1.81) thought you never know...

I wind up rigging it underneath the car to the front swaybar (if not sway bar the right part name fails me right now) with nothing more than two self threading screws(had them) and two belt clamps($1.96). Its taking in air from underneath the car, and shooting it straight up into the hood for distribution all over the engine compartment - plus it had excellent clearance as far as worries like water go and get this - Its keeping my temp 20-30 degrees cooler when in movement!

Im so amazed, i cant stop checking the gauge to reassure myself im not crazy.
lol. Ill hopefully have some pictures for you guys soon - its quite very much kinda simple =)

 

honestly I find it hard to believe that a short small piece of pipe like that would make that much difference

I can´t just flat out call B.S. ( I will leave that to everyone else) b/c hell you never know. but I would like to see pics still

 

Oh gladly, pics ASAP. I cant believe it either, i think im nuts
but I cant deny the fact that the guage doesnt lie you know?

 

Wow, that's pretty cool! Can't wait to see the pics! Make sure to post them on our new "cooling forum", too... see what the V8'ers think of it- although, they have less room between the rad and the engine than we do. The temp gauge can't really lie (unless it broke at the same time as this mod), and for that cheap, I'll give it a shot.

 

okay pictures as soon as i get home from work friday the 30th.
you guys i think are just gonna laugh - its nothing but a piece of duct re-router or something, its like... nothing! hehe
anyway youll have to see for yourselves, and ill draw on the pics to show where i bolted it and clamped it to keep it from getting torn off by wind.

anyway yeah - pics tomorrow (the 30th)

 

yes post the pics here, I wouls say screw the v8 cooling section. NO matter how cool it ends up being they will have nothing postive to say.And most of them will just go on and on why you should buy a v8 and ignor your topic.

 

This is one of the best pictures of it here.
it is bolted to the metal plate thats part of the fan i think... i bent the plate so the duct could be bolted and still sit at a 90 degree angle... the belt clamps are holding it onto the bar underneath that hose... part of the steering assembly i believe. like i said - its nothing but this piece of tin garbage =) and doesnt look good really, but functions like a **** =D

 

Hertes a picture of how it looks if you were to kneel in front of the nose and look underneath (the stock baffle was cut in the middle for an earlier cold air setup which has since been improved. A homemade air scoop was in that gap) but fortunately it allows you to see the piece of tin in clarity. see where the belt clamps are? they dont interfere with the driving in the least, and the whole thing makes zero noise which im glad for cause i expected some scraping or shaking while driving/steering.

 

I think you would see better cooling if you would just put your air dam back in the way that it was.

 

Anything that gets more cold air under the hood is a good idea. I dont know how many people don ot have that frotn air dam piece. one or two good winters and its gone.

That thing would be sweet to get some cold air the the plenium. use that to scoop air and run two hoses up and jam them into the front of them plenium. having cold air blowing over and keeping the uper plenium cool.

 

You all are forgeting that air is a poor conductor of heat, thats why engines are water cooled and air cooled engines are a thing of the past (except lawn mowers). The cooler your water temp is the cooler everything is under the hood, you will be better off , trust me.

 

If you think lower air intake temp's do not create performance, your smoking some good crack.

With my adjustable temp fan I can run my car at any temp I want.

now if you dont have an air dam and your car run 200F or higher you got a problem.


I bet you also recommend geting a v8 for more performance???

 

sure lower "intake" air temps helps make a few more ponies, but this idea of puting a scope in to push air up on the engine is a joke. When the cooling fan comes on whats that scope going to to do LOL

Yes I also have a temp swtich, it comes on automaticly at 195 (see below), my themostat is open at 190 so it works real nice, it's THE BEST way to cool your engine.

v8? I never said anything about a v8

Another thing to note, "cold intake" better take air from the outside or in FRONT of the radiator or its just taking engine compartment air.

 

K first off, its not in the engine compartment (refer to pictures).
Secondly I don't care what anyone does with this idea - point is it worked for me soooo...
Not to be an *** or anything cause I for one still have trouble believing it's working - but whatever.

 

i'm going to try it this weekend just for the hell of it. i think if it works great if not owell it wasn't expensive. i think you guys should be more suportive and just congrats the guy and hope everything works out. i didn't know this forum was for bad mouthing each others mods. maybe you guys should make a forum for just that.

 

long as he has noticed an improvment its neat. I was thinking of something similar while installing some roof vents. Nice shap with air flapers so air can not flow back out once in. Route some air to the brakes, I for one will not fix my air dam or get some fancy G-effects for the snow reason. My car is driven all year round and I may need to do some off roading. Them front things dont last more then a few winters. its really sucks as a plow.

Ahh to drive into a time warp and find yourself chasing the
Duke boys on the back roads. Who here wouldnt follow them over the old broken bridge ceak jump???

 

Thank rsblue... some people can be pretty rude sometimes.
Besides, im not some sort of liar, i did this and it DID knock the stat down 20-30 degrees - so theorizing/criticizing on it is useless cause im tellin ya it works.

I thought id risk getting at laughed at to share this cheap-o mod so maybe someone else can question thier sanity when they try it for themselves.

 

Your intentions are good, but (not to be mean, only to promote thought to others before they try this), I don't think that piece of tin hanging that low to the road is going to survive longer than a couple of weeks. The stock plastic dam can withstand impact of road debris.

 

I realized this, but it is easily removable so any damage can probably be hammered out and once it is destroyed Ill go get a new one for another dollar and change. I wanted to address someones question

"once the cooling fan goes on, whats that scoop going to do?"

the answer is I don't know because the cooling fan hasnt come on since I put the thing in. When I'm driving without red lights everywhere (Main roads, Highway, Midnight) The temp needle sits halfway b/w 160 and 220 - cooling fans pop on around 225 and when that happens im not in motion im usually sitting at a red light or waiting for someone outside thier house etc.

And on a sidenote - I have homemade CAI... this scoop is not a part of it. My CAI runs to the right (when in drivers seat) fender and keeps the smog canister company. This scoop was just a fleeting idea that returned results I didn't expect to see. It does just what I intended - keeps fresh air blowing around under the hood - some of which MAYBE hits the open element k&n but whether or not it does I dont care.

**approaching long winded reply zone.... too late!**
Just wanted to also mention that before this I had a short ram setup and that airdam (made of same material) got smashed to f*ck after a while - and my temps didnt go up with the middle piece of baffle missing... which i thought they would have.

 

wow, i did the mod this evening wit some metal i found in my garage and it does work. i got my temps down by 15 degree's. my fan isn't kicking on either even when i'm at idle at the red light. i looked into this because it doesn't make sense. i talked to my inlaws who are science teachers at the nearby high scholl and they said this. it's the low and high pressurethat the scoop interferes with that makes the air go with the scoop and up into the engine compartment. that inturns takes hot air away from the manifolds so the engine has time to catch up wit the cooling system provided. that's what they gave me but i don't car, it works for me. thanks for the mod.

by the way i have a 3.1 mpfi

 

Cool beans dude! I'm so happy it worked for you cause that means I'm not crazy! =D Where did you bolt and secure it? What design scoop you use? I want pics!

 

i'ld send you pics if i had a camera but i don't. what i did was bolt it on the sway bar with those black tie straps. i put two holes in the metal. As for the look of it i tried to make a scoop like yours but i tried to make it not as deep because i'll ground out and kill it before the end of the week. So it isn't as low as yours prolly but i made it 8 inch scoop from the bottom up the curve to the top.

 

Very similar then huh? I was right then about the sway bar =P for some reason i kept questioning that... chump change mod and free for you dude. awesome.

 

Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me either, but he said his temp gauge dropped a few. But I wonder, Ryan... you said to put the air dam back to the way it was- DStroy, you said you cut the air dam for an old attempt at a cold air intake... did you notice after cutting the air dam, that your temp went up?

I wonder if incoming air is hitting the scoop, and not going "through" the scoop to the engine, but rather being deflected off the scoop- and acting like the original air dam did, to push air up into the front of the radiator. I would try this mod but I won't cut my front air dam... darn.

 

'91 RS, did you cut your air dam or did you leave it alone?

 

yea I would not remove or cut an air dam if i had one. But if you have a big hole there or it was removed this mod could help.

 

No after I cut the baffle for my earlier attempts i noticed no change in temp cause really - most of it is still there - just the middle is cut, but i'd say its still pretty functional for the radiator. As far as the scoop deflecting air I doubt it cause it's behind the fans far away from the radiator.

 

Funny...

I have a problem keeping my car warm enough! Right now I have a 2 core aluminum rad, air-dam in place and 50/50 mix of coolant and no weatherstripping at the cowl area of the hood... if it's anything less than 80 degrees outside, my TC will not lock up on highways... this winter I am going to end up putting cardboard infront of the rad just to keep my heater going and to save some gas milage.

Next summer if I don't have that V8 it'll have a cowl hood and headers, so maybe this mod will do more good then... until then, if it keeps your car cooler, good for you, just don't let it get too cool.

High unhood temperatures? Wha's that, lol.

 

That is a good idea maybe. sure would let some hot air get out. water is not really an issue. while moving it wont go down here, while sitting still it will go down the vent area first.

 

One problem that might happen with removing the weatherstrip at the cowl (or raising the back of the hood up)... if there's any exhaust leaks at the engine, you can get carbon monoxide sucked into the vents on the cowl- blowing CO into the passenger compartment. I hear you should also seal the distributor cap to the distributor using rtv to prevent the ignition from getting soaked if you leave the car sitting in the rain... I guess blue RTV would be enough.

 

Then what do cowl induction hood owners doo, isnt it going to poison them too??? the rain thing or water , 99% of it will go down them air vents like the co2.

 

Actually a cowl induction hood sucks cooler air into the engine compartment and the hotter air and Co2 leaves under the the car.

 

no, i didn't cut my air dam unnderneath. i left everything stock, but i didn't get the temp differnece like the others did. i just got a 15 degree drop on the highway, which is 175 for me with a 195 thermostat.

 

I will vouche for the exhaust leak getting blown into the cabin... thats the -only- drawback I have... Not bad for me, but when the ladies are in the car, it's embarrasing as all hell... I will have this fixed sooner or later... I keep cracking my y-pipe on these shtty *** roads in NJ!

As for water getting in the engine compartment, havn't had a problem yet!

It definatly helps keep the underhood temps WAY down!