i'm fixin to start workin on a custom air intake, using a K&N filter and extending out and to the right, away from the throttle body. any idea what kind of tubing i should use. i know you have to use pretty strong stuff so heat won't destroy it. do they sell pre-polished tubing or will i have to buy aluminum or something and polish it myself? thanks yall... also, right now i have the stock rubber hose leading into the throttle body. when you're facing the engine, on the left side of the rubber hose about 2 in. away from the throttle body is a metal tube about 1/4in. wide that leads into the engine block. any idea what this is? also, when i install my new air intake will i have to connect taht 1/4in. tube to my air filter tube? thanks for your help, i have no idea what that pipe is for

 

Why are you modifying a perfectly good intake?
The stock unit A: provides cold air, B: flows well enough to feed a motor over TWICE the size of a 2.8, and C: has stock-replacement K&Ns available. Personally, I would just replace the pipe between the TB and air cleaner cover with something smooth-walled.
My V8 breathes through a smaller tube and is quite fine as it is.. tho I'm thinking of picking up a junkyard port injection air setup for it.

Anyway.. should you choose to continue on your current route, last I checked PVC is the Home Depot Racing material of choice and will hold up to engine bay temps, at least from everything I've seen, though I'm sure some exhaust tubing from Autozone would outperform it from the durability and viewability standpoint, custom mandrel-bent of course being the top-of-the-line. Make sure to get it cold air, or all of your efforts are going to be rather silly..

 

most of the people on here that have created a CAI, have use 3" pvc, then painted to match car or engine bay.

I created a strait one out of steal. It was very heavy. I have since changed to a TPI intake off a mid 80's v8. TRUE cold air intake.

 

Mine used to be a 3" pvc pipe, now it is a 3" slightly curved aluminum peice with a pvc adapter to make up for the clearence to the throtle body.

 

Dev...that looks NICE dude!

CamaroRS: The tube is your PCV return... On the driver's side, fresh air is circulated through the crankcase via the PCV valve. It's expelled into the passenger side valve cover and out the valve, back into your engine via the tube. If you don't want to utilize the tube, yank it out of the valve cover and put a breather in. As far as the engine is concerned, there is no difference between these two. Might need a new grommet too..not sure.

And I can honestly say that I have noticed quite some difference between self-made setups and the stock intake. The stock intake CAN support power, but it's not very good at it, and after you've tried other methods you can definitely feel the difference. Just remember the two essential rules: Get the air as cold as possible, and use the least amount of bends as possible in the system. First system I built got wicked cold air from in front of the radiator and down low, but I had too many bends in the tubing and the car had too hard of a time pulling the air in. Shorter systems I made picked up quite a bit of power over the stock intake WITH a K&N replacement.

 

Well, the intake I have is not the one I would really like to have. The MAF sensor prevents me from doing the setup I want. I think my intake is too bulky. It is still a great improvement over stock, and even my previous intakes. That darn MAF sensor ruins everything.

 

Yeah it does..but you've still got yourself a damn decent intake and managed to make the MAF look less offensive to the eyes with that paint... And the key part to that intake is...it takes in cooler air from that little pocket over there, and the bends in the system are much less...I bet if you put the stock intake back on you'd notice an enormous difference.

 

Lol, I can't put the stock intake back on because I threw it away 3 years ago. I would still like to make the intake shorter so that it takes up less space, even though that might pull in more warm air. I like to keep things simple.

 

i'd also suggest some type of baffle between the filter and the radiator. you've got more available, but at 200° coming off the fan/rad area.

 

Dev..I ran my own "short ram" intake once...lol...I just threw a conical straight on the end of that rubber flextube. Looked awesome. And on a cold engine, you wouldn't believe the power gain...it was PHENOMENAL. But once the engine heated up, guess what? All it got was HOT radiator air...and when the fan kicked on...ouch. The car got slow as hell once it was warm..but cold...man I loved to just romp on it.

 

is there any way i could run a alum. pipe directly out of the throttle body (with a rubber seal to make it tight)? i'd rather do this cause of cosmetic purposes, cause i plan to have the entire setup from the throttle body to the end of the intake pipe polished. or is this not a good idea and should i leave the rubber hose on the throttle body and attatch an alum. pipe to that instead?

 

The throttle body is oval so you would have to manipulated the ends of the aluminum end to bend in that oval shape. I was going to do it, but I could not angle the tube down enough to mate to the MAF sensor.

 

You've got a 92', so no MAF to worry about..I don't see why not. You're just gonna probably have to get a 90 degree bent pipe...or damn close to 90 degrees. If the bend starts early, you might be able to get away with a 45 degree, but that might still run into the radiator....not sure. I doubt a 3 in. rubber piece would fit around that throttle body though....maybe you can find a 3 in. to 3 1/2 in. adapter piece...4 in. MIGHT work but it might not make a good seal.

 

I still have all the pieces from my old intake, or did I toss them? I'll have to check , but any way..... my set up is sorta like devianb's, except I put my filter under the "spare battery tray". Also shoved a legnth of pvc into the accordian intake tube to help finish smoothing out the airway untill the throttle body. I had it stop just bfore the pcv return pipe. I have pics of it somewhere if you want.

 

i made my own after i found a 3inch mandrel bent air intake tube off this car in the junkyard
I bought a straight 3 inch pipe from autozone for the straight parts. i used rubber 3inch pipe connectors from homedepot to connect the pipes. one was curved and the other was straight.
the curved one i cut at about 45* to allow the filter to fit right.
i bought a universal 3inch k&n filter to finish it off. ohh yea an i used some sheetmetal to act as a heat wall.
enjoy:

 

here's mine. Used a universal 3" with a 45* mandrel bend, and a Intake from apc. I forgot which car it was for. felt the power difference, and noticed my intake sounded louder.

 

so is any kind of metal pipe alright? or is there a certain kind of metal i need to make it strong enough?

 

I suggest the lightest metal you can get. The arm itself probably won't get hot enough with thinner metals to have much of an effect on the intake air temperature. But if this is your concern..maybe you can find a 3 in. foam pipe cover, like the ones that they run on the A/C compressor feeds...

 

those foam pipe covers are black though aren't they? one of the main reasons i'm making the air intake is for appearance, along with of course performance. oh well, i'll just head out to the hardwars store soon and see what kinda pipes they have.

 

Yes, the covers are black...they aren't for lookin pretty... If you can, I'd probably just grab some 3 in. aluminum or like really thin steel...problem is weight. If it's too heavy it's gonna want to sag and you might have to have mounting brackets for it depending on exactly how you route it.

 

I'd go to a muffler shop and get some madrel bent pipes and just get them to make it fit right. or u can go the way i did.

 

Oh yeah..the pipes at the muffler shop aren't gonna be too thick probably.... Last time I went looking to make my own CAI, I went to Lowe's, Home Depot, and Ace....and I was very underwhelmed with their selection in pipe.

 

91FIREBIRDGT,

your intake looks pretty good. Mine is mounted much lower than yours and V6RSRick. Mine has oone 45 degree bend and a 135 degree bend by the filter thanks in part to the MAF.

By the way, is that a red silicon vacuum line you have running in there. I though I was the only thirdgenner to actually use it. I went color crazy because they had so many colors to choose from that I just went mad, and now I am paying for it. I can't afford to swap in a different color right now, but I will when my car is all finished - it will be the last thing I do.

I could have a better looking intake if I could make my MAF thinner like on 4th gens, which gives me an idea. How much does a used MAF from 85-90 go for?


CamaroRS385hp,

You can't go wrong with aluminium. I used a 3" mandrel bent pipe from an exhaust. The aluminum in my opinion is better to use than the PVC pipe, plus it looks better.

 

yup, used red for all the vacuum lines. I'm gonna change some other things over to red too.

 

sorry pics so big, but that's my intake

http://www.geocities.com/i8it4you/89camaro.html

 

hmm all i have done for an intake is modify the stock canister
i took it out and cut it so its wide open facing the front and still has enough left to act as a sheild between the filter and the engine
i notice signifcant gas mileage increase, but im hoping to run a dual airfilter setup in the future!