im looking at the stock intake tube, and it doesnt look as bad as i once thought. will a K&N cone air filter fit right over the end of the opening where the air canister is sitting right now? is that stock tube really restrictive or not? i think the only restriction is the tiny hole that the air canister uses, and even that is probably more then enough for the v6. anyone try this? its either this or go with pvc pipe which i think will look a lot worse, and probably flow just the same with the 3.1L.

what do u guys think?

 

how about leave the intake be for sometime and fix the hood struts before u hit the stick with your arm and the hood falls on u or on something else..trust me ull be alot happier with the new hood struts than the import air filter...but do what u want..

 

my specially engineered thirdgen hood broom stick has yet to let me down. one end fits perfectly into a hood hole and the other goes right into a little recess near the front blinker.

yeah.. been meaning to get new hood and hatch shocks. gotta find the cheapest place to get them. anyone know without getting too offtopic?

 

Supposibly that appears to be the same tube that some brank intake system is sold for our cars. It just comes with a different type air box at the end.

Give it a try, that filter is just 10 bux or so, and you can always take it back.

 

10 bucks for the filter? where? the K&N i was looking at was about 50 bucks.

 

$10...where do u shop..lol i cant get one that cheap at walmart...lol for the hood struts u can find them in a junkyard that work from time to time

 

been to the yards, all of them are shot too. if i could get all 4 shocks for under 70-80 dollars id be happy.

 

ull find them one day, normally one at a time..lol i have one hood strut and one hatch one in my garage right now..lol no good till i can get the other matchng ones...id say get a camaro intake but ive heard those dont fit on firebirds..ok cant type no more lagg is to bad

 

dude, i had a k&n on the end of my stock intake arm and didnt feel a thing. i ended up going *****-out ghetto on my intake, and i dont really care all too much about its appearance.... i mean, i'm not going to be winning any shows with my stock 3.1, and my set up is effective.

also... you're using a broomstick and worried about pvc looking bad?

not to be a shmuck, but i had to throw that out. now, back to being somewhat productive.
and now for your viewing pleasure i somewhat proudly present to you my....

(trumpets sounding) duh dunna duh!

GHETTO INTAKE



i also have tubing that runs down the inner fender and has a scoop under the car.. i wont take up ur space unless you request additional pics. i mean, if u do use pvc, it wont look as bad as mine!

 

did you really see a performance difference ditching the stock tube or was it all "mental gains"? if its really going to make a difference ill make the pvc intake tube, but in my eye's the stock one is good enough to flow a v6.

about the broomstick, i just got the car in january, give me a break. all things that will eventually be fixed.

 

well, gains are real slim... i mean, i'm sure our 6's wont respond as well as a 383 with a holley stealth ram on top. but, it cost me like 70 bucks for everything, so it was worth it to me. i'm not trying to tell you what and what not to do.

 

I have an SLP CAI on my car. It in fact uses the stock intake tubing. So I would guess that if SLP uses the stock intake tube versus an new one, that it is sufficient for the application. Otherwise they would have included a new tube with the new airbox. Here's a picture of my car.

 

I myself found a gain from getting rid of that arm. And I tried several systems myself! A K&N conical will not work at the end of that fitting. The end of the arm is made of a material that will not grab the rubber material at the end of a conical WHATSOEVER. Trust me, I tried. It just won't hold it. It'll just 'sleeve' it. And the opening is actually larger than 3 in. if I remember right, which most conicals are.

Cheap conicals: Autozone, $20-$25 depending on color.

The arm doesn't look restrictive...and some claim it isn't restrictive...but I can tell you I felt a good difference with the arm out. The two 90 degree bends dont help either. One 90 degree, or two 45's or something along those lines from a well-set up PVC system will make a good difference I believe. I felt the best power from just shoving a conical at the end of the flextube honestly..short ram.. Well, best power when the engine was ice cold that is. Wouldnt believe how slow the car got when it heated up and the fan kicked in! Whewee.

 

nixon1, i know what ur talking about...
i did the same thing:shoving a cone filter on
the end of the flex tube... it was the most notable
boost in performance, but it was only when the
engine bay was reasonably cool. i did notice a cool
whistle sound when i was around 2000 rpm, though

 

A side tip for you junkyard trippers...

If you're trying to get under a hood but the hood struts are shot and you can't find a board/metal pipe/small animal to keep the hood up, just clip a set of vise grips on the piston of one of the struts, where the piston enters the strut body. Instant hood support. (Just don't knock the vise grips off by accident!)

 

Now Tom, you know that is exactly what will happen. Good idea though - I'm glad my hood struts work fine.

90firebird,

Is that duct tape I see? I used to have PVC piping too. It was fine to start out with, but I thought it looked liked A$$ after awhile, so I went with aluminum.

I'm still changing the appearance and design to look simplier and take up less space and have fewer parts. The MAF makes that kind of difficult.

I don't know If I can feel a noticable gain, but I sure know that I can hear the air coming into the filter.

 

i've got the pvc setup on my car with a $20 autozone filter on the end...it works great, i noticed a big difference too. go drive with the stock intake on...at wide open throttle about 5500 rpms, i could feel my car 'slack off' really bad and didn't notice it nearly as bad with the pvc setup. i can get you pics of my setup if you'd like.

 

id like to see a pic

 

Someone do the bottom idea damnit! I wanna see it done before I die!!

 

I already (somewhat) have it... the K&N lays right above the lower fender brace; in fact, very large hose clamps hold the conical in place. (Found those 8" hose clamps at Home Depot.) Gotta make a real scoop for it; but, you guys have the pieces of plastic that bolt to the underside of the front bumper, and cover the bottom of the fenders? Well, if I undo the screws holding the plastic cover to the front of the passenger side bumper, the plastic piece "folds down" as I drive, and Wow, what a power boost! One bummer; go too fast, and the plastic bends too far down and gets caught under the front tire. So I gotta make a real scoop for it. I'm thinking something cable-driven; something I can lower when I want it down, but raise if it rains.

 

here's my setup. i want to try to change it a little though.

 

pic of mine

 

devianb: yep, i used duct tape, and some electrical tape. as i noted earlier:
oh well, it does the job.

nixon1: i have tubing that goes down under the car and routes air into the general area of my filter... thats somewhat of a "bottom idea".

 

90firebird, that would be a good idea if you could hook it up to the stock air canister, then have a smooth tube bent to go from the stock air canister, to the TB.

I didn't know their was enough space to make that dryer ducting go thru their, LOL

 

just put this in about a week ago. it's an 8" K&N for $36 from www.usdieselparts.com, 2 pieces of adjustable tubing, rubber tape, and 2 hose clamsp...total cost for everything = $49. I kept the stock rubber flex tubing and just connected the metal tubing directly to it and led it down in front of the engine bay. this way the filter picks up cold air from under the car, yet it's high enough up not to get any water in it. also, yesterday i drove for 1 1/2 hours, and after i got out i checked the tubing.....after 90 min. in 70 degree weather, the tubing wasn't even warm. it was completely cool to the touch. i used heating duct tubing (3") and it works better than i ever expected.

 

You mean it didn't get hot?? Wow..how in the hell did that happen? Well then...right on man!

What's the diameter on your filter and all the piping? 3 in.? Dont happen to know where to find a K&N with a 4 in. fitting do ya? Most filter inlets I see are 3 in....I ask because I need a 4 in. for the stang if I wanna be ghetto and save myself about $50...if not then I'll get the in-fender assembly..

 

nope, didn't get hot at all. don't really know why except the air stays pretty cool in front of the engine block. but hey, i don't need to know why it works as long as it does

yeah, everything i have is 3". the tubing is 3", the hose clamps are 3", and the filter fitting is 3".

Here is a list of K&N's w/ 4" openings. I guess the list is kinda hard to understand, here's what it means: The first number is the inside diameter of the opening in inches. The second number is in milimeters. The third number is the diameter (in inches) of the bottom of the cone (the larger end). The fourth number is the same in milimeters. The fifth number is the diameter (in inches) of the top of the cone (the small end). The sixth number is the same in milimeters. The seventh number is the length of the filter (inches) and the eigth number is the length in milimeters. The ninth number is the position of the opening at the bottom of the filter (all of the 4" filters have centered openings). The next number (2 letter and 4 digits) is the part number. Disregard any numbers after that. Just look through this list and see what size filter you want, then take the part number and go to http://www.usdieselparts.com/knfilters/pages.cfm?ID=26 (they have the cheapest prices I could find anywhere, plus they have free shipping). Just type the part # in the search box on the left and there ya go. Sorry if this list is hard to understand, I couldn't find a better way. Hope this helps.

1) 4 102 5-3/8 136 4 102 5-1/16 128 5/8 16 Centered RP-4930
2) 4 102 5-3/8 136 4 102 5-1/2 140 5/8 16 Centered RP-4660
3) 4 102 5-3/8 136 4 102 6-1/2 165 5/8 16 Centered RP-4980
4) 4 102 5-3/8 136 4 102 7 178 5/8 16 Centered RP-4970
5) 4 102 5-3/8 136 4-3/8 111 3-1/2 89 5/8 16 Centered RU-2510 25-0810
6) 4 102 5-3/8 136 4-3/8 111 5 127 5/8 16 Centered RU-2520 25-0810
7) 4 102 5-3/8 136 4-3/8 111 7 178 5/8 16 Centered RU-2590
8) 4 102 5-3/8 136 4-1/2 114 5 127 5/8 16 Centered RC-3600
9) 4 102 5-3/8 136 4-1/2 114 6 152 5/8 16 Centered RC-4550
10) 4 102 5-3/8 136 4-1/2 114 6 152 5/8 16 Centered RF-10495
11) 4 102 5-3/8 136 4-1/2 114 7-5/8 194 5/8 16 Centered RF-10072
12) 4 102 5-3/8 136 5 127 6-1/2 165 5/8 16 Centered RF-1018
13) 4 102 6 152 4 102 7 178 1-3/4 44 Centered RC-4680
14) 4 102 6 152 4 102 8 203 1-3/4 44 Centered RF-1046
15) 4 102 6 152 4-1/2 114 7 178 5/8 16 Centered RF-1015 RF-1015DK
16) 4 102 6 152 4-5/8 117 9 228 1-3/4 44 Centered RE-0870 RE-0810PK
or 25-0810
17) 4 102 6 152 4-5/8 117 12 305 1-3/4 44 Centered RE-0860 22-8034PK
or 25-0880
18) 4 102 6 152 4-5/8 117 14 355 1-3/4 44 Centered RE-0880 22-8035PK
or 25-0880
19) 4 102 6-1/2 165 4-1/2 114 6 152 1-3/4 44 Centered RC-5060
20) 4 102 6-1/2 165 4-1/2 114 7 178 1-3/4 44 Centered RF-1032 RF-1032DK
21) 4 102 6-1/2 165 4-1/2 114 8 203 1-3/4 44 Centered RF-1027 RF-1027DK
22) 4 102 6-5/8 168 5-1/4 133 9-1/2 241 1-11/16 43 Centered RC-47807

 

DAMN that's a lot of filters! Thanks man!

 

dale: the reason i didnt use the stock canister is because i felt that having all that tubing sealed off would hurt low end and throttle response, and would only be best for freeway driving when a good amount of air would be forced in. most of my driving is on the streets, while only some is on the freeway, so my main intent was to cool down the air in the general area of the filter as opposed to having a ram air system.
oh, and there isnt enough room to fit ducting like that unless you unbolt that canister. mine is simply unbolted and is held in place by the force the ducting places on it (its not going anywhere).

camarors385hp: hey, good to see that u've got your set up finished. is it working well for you? did you notice the gains? it looks like you have it well mounted and shouldnt have any problems. good job, looks a helluva lot better than mine!

 

yeah man it's working great. when i first took the car out after i put it on i could tell a small difference. i mean, it's adding 4-5 hp max so you can't tell too much, but i could a little. it seems to be suckin in alot of cold air, i love the sound it makes too. the only thing i have left to do is attatch the IAT to the intake tubing when i go home next weekend. i think my engine is adding a little too much fuel, because there's a faint smell of gas in the exhaust, but it'll be fine after i get the sensor set up. hopefully i'll be seeing better gas mileage. right now it seems normal, because the filter gives better gas mileage, but the sensor is causing worse gas mileage, so they kinda cancel eachother out. i'll put up another pic once i get the IAT connected.

 

WWasem finally a professional looking set-up!!! All these others look like home depot nightmares gone into over time!

 

yeah, but he also shelled out two hudred something for that...

 

And don't forget, the "home depot nightmares" do the job just as well! I'd rather save myself the $50-$100 and put that into underdrive pulleys, or ignition... But that's just me.

 

Why ever go cheap on your pride and joy! Why make it look like a piece of sh*t with home depot junk? It just takes away from the car as a whole. No offense to anybody but it's like putting goof parts on a *****, where the guy is frustrated cause he doesn't have the skill or the money to do something under the hood so they start doing dumb things that don't do anything.

If your going to do something DO IT RIGHT! and thats what WWasem did.

 

Ryan_Alswede, i see your point, and i agree with you. but, i feel that since i wont be showing off my engine bay all the time, that this is a cost effective way to get the same gains as the expensive, better looking set up. i understand that it looks like a$$, and i constantly accuse it of that, but it does the job.

also, i'm a poor high school student.... i'm not financially situated to shell out 200 bucks for something i can do for around 70.
i'm not trying to argue, or say that you are wrong, i just want to explain my angle

 

Exactly! And frankly..I think that the setup discussed...cost too much and doesn't do enough good! It still uses the restrictive stock arm! Ask anyone who's removed it and used something in place of it..the stock arm hinders airflow! Sure, I understand the desire to make it look good....but I also understand ECONOMY! As I said, there are better uses for the extra money. We'll worry about making the engine bay look pretty when we get more money...and buy better cars.. Nevermind.

 

Compared to what I had stock, that arm is not all that restrictive.

I wish I had taken some pics of my first intakes - they looked like pieces of SH%T, consisting of plastic from planting pots, electrical tape, superglue, and other cheap materials.

It worked, but it did not look good at all. I was so embarrassed of how it looked that I even put my stock unit back in when ever I had to take my car to the shop.

I even tried that under car ram air kind of setup. I tried the flexible dryer hose, 2 2" plastic tubing going under the car, and a modified snorkel. All of them were visible and looked very ugly. Besides, none of them provided any more improvement over how my setup is now.


My current intake is my 5th one, consisting of 3" aluminum from the Maf to the TB with a short 3" PVC tube as an adapter to the stock rubber connector to the TB.

I think it looks fairly decent now, but I think it still can be better. The size of the MAF makes it kind of difficult to do what I really want to do.


I'm sure guys are tired of seeing my intake, but here it is again.

 

What was it you were saying about ugly piece of sh%t intakes now?

 

Oh and what is this now?

 

It certanately is shiney. Since I have pop-up lights, I can't do the ram air headlight mod.

 

yeah i agree i'm not going to be showing off my engine bay anytime soon so i'm fine with a "home depot" (actually Lowe's ) setup. even if i had chrome parts all over the place under the hood, i still wouldn't want to "show it off" because most people will still say "oh, it's a v-6". i personally think my setup is the/one of the best out there. first off, the entire thing (filter, piping, hose clamps, rubber tape) cost $49, can't beat that. second, it's getting cold air and lots of it from under the car, yet it's protected from water/rocks/etc. by the air dam. and third, and very importantly, the tubing i used doesn't get hot. i'm not sure what it's made of, but it's heating duct and resists heat. i mentioned it before, but after 1 1/2 hours of driving in 70*+ heat, i immediately got out and checked it, and it was cool to the touch. $49, not too bad looking, getting cold air from under the car, and the air stays cold all the way into the engine. personally, i'd take this over a chrome setup that was $50 (even if it was possible to get one that cheap) that only got hot air, and got heated up on the way to the engine from the hot pipes...

 

CamaroRS385hp,

Your setup looks a bit dangerous. Redraif originally had a setup like that until she hit an armadillo and knocked her filter off. Your filter is going to get dirty and clogged more rapidly.

Sometimes I can't believe how much dirt gets under than and I am even more shocked as to how high it gets up in the engine bay.


I don't think its the best setup, but if it works for you, then more power to you buddy.


Personally, I think the best possible setup is the one on Ram Air equipped 4thgens. A very short design with colder, forced air comming in. I don't think it gets any better than that.

 

oh i was just talking about 3rd gens.....4th gens have MUCH better air intake systems i know....well damn, hope i don't hit an armadillo, i guess that would kinda screw it up......i know my filter doesn't get wet, i've checked after driving in the rain, but i guess i'll check occasionally for collected dust and wash it out....still, i think having to do an occasional cleaning is worth it if i can get colder air than most other setups.

 

As long as by 'wash it out', you don't mean 'wash it out'....
Hehe...K&N filters have a coating of special oil on them, to protect the cotton from absorbing water. Once enough water strips that oil off...well...you're screwed!

 

you're kind of right but not entirely...with the filter came instructions for how to wash it out...you rinse it with water to get all the dirt out, let it airdry, then recoat it in oil (they have special K&N oil that is supposed to be used for this). supposedly good as new...guess it's what makes the filters be able to last for 100,000+ miles.

 

I stand corrected. Just air dry the **** out of it!!! I still don't trust putting water on oiled cotton gauze... Lol. But if that's what they tell you, well hey.... Just set that SOB in the draftiest area you can find.

 

That must take a long time to dry too.