I'm also looking to make a custom air intake for my firebird. I can't find any ideas on how to do it. Any ideas guys? My car is a 1988 Firebird 2.8. Thanks

 

Discussion from a few days ago

https://www.thirdgen.org/techbb2/sho...hreadid=230504

 

I have a Firebird. Its different

 

this what you're looking for?

 

 

Ya but what do you do with the MAF sensor?

 

I believe it's right after the filter in that setup. Seems like the logical place to me.

 

Is that MAF that you have on it from a camaro? They are interchangable right as long as there is no leak after it right? What did you use to make it?

 

i just sawed that sharp curve off the maf and attached it directly to the filter. i still left the screen in though. There's also a piece of rubber hose about an inch an half between the maf and the pvc tubes to form a little bit of a curve.

i measured the outside of the opening on the sawed off maf and got a filter opening a hair larger. hoseclamped the filter onto the maf

reset the computer when done and it worked great

it's also super convenient when working on stuff, i just unplug the maf and the pvc sections just pull out from eachother. Takes about 10 seconds to remove whole intake

 

Cool, You notice any differeneces now with it like that? Thanks

 

just be creative and make sure everything hooks back up and doesnt leak. i had it a little easier since i'm speed density....

 

it made a noticable difference. between the exhaust, ignition stuff, and underdrive pulley, the intake was the cheapest and most noticeable.

on one of the hills around here, i'd hit it at like 65 and at the crest i'd be doing 45 and the car usually shifted down.

After those four mods, I can hit the hill at 55 and still be doing 50 or over in 4th at the top. (mines an automatic)

 

here's an old pic i just found of my first configuration. you can see between the 2 pics how i chopped that bend off. turned out much better.

 

those are all alot of work, i made mine in about 15 min. i took the cone filter off my other car, cut the maf wires and extended them so the maf would reac the TB. then i took the flexable pipe that comes off the TB stock bolted the maf to the other end and bolted the cone filter to the maf. blam done just ziptied everything in one place and it works great maybe not the best setup but it was free so who can complain. doesnt look too bad either =P

 

thats a good set up.... when your car is cold.

then, when your engine bay heats up something like that will hurt performance.... i think its worth it to run some piping out to that corner of the engine bay so it doesnt suck up hot air...

 

How do you run the piping so it doesn't heat up?

 

i would have if i actualy planned on keeping my dying 2.8. but soon there will be a pretty metal pipe coming from an intercooler in the place of that filter feeding the mouth of a 3.8 beast.

 

I hate to say this fellas but those are all wrong unless looks is the only concern. Its does look neat having a filter under the hood but your still sucking hot under hood air. Forget the fancy fast n furious looks and keep working that pipe down n out the front of the car so you get a true CAI and then you will feel a difference.

Don't believe me come drive my car with and without a true CAI.
That hot nasty under hood air robs allot of power that you have but can't use/feel until you get a true CAI. I know everyone wants to have a fancy filter so it looks cool but forget cool and go for function.

A true CAI is the only way to go.

 

How did you set yours up Gumby? Any ideas? Pics? Thanks again

 

I have home made ram air but long as you get air from out side its much better. Any time my system has leaked and I was getting that under hood air it was very noticeable.

I remember not long ago someone zip tied a metal scoop shape piece from the hardware dept so it grabbed air just in front of the air dam. Like furance parts for duct work.

I used hoodscoops from 68-69 Firebird. But that took some body work and thinking. Cheaper than a $500 ram air hood though.

 

......

 

yea, i've been thinking about what i could use to make an enclosure of somekind to isolate the filter from the rest of the engine bay.

Since my foglights have never worked, i also pondered using the holes as intakes and running tubing across and up through the gap by the charcoal cannister (will move that) and feed even more fresh air to the filter.

Aslo considered attaching maf straight to the throttle body and have a tube that splitts, going to a filter in both front corners (remote battery mount kit) and run the foglight holes straight up to each side

 

This is something I might do later this summer,though maybe not in the same way, but the scoop underneath and just let it bring cold air to the general vicinity of the intake of the stock "air-box", which I might I might mod as well, like adding more intake holes in it, I dunno, I am experimenting.

Ram Air Scoop under the nose:
http://www.geocities.com/91formula/ramair.html

 

I like the one of geocities except i think what i would do its not run it to the orginal air filter location, and somehow rig it up so the maf works. Trying to think of ideas for mine and how to do it. I like the scoop idea alot though.

 

Well you see, I am keeping the stock air-box system, though I might make it more open, so it can take in more air, I dunno but the MAF should be unaffected by this since it's really just leading colder air to a slightly modified stock system.

Also this way I can turn it off so to speak when winter comes, I won't be needing anything like this then.

 

how are you planning on doing this this. I was think of taking the scoop and from there running pvc piping up to the rubber throttle peice and keeping the maf someone along the lines. Then in the winter put it back. Just don't know what to do about the filter

 

I'm not entierly clear on the procedure myself, I just planned to get the end of the pipe coming from the scoop to end near the air-intake of the stock air-box, there should be enough room there.

And from there cold air will enter the stock system and pass through the filter, without any modifications being required to the air-intake, one should be able to close of the air coming from the scoop easily and it would work like a stock system again.

 

I would worry about routing the cold air first. Get a good smooth route so the car breathes nothing but cold fresh air from out side the car. Then figure out a filter. Its much easier that way. Trying to use a cone or stock filter set screws you up if you keep it in mind while you route the air..

I actually built it and then adapted a filter after it was done. I used the foam filter from them 2000cfm eldelbrock air cleaners. its grabs all the small chunks and if anything else came lose or got through it, the MAF screen will grab it.

 

Here is a small pic that may help. Just make your self a clear or other fancy color air box in the area [ like a speaker box] where the cone would go anyways. Then duct air from out side to it.

But I find it is easier sometimes to build something if you forget about parts. Make believe there is no such thing as an air filter and build it so the car get the most coldest air rammed / shoved into the engine. That should be the first goal.

Honestly. You can run without a filter for years before the damage is done. Especially if you don't live in a dusty sandy climate.

I use to run a 9.5 sec drag bike on the street. It never had air cleaners. I rather build it every season then rob power with some wacky air cleaner. The grin was worth $5-600 a year.

[Ask around n you will find people on this board who don't run one.]

I built a chopper bike recently and I had no idea how it was gonna look or end up. I started at the back n built what I needed as I went. I made a list of goals and completed each as I went. It is much easier then trying to figure out the whole project before hand. Especially when you build on a budget or with scrap. You must build with what you have.


1 lots of cold fast moving air
2 smooth turns and bends
3 MAF n air temp sensor hookup
4 looks
5 oh yea, maybe I need a filter.

 

My plan was kinda like this, increase the stock box's ability to take in air from more than one place, shield the new intake holes with a grille aperture because it looks nice as well as functional and then just drag the pipe from the ram-air scoop to the airbox, attaching a rough image.

 

here's the setup i was thinking of. move charcoal cannister and battery. use foglight holes to funnel air up along inside of fender to filters. There's just enough room to get a 3in hose i think through. then run the 2 hoses after the filters into the maf into the tb

please accept my sincerest apologies for the lack of neat and tighty computer drawn image and accept my crudely drawn picture as an inferior substitute.

 

Thats a system my friend with his Camaro RS might be interesting in, he wasn't allowed to keep those lights on in his car, so they have no use anyway.

 

HA here we go again, putting "Home Depot" crap under the hood. So smells like ****.

 

Ignore that, the revised version is to simply connect the intake to the ram-air pipe directly and leave the airbox untouched.

 

Huh? Care to elaborate?

 

Your attitude is not welcome here. Either be supportive or keep quiet. No player hating in this section. You wont make any Friends that way.

 

My turbo kit has Home Depot written all over it... wanna take a shot at what "Home Depot crap" can do? Bring it

Home Depot is the fabricator's dream.. as long as it's done tastefully or has a serious point to it, there's absolutely no reason to knock it.

 

To make 100 horsepower, you need 140 CFM of air. The rule of thumb for naturally aspirated fuel injection, at a standard 1.5 inches of water column, is that for every square inch of butterfly, you will flow 140 CFM

So for 140 max HP thats 200 but lets be mean and say 225 CFM

A car paper filter will flow 4.95 cfm/sq-in so thats 45 sq-in needed.

Lateral Surface Area of a cylinder 2*pie*r*h

lets say 6" = h
lets say 3" = r

THATS 113.08 sq-in YOU ALREADY have doube capacity in the car.

Do you see why I LAUGH at your BS. GM engineers win again!

 

The firebird's induction system is absolutely inferior to the camaro's induction system, no matter how you look at it...

 

Then go to the junk yard and get the 1991 or 1992 v6 Camaro intake and upgrade your firebird.

I just did the numbers and you can clearly see it's overkill for a 3.1L v6

 

Try my 350TPI then instead of a V6, I think I might have more to gain from a better induction system.

 

Anyway.. while the naysayer continues to boast of his ultra-cool RPO-style hatch release and anticipated rear window defroster, all you home depot lovers please continue forging ahead with attempts at horsepower gains. This conversation is just too silly for me.. if I have to post here again it's because it's gone from silly to off-topic and is being locked

 

What is a home depot lover? What is home depot? Are you saying that making a scoop like this is bad?

 

QUOTE]What is a home depot lover?[/QUOTE]

Def. = a person who thinks PVC pipe used to carry human waste to a sewer will bring him imaginary hp gains.

A large chain of very large hardware stores, not car related in any department.

No, just a waste of time because they system thats on the car is already over sized. Anyhing you do just devalues your car and makes you as a car guy look stupid to real engineers. See math above.

PVC pipe and mom's dryer vent pipe is the wrong direction. Just make a custom hood scoop simmular to a dodge viper. NO elbows, NO long runs

 

if gm's engineering is perfect, why did you buy a msd coil, and relocate it to the fender?

I mean gm would have thought of that heat off the manifold, and they put the hottest spark in the chamer they can right?

Face it, not everything is perfect. Or why would cars have recalls on defective designs?

Firebirds can NOT take a camaro intake and slap it on their car. Otherwise they would have done that already.

 

Without a small plethora of 1/8" NTP fittings and rubber "sewage" connectors from home depot, I wouldn't have 5 psi of boost being forced down my engine's throat... I think that qualifies as non-imaginary horsepower gains.

 

No, checked that out, didn't look nice, I want something thats very hard to spot, putting a scoop under the nose would allow for easy air intake in a position thats not eye-catching, secondly the fact that it will go up means gravity will help in removing water(air will be alot easier to force upwards, as opposed to water).

I could make the otherwise merely decorational scoops on my car functional, but to me that just looks like it would become too afraid of water.

 

The canister one yes. I asked a fellow member on the board who has a 1990 v6 firebird. His has the canister one like the 91-92 Camaros.

The turbo = hp yes

The PVC pipe = hp no.

 

Here is a pic of the canister on a Trans Am TPI v8.

 

The people who designed these cars at gm had to be on crack when you think about all the problems with them, not to mention the cheap *** thin plastic dash's. Sometimes i wonder why i even like my car so much.

And two air filters on even a 3.4 is wayyyyyyyy over kill. So is long dryer vents routed all over the engine in an attempt to suck outside air in.

And has anyone taken a look inside the engine bay of a v6 3rd gen? YOU CAN STAND INFRONT OF THE MOTOR!! All this talk about hot under hood air is . ESP if you removed your ac condensor like i did.

I think the main reason for upgrading the intake is the stock metal air filter housing sucks ***.

First thing i did when i got my car was to rip it off and bolt on a cone filter.
Do i suck in hot air? NO! why? because theirs a huge 2 inch x 18 inch gap between the rad and the front of the car that lets air in not to mention the huge space big enough to fit another v6 between the motor and the rad.

BTW look at all the bends in the dryer vent or pvc in these "RAM AIR" set ups, your not raming anything!