after searcing and searching on this wonderful forum, i decided to go with a poor man's CAI...and I'm happy so far! When I drive and lift the hood to feel my filter, it's actually cold! anyway, here is a pick of this homemade wonder....i tried to make it as inconspicous as possible. (it's under the right foglight)

I used a plastic gutter spout, 2" vacuum tube, funnel, duct tape and a saw...compliments of Lowes Hardware.

 

and here's an under shot....the duct tape looks messy underneath, but it's just there to hold the glue until it finally settles......I have the scoop, and it's attatched to a funnel which is then attatched to the hose....it really does work!

 

Where is the undershot?

Erik

 

woops, a pic would help..

 

Hmm, something like this wouldnt really work for me. My front lip is so scraped the scrapes even go up the front of it. It would get ripped off as soon as I tried to go over a curb or something or if I hit a bump in the road.

Does it feel different driving?

I guess this would have a bit of ram air effect.

 

I know what you're saying....so I built it so it it does get hit from the front, it will just pop off and hang by the tube. if you look closely, i made slots in the front of the scoop to 'slide' over the back of the front lip.

as far performance gains, it just feels a lot more responsive on the highway. but i'll have to take it to the track to know for sure...

 

SO, you have a pipe leading from the box under neath the car to the front of the car?

 

So do you still have thbe stock cold air box?

Can you post a pic of what it looks like inside? I mean the piping etc

 

Have you re-located your battery? It seems like it'd be a bit tight, but maybe you still have your stock airbox. I'm definately getting a JWT intake and I may just do this in addition to negate the low-end losses.

 

Can you say GHETTO!?! If it actually works, then thats pretty cool, but why not just get a real CAI. Its not THAT expensive

 

Wouldn't you have to worry about water getting into the filter and possibly the engine? There isn't anything keeping it from flowing up that tube right? Just a thought...

 

If the water pressure is enough to go up 3 ft of tubing(sp?) with a straight-up curve you have more to worry about... like the hurricane 5 seconds away

 

Good point

 

You cant do this in addition to the JWT. It requires that you keep the stock airbox in place.

 

there's no straight path to the attachment of the airbox? can't recall from memory since my max has been in the shop for almost a month now. if there is space bellow it I could just run the piping a little further. If worse comes to worse I'll relocate my battery or put the scoop near the hood or both.

 

I would put it in the front bumper. This is what aerospeed does for Honda's. It works real well.

Erik

 

I plan to make a scoop that fits behind the place where Ive marked "air" in the photo and running it to the stock box.

Ps, This isnt my car.

 

would this wiled the samme performance gains as an actual CAI? if so i might try it this weekend after i change my oil. btw, does it sound any different? how hard was the whole install/fabrication?

 

Im not sure if your talking to me.

I did a sorta air box mod. I removed the bottom half of the cold air box and taped the filter to the top half. Mean sounds at wot and a cool grumble at half open throttle while accelerating.

No preformance gains though, probably decrease if any thing becaus it wowould be now sucking warm air from around engine instead.

 

CAI:
Pros, filter has colder denser air, thus more power is realized.
Cons, Air must be 'sucked' a longer distance, and adding a bend in the pipe actually slows it down considerabley. Think of a very long hose vs a short hose - if you were to suck on a the long hose, it would be harder than sucking on a shorter hose. Unless the air is constantly traveling at a high velocity in the tube (high RPM's when racing) then the power gain is realized. But when driving to the grocery store in stop and go traffic, accelerating the air in the tube from 0 mph - whatever robs you of performance and therefore the bennefit of the colder air is cancelled out by the longer tube. (i got all this info from the search function ) So unless your racing on a circuit where you rpm's are always up, the cons outweigh the pros for a CAI.

OSCAI:
Cons, it's ghetto and looks silly. If not done correctly, water can get in your intake and that's not fun to fix. If used for "forced induction", it can create instabilty in pressure in your engine bay. By this, I mean the intake needs a stable air pressure in the engine to intake air in smoothly, thus giving you smooth linear accleration. If you rely on forcing the air into the bay, what happens when you draft another car? The rate of air being forced in the engine gets choppy (think of the hose example above, but while sucking, lightly placing your hand on and off the end).
Pros, if done correctly, you get the full benefit of a cone/stock filter cold dense air being 'fed' in the area where it's needed most.

Now, do I have the optimal set-up? No. Does mine look ghetto? Yes. Do I talk like I know everything? Absolutely.

Here's shot of how the tube goes from my front lower fascia up the wheel well and inside the engine bay. My K&N is on it's last leg (don't ask). And to answer you questions of if it works, pycologically, I think it's faster. Sorry about the book fellas..

 

ok, so it's not connected to the stock air box.... what if u cut a hole in the bottom of the stock air box and mounted the tube onto there?

 

mounting it air tight wouldn't be the best idea and cutting a hole in your stock box wouldn't be the best idea either in my opinion....too many chances to get dust inside your block.

your box still sucks air from the front lower side of your engine bay....maybe making a heat sheild and routing the hose to just cool that section should suffice.

 

hmmm ideas ideas...

 

i did almost the same exact thing.

I have a K&N cone with bottom part of stock air box and an OSCAI connected to the resonator hole with a scoop at the bottom of the car. The scoop doesnt hit anything because it is exactly as far back as that hard piece of the frame in the middle of the car (if you look at the car sideways you would see where the frame on the bottom sticks out).

I have some pix here: http://mozy.affari.to/main.jpg

I used to have a drop-in filter and this setup, to tell you the truth, I felt NO gains and heard NO noise....so I just bought the $35 intake and drilled some holes in the adapter...and TADA! now I have this setup. I had a writeup somewhere on the forums..forgot where (for my oscai).

OH YEAH! ONE GOOOOD THING about the OSCAI, when I drive hard, the bottom of my cone is STILL COLD! while the top is hot, Im in the process of creating a heat shield for the top while still keeping the bottom airbox part on.

THIS SUCKER WORKS GREAT!

 

ok so let me get this straight. u used vaccuum tubing and (a vaccuum adapter/nozzle??) and ran it under the car then basically made a popcharger? hmm i think i WILL try this saturday...

 

who me? no, i bought the cone intake kit from procaparts.com, but I left my OSCAI on (using the bottom part of the airbox.

 

so did u mount the oscai on to the bottom of the airbox? that sounds like a good idea to me. and then make a popcharger that sits on top of it right? lol we're confusing each other way too bad for this...

 

I think this is one of the better threads in terms of finding new solutions, I'm working on a heatshielded-cai with ram air box.

 

cool...

what do you mean by ram air box though?

 

I meant scoop, i will put it under the bumper towards the middle, not sure yet. One thing about any custom cai is that all-plumbing has to be air-tight, otherwise wont work, so i'm using silicone sleeves.

 

most touring cars and lemans cars use some sort of enclosed filter and even some of the better aftermarket companys still use an enclosed filter. mugan saleen comptech hennesey all enclosed.

long honda cold air intakes make the car suck threw a long straw(while this isn't a problem for the place racing intake the filter isn't that big) and short ram intakes such hot air.

keep in mind the stock air box socks air from one of the best places with a k&n filter and all the resonators removed I bet gains would be pretty close to a cai

 

i know its a long shot but it came into discussion the other night.

 

I know I have a 5th gen, but anyway I currently have the stillen pop intake. Rather than getting a PR CAI, what if i keep my current setup and have a tube running from a source of cold right into the filter. Would that work? Someone already came up with that? aight later

 

I know it improves on HP, but seeing that u have a hole in your car and anything can get in there, is it really worth it? like what are the chances that something goes in there? My friend asked me these questions so u know, now i'm a little skeptical about getting a CAI...plus i hate doing stuff to my car that i can't cancel later on...and holes are not what i like....