I dont know if anyone has ever attempted this but here it goes. So, one day i was browsing through the jdmcivic community out of boredom and came across this picture:



I noticed his passenger headlight was converted into an air ram intake.. so i said "hmmm.. .." I've seen some people take their whole headlight out for auto-x and i wanted that cold air benefit but for it to be street legal.

So.. I shuffled around my basement and BANG! found an old junk drivers side headlight. With a little cut here, snip there, snap, pry, cuss, pulled out the dremel, cuss, and snapped everywhere.. this was created:



A completely gutted out headlight with a ginormous hole in it. I will get better pics but basicaly, I gutted out the headlight portion and kept the blinker portion so i can still drive it on the streets at daytime. In the hole through the lens is a big 4" round hole, where the headlight bulb use to mount, cutted out. Behind that 4" hole is my intake.

I dub it.. the V-Ram Intake.. lmfao.

Its not finished yet realy. I still want to wet sand the blinker portion of the lens and reclear, then paint the edges around the hole black. As for filling in the hole to shape it out into a nice funnel, I've tried some different materials but havent found a good material to use yet. Can anyone give some advice on this? Something easy to fill in and shape preferably.

As for butt-dyno or performance gains.. i have no clue. On a hot summer day around 95 degrees out, the V-ram realy helps out. On a cool summer night around 78 degrees out, i do feel throttle response is much tighter. Though, the faster your driving the more you benefit from the ram. I can also hear my intake growl and whistle alot louder now.

As to why i did this? Simple.. just cause i can muahah. I wanted to try something new. I thought, instead of cutting the sheet metal on my car, which i cant replace, for a true cold air intake, why not cut a junk headlight that i can replace. Switching out the headlights is cake too, takes me no more than 5 min.s to do it. I only drive this during the day and at dusk and not everyday, only on the weekends or my days off work.

This is my intake setup for those of you who may wonder:



It is a Weapon R Secret Weapon Intake that i bought off ebay for $200. I added an extended mid-pipe right after the TB so the intake elbow was located right at the shock tower, pushing the filter right right behind my headlight. To have the filter there, i had to relocate the battery sideways (borrowed this trick off an orger).

Il update with better pics and progress on Saturday.

 

why not replace the fog light and do the same idea. Then you can drive at night. you can get a 4" tube in there

 

Yea i thought about that, but then i would have to cut the sheetmetal on my car. Even so, the tube that i would route through there would come up from underneath where my MAF is at and not at the filter directly. If i were to figure out a different route for a tube from the foglight, i believe the bends would be pretty sharp and cause turbulence for a NA motor, so the work to figure out a route isnt worth the small difference that would make. (getting a little too technical all over an intake lol)

Whereas the hole in the headlight works best for me because it's right where my filter is located, it catches alot of air, its short and to the point using no other tubes and what not, and i think it just looks cool 'cause its different. lol.

 

Jime did this before most of us had a license.

And srsly, 'out of boredom'?

 

No new ideas here.

 

 

His is new because he left the headlight in place

 

Non-functional headlight. I could just see Jime doing some glass cutting just to keep it in there

 

Why not just put a hood scoop just above the head light instead?

Yeah.....that would be the coolest....

It would look great and add at least 43 hp!

and you would still have working headlights FTW!

 

i saw a BMW at the track last weekend that had this mod.. i didnt see a filter though, which was kinda weird

 

Lol i was expecting comments like this pretty soon..

I honestly never saw that pic of the 4th gen before, but watever, i drive a 5th gen. And, okay, maybe i worded the title wrong and its not a new idea.. but if its not, then who else got ***** to post a whole thread on it for a 5th gen? i havent seen one unless someone can prove me wrong.

 

What do ***** have to do with it?

 

fixed for you

working headlight and 2 working blinkers

 

I'm sorry were you talking?

 

Just to clarify, I definitely wasnt knocking you. Just kidding around. I think its great you are playing around with mods and stuff.

My personal opinion is that the hole in the headlight looks really ghetto on a pretty sweet looking max. I dont think the gain (very small if any) is worth making your car look like that.

 

looks photoshopped to me. . .

 

hmmm, i was thinking about doing this when i race next (not cutting, just removing the entire headlight once i get to the track) i think it would compliment my relocated battery and

 

new heat shield for my short ram (WAI) nicely

Edit: WTF? partial post FTL

 

running it down to the fog opening would be better

 

I still don't buy into the CAI / fender / fog / head deal. If someone can show me IAT logs, then maybe.

As far as location and airflow, sure I'd believe that it flows a little more air. Enough to call it ram air, no.

 

you can call anything a ram air, its all the same unless youre doing really high speeds. as for the temp change, its there. when i had to put my stock intake back on for the check, i also had to rotate the battery back to stock. im a little lazy and didnt feel like putting it back to the CAI position, so i didnt. i made some passes at ~85F. then, i decided it was time so i rotated it back and hacked together a little heat shield to combine with the hole in my fender (same intake, just shielded from heat and a way for cold air to get to it). then i went to the track and the temp was ~85F and similar RH and baro. the passes i made were .1 faster and higher MPH with a bad (2.22 vs the usual 2.17) 60ft so...all in all, it really cant HURT unless you go to a full length CAI tube. keeping the same intake and providing potentially cooler air, why not?

 

I can log my IAT sensor, so that's why. Also, it could have been that your ECT was actually cooler being that the car was sitting to cool off.

But whatever, I still rock my stock airbox so

 

"ram air" was a marketing scheme by pontiac

 

No way ... get out!!!!

 

true story

 

not sure i understand that. if you can log your IAT and youve tried if then you oughta know. if you havent tried then you should be trying. As for the ECT, the runs were done in really similar conditions, after sitting for ~30 mins and the engine temp for the runs was always at normal operating temp. trust me, you can feel the difference as it pulls from 6500-7100. i was short shifting the week before because it wasnt making power there (pulled timing problem, heat) and the time with the battery turned it pulled way better. just my experience, FWIW.

and yes, believing your car has mad ram-air FTL

 

I don't have a CAI though, that's why I haven't compared. I base my opinion that once the car starts moving faster than 10 MPH, the IAT is 1-3ºF above ambient, so not much room for cooling there.

This is with so called HAI / WAI's that I use.

The ECT can range 50ºF (160ºF - ~210ºF) from the time the needle actually moves above the 'normal' mark. So if you're basing that as your 'operating temp'

My car reads greater airflow when the ECT is below 170ºF even if the ambient temp has risen.

 

It wasn't any more of a marketing scheme than a CAI is.... thank god for The Fast and Furious!

 

a "ram air" does nothing more than any normal intake...poor trans-am people fell for that

 

exactly. but comparing it to a CAI is certainly FTL. some cars have shown good gains with CAI, just not really a maxima/nissan kind of thing for w/e reason

 

I've seen some insane gains from them on other vehicles, the Maxima just isn't one of them.

 

No worries, i dont take anyones comments to the heart. If i were to slap on a scoop, then it'd be as badass as a silver 5th gen I saw in the Great Pic Thread lol Your opinion is appreciated.

But i still want to finish it and need help finding some material thats easy to fill in and shape a sort of funnel on the inside of the headlight so it wont look straight ghetto.

Still am. Never seen that pic. So i was wrong again, sue me. Still think mine looks better than a whole missing headlight; it does the same thing plus the benefit of the turn signal. So if the Maxima doesnt show alot of gains from CAI/WAI/headlight/foglight/OSCAI/GAB and what not, its still something right.

Who is this Jime anyways?

 

for all the left turns at the drag strip?

and on the street, whats the point of having a blinker with no headlight

 

Geez guys he was just trying to show some creativity. He may not be the first but he tried something.


Just for an FYI Jime is a 4th gen 3.5 NA about to break 11s on the 1/4 and he's auto

 

The point of getting colder air

Thanks. And wow thats a hurdle; see.. now i know thanks to DaveVQ rather than him just knockin me. And you wonder why theres so many members on this board but not alot show face or some creativity.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^he is speaking the truth guys^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Best way:

Run a Place Racing or Cattman CAI (if you can find one ). When "at the track" pop the sidemarker light for cooler air to get in (though the PR CAI is already sucking cool air from the wheel well).

"Ram Air" is a fallacy when it comes to cars driven at speeds under about 100mph or more....it's all marketing. Ram effect only comes into play at excessive speeds (think Salt Flats runs, etc..)

 

Yea i know, "Ram" techinicaly isnt the right word, but i had to describe it somehow lol So.. this just gives me an excuse to drive 100mph+ just to see what it does ahah.

About finding the Cattman CAI, forget it, hence the WR Intake.

 

it would be simple to make your own copy of the PR/Cattman setup. All you need to do is have some tubing bent. That's all it really is.

 

I agree, but im just iffy about cutting hardbody metal.

I know its in a location where theres no structural importance, but i just dont like cutting out pieces i cant put back into my car. I would feel like im hacking it up (not counting my missing grille) lol