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This is version 4 of the OSCAI/Ram air intake.... And I daresay its pretty good now. Probably not going to be able to make it much better.

 

That is badass, tell me what you hit at the track before, and you gotta tell me what you hit now, with that... Looks fuxking badass.

 

Thats a whole lot of Ram air! BTW thats not the regular 4th gen stillen muffler is it? what tip is that?

 

Looks kinda funny sticking out like that.

 

that's great

 

that's awesome!

 

All those pipes won't make a difference since the engine probably can't take in any more air than with just a cone. It gets cold air but just one pipe under the car or behind the fogs would've been more than enough. Now, does any one know where I can buy a 3" butterfly plate?

 

small animals and children watch out!!

 

The idea is that at speed (e.g. esp 50+ MPH) the intake generates positive pressure FORCING the engine to take in air in greater amounts than what it normally does. Plus the biggest bottleneck (the entrance to the stock air box) has gone from like 7 sqare inches to 12.5.

Ever put your hand out the window at like 70 MPH? Now imagine having a hand that is like 2.5 times as big as yours and the force against it... Thats how much air pressure is going through the intake system!

Isnt the whole idea behind turbos and supercharging the generation of positive intake pressure?

 

Yeah but this is the cheap N/A way to do things.

 

True... But when you aint got $5K its a fun way to spend a weekend.

 

Yes, but one of the worst places to draw positive pressure air is from the underside of the car. The bumper acts as wall and pushes air either up over the car or beneath. The air has to bend around the lower/upper part of the bumper and will cause a slight negative pressure area in close proximity. This is why the "ram air" setups on the Camaro SS ins't effective at all and is just for looks. It sits in about the worst place for positive air (middle of the hood). The true ram air setups of the 60s/70s actually had the intake pointed towards the windshield and used the pressure buildup off the windshield to force air into the intake. These systems actually worked. The position of the factory intake snorkle is actually pretty good because there is some pressure built up through the grill area. This is where the 350Z/G35/non-ram air F-Bodies and BMWs pull their air from.

BTW, the secondary intake pipe (far driver's side) is sucking in unfiltered air from above the filter


Dave

 

Yea this might be wishful thinking... But I did hear a funny computer like noise after most every big time WOT. And it seemed to be coming from down where the ECU is.. Hmm.. But it could just be something metal rattling..

 

Im not sure- Its what the shop got me. (I used to pay money to do everything on my car- even exhaust mods)

 

Looks really good. I dont know if I would want to drive around like that, but for track use, it looks like it could work really well.

 

Will put finishing touches on it soon to make it look less agro. Its not noticable from a normal (standing) perspective...

 

Does it take more energy for the engine to pull the air upwards from the bottom of the car as opposed to maybe a Frankencar style intake?

 

Thanks for the good information... like the writeup.

RE: My setup-
With my R+D and materials budget it definately wasnt going to be ideal!

But I figure that some of the air that gets pushed beneath the car is likely to enter 1 of the 2 scoops along with the air that isnt getting pushed - going straight in. In any case, I think it feels peppier.

Nevar!!! Are you talking about the previous version? it had a separate filter element and I have closed off the holes that I had in my airbox from the earlier additional tubes.

 

Spaniard, thanks for showing us this bro! i love your creative thinking. I have been looking into doing something similar so I have been doing some research. Here is a good article about ram air (although it is motorcycles) that put the engine on dynos and try to replicate the ram air effect. They then go on to check the pressure in the system a different speeds:
http://www.sportrider.com/tech/146_9508_ram/

What I get out of this for the Maxima is that we can't go fast enough on the street (+100mph) to get any big boost.

What we can do is ensure cold air and remove the negative pressure in the air box.

One item I see in your solution that might not work for me is scooping the air from so close to very hot summer asphalt (California).

Keep the good work coming bro, let hash this out and see what we can get from it!

Thanks,

P

 

hey man... looks nice! i really like your idea.

i see you are from santa cruz. norcal is having a dyno meet this saturday in fremont at Advanced Tuning Product. do you wanna come? i am very interested to see some of your work on your max

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread.php?t=281144

 

Well I personally think it looks quite awful in the lower grill like that. In theory the idea makes sense, but I dont know how much gain you will see if any from a normal intake. My friend has an altima and did the same kind of thing, but just one pipe down to the foglight opening, but I dont think it did much of anything. A long time ago somone on the org. made a ram air set up for the track, they had a cone filter where the headlight is so it pulled in air right from the front. Again, not streetable cause he only had 1 headlight.

Something I find more appealing, is if yourewire your blinkers so they work on the corner lights (the ones next to the headlight) and then remove the clears from the bumper and have an intake at that point for "ram air".

 

I doubt we can get any more gains than the hybrids and CAIs we already have. All we could do is make one intake that has the low-end of a CAI and the top end of a hybrid without the negative sides of either of the 2.

 

Maybe- I still think its superior to a CAI (w/o ram air) and definately as good or better than a HAI at high RPM. But Im probably biased...

Id love to dyno with 75 MPH air hitting the front fascia...

 

Personally, I think the "popeye" motif is pretty awful too. Ill post a few pix tomorrow when the car is not on a jack- its better than that picture does it justice.

 

Heck yea! Im there!! Dying to see what the ECU did, and if the other dyno was a bit low (haha)

 

Hey thanks much! I appreciate it alot. Ill read those articles in a couple minutes to be sure... My next direction is going to be weight reduction btw- Want to replace the glass in the sunroof with plexi next!

 

hey spaniard are those spoon rims? nd how is your car on 3 wheels dat freakin sick man!

 

Loving that article

Gotta be optomistic!-

1) Fact: Stock intake limits power.
2) Modified intake opens up some power.
3) (quotes from article)
"the effects of even small amounts of boost on throttle response haven't really been investigated and may help to explain some of the surging acceleration typical of big Kawasakis.

"Just riding from the dyno facility to the strip was illuminating. We'd reckoned on needing 90 mph before boost would register, but at an indicated 70 mph the manometer already showed 8mb of boost."

(Spaniard)This is for motorcycle intakes that may or may not utilize the amount of scoop or intake collection that a CAR has the luxury of going for (e.g. I got like 36 square in. of intake going into the throttle body)
Also- it might have some bearing that the motorcyle engine tested and demonstrated to yield 12 HP at max ram-air boost (really really high speeds) could be further improved by the displacement factor(nearly always a significant factor)
That would mean a comperable ram air setup (to the ones in the motorcycles) might generate 40 HP in our 3L engines!!!
On the flip side, ram air effect might be a function of engine size, meaning that 3X the engine size might make the effect 1/3 that of a smaller powerplant.
Still need to think about that one.

In any case:


Quote:
"123 bhp measured normally on a static Dynojet rolling road dynamometer could translate to as much as 135 bhp or more on the street. Ram air works."

thats all I got for now..

A couple thoughts on improving the ram air:

1) Sculpting some minor channeling structures to maximize the air intake
2) A possibligty of trying to removing turbulence in the system- right after the 2 channels conjoin either via a fine wire mesh (ala MAF sensor) or a knockoff of the tornado.

 

Heh- thanks... I know some people were suprised to see that 3 wheel action on street tires.
There are 3 reasons for the 3 wheel deal:

1) Solid rear axle on the Maxima (at least 4th gen)
2) Stock suspension (no lowering, no RSB)
3) pushing 9/10ths around corners! (I like to think that was the deciding factor lol)

Cheers-

PS slipstream rims

 

Just FYI, I was looking at your homepage and you're actually running 2 step colder plugs...BKR-7's are stock... that makes the 5's you have 2 steps colder.

 

Thanks- good to know-

Wait- Am i using the wrong plug????

 

You can use them, it shouldnt hurt anything...
wait you are using stock plugs, so they arent any steps colder, I got them mixed up cause I run BKR6 and I didnt remember if stock was 5 or 7, sorry.

 

Uhhmm...5 is the stock heat range. Anything higher than that is a colder plug...

 

i like your design man, cant wait to see what it will do at the track. im a bit anxious to see what mine will do. I didnt get too many reactions to it but the track will decide whether it was worth my time or not. Either way i had to do it to see if it would work, as did you, and all these theories that everyone has will be proved or disproved with the numbers.

Nice goin though, keep us informed when you get some results.