ddd269 said:
I'm all about it, I've done some thinking on this idea already and there are a few issues that need to be dealt with:
1) What would you use as a conduit for the air from the scoop? Hoses? That would look pretty bad. How would you connect them from the scoop to the box? Where would the air enter the box? The flow through hoses would be pretty bad depending on what size and smoothness they were. It would be better if we could get some kind of pre-fabbed shaped plastic mold that starts off as the same general shape as the hood scoop, then funnels it in a U-turn (this seems like the most efficient path) to enter the box from the rear while tapering down to a 3 inch diameter pipe. Which leads to size; is there enough room under hood to put something like this? Would you affix it to the hood? and have it interface at the box? Or would you have it affixed to the engine and have it interface at the scoop?
2) Even if you had this nice piece of piping, how would it connect to the box? on top? in the rear? how would you deal with the excess moisture/dirt/road debris that comes with it? How would this pre-filter affect air flow?
I'm not saying it can't be done, because it can. I'm more concerned about reliability of the contraption, looks, and actual functionality. You'd be suprised how hard it is to make air flow through a tube on just ram pressure alone. Luckily for us, our scoop is optimized enough to be able to draw a good amount of air in.
Another thing I thought of was running a hose from the hole in the front of the Volant airbox down behind the passenger headlight to the small black air deflectors at the very bottom of the front passenger fascia. My plan was to cut a hole in these and use a scoop (funnel, vaccum attachment, etc.) to draw air in the hose using ram pressure to force it up into the box. This way air would make it but water wouldn't. The design has some fundamental flaws however. First, two relatively short radius 90 degree turns need to be made on the way to the airbox. This would be a large flow restriction. Other things to condsider are the smootheness and diameter of the hose plus the vertical distance the air has to travel to get up to the airbox. It looks like 1.5" is the max diameter that can fit behind the passenger headlight without cutting or moving anything. I just don't think there would be enough ram air pressure to move a considerable amount of air at non-highway speeds. Secondly, the scoop for the air would be only inches above the road. This means a couple things: Alot of dust and water vapor would make it into the hose, and in the summer it would be pulling hot air from just above the surface of a hot street, maybe even hotter than it would pull from the fender.
After consideration of all the above options, plus a few others, I decided that pulling air from above the passenger headlight is a good way to go (See my pic a couple posts up ^). I opened up a gap a quarter inch wide by twelve inches long. Doesn't sound like much, but it equates to 3 square inches or the area of a 2" diameter hose. Additionally, the air becomes laminated by the smoothness of the front headlight, moves to the top of the headlight, and is "scooped" by the gap between the hood and the top of the light. This entry point is only inches directly in front of the hole in the Volant airbox. Yeah, not all of the air entering will make it into the box, but I've had it like this for a few weeks now and notice a more consistent performance and sound in hot weather driving.
Sorry about the long post, I just wanted to share my thoughts with everyone.
