question on ram air

[TxBmbleBee]

this is gonna seem odd but im curious if anyone has also pondered doing some modification to their hood in order to get colder air to the intake.
i know there are cai's out there and such, but besides that... i do think the hood scoop would look goofy seeing as how the intake is so far off to the side tho... id also be worried about water and debris getting in there as well.
anyone?

[yaddadaimsayin]

lol DO IT! I was also curious as to if a hood scoop (however silly it may look) would imrpove your air flow by any noticeable difference. Don't need to get the STi big-enough-to-fit-a-baby-inside hood scoop, but a smaller one might look unique!

sadly our solaras aren't made fast enough to match the look.

[kingkakyle]

silverlicious has? or had a hood scoop
i forgot who owns that car now though haha

[grnsolara]

I was actually talking about the same thing the other day TxB. I'm trying to get a spare hood to experiment on before painting it and all that other crap. I'm considering relocating the battery to open up that front slot and just put a scoop on each side for symmetry. It might look goofy as hell, but a few of my redneck friends are checking it out with me. If I decide to experiment with it, I'll get some pics posted up for grins.

[TxBmbleBee]

goofy or not, if it does indeed improve performance i really could care less. im thinking about just taping off the hood and cutting a square right out and fabricating some sort of scoop to go over the square...

battery relocation is also an excellent idea, i will consider this as well, how hard is it to relocate it to the trunk?

[D-money]

you could get a possable 3 or 4 psi @ 70 mph with a properly designed ram.ive also pondered the same thing and have done some research i just cant bring myself to start hacking up my lara

[Midias]

you could get a possable 3 or 4 psi @ 70 mph with a properly designed ram.ive also pondered the same thing and have done some research i just cant bring myself to start hacking up my lara

I would say .3 or .4 PSI maybe 1 at the most. For a general comparison I have read the WS6 ram air was good for about .7 at 75 mph.

[lexmex]

On my RX300 (that has a 1MZFE, too), I had a ram air system for many years while I lived in Mexico City (high altitude necessitated every bit of help I could get). The photos of it are still on page 3 of my car domain page below. Our bumpers had an opening on both sides. The passenger side fed into a transmission cooler, whereas the other side (driver's side) had a an air resonator in that area. Once removed, once could used PVC piping (or whatever suits you) and allow air to be rammed in from there. It was one of my favorite modifications, because the effect was definitely noticeable as you picked up speed and great on a 1/4 mile track.

Sadly, I have removed the lower part of my intake, because when I got back to sea level I was sucking up way too much air. When I get a chance in the future, I'd like to redesign and tune it, but I just don't have the time nor $$$ to do it.

[panic]

.3 or .4 PSI

Yup. The remaining benefit is the drop in air temp, which is worth much more.
My 2006 3MZ V6 already has factory CAI (they all do), but the scoop size is smaller than I would like, and there's no way to enlarge it without destroying all the resonance chambers and moving stuff.

The important thing is that the scoop inlet should be in "clean" air - no turbulence, not in the wake from some body edge, away from the boundary layer - flush mount does nothing.
But... it doesn't have to be above the hood (although that makes connection to the TB easier).
If you have the room, a scoop can be anywhere in the grill opening (as you would an intercooler) since it gets trapped air from the nose shape, and is separated from the engine bay by the radiator support seals. They used trumpet extensions in the headlight buckets to move the scoop ahead of the car 50 years ago. The problem is that the duct should be as big as the scoop (or bigger) and as large as the TB (70mm in my case) - no easy place to hide 70mm tubing with big radius curves - but it can be 2 or even 3 tubes for clearance.