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Important Aftermarket Intake Info

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Old 03-17-2004, 03:04 AM
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Chuck I got your email. I will be calling the garage tomorrow to get a time to come in, I'll keep you updated.

And kudos on the way you handle that jerk (the real one not me! )
Old 03-17-2004, 02:50 PM
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More info

Here I would like to talk about different terminology.

Short Ram intake: Actually it should be called short arm (tube) intake. There is no ram air effect when you place the filter inside the engine compartment, unless you have a scoop feeding air to it. Because it takes in the hot engine air, unless your stock intake set up is really bad, you can expect loss of power from this kind of system.

Cold air (fresh air) intake:

Long arm cold air intake: First type is the one that places the filter outside of the enigne compartment but the air flow is not in the same axis as the air entry on the air filter.

Short arm cold air intake: Second type is cold air short arm intake that sits inside the engine compartment but with shields to block off the hot engine air. This term is mainly to distinquish from the one that takes the hot engine air. Of course, the air temp will never be colder than the ambient temp. So when the ambient temp is 100+F, the air isn't really "cold" but it will be at least 40F cooler than a hot air intake.

Ram air intake: The filter is placed on the outside of the engine compartment and the air flow is in the same axis as air entry on the air filter and also the air flow axis inside the tube. Some filters have a entry point on the the top of the filter. Those are used for ram air intake.

Now I want to talk about which one of those will work and which ones will not and why.

The only thing that will work on the RX-8 will be the short arm intake and the cold air short arm intake. The cold air intake that places the filter on the outside of the engine compartment will not work and the ram air intake will not work due to the use of MAF sensor instead of MAP sensor.

The stock MAF sensor is very sensitive. Any turbulence of the air flow will upset the reading. When the air filter is placed on the outside of the engine compartment, the air flow from speed will create too much turbulence. It's even worse with a ram air intake. MAF measures how much air is going through it and then it sends the signal to the ECU and the injectors will fire according to the map on the ECU. So the ecu map is a 3D graph.

MAF signal vs. RPM vs. Injector duty cycle.

With a MAF sensor, the amount of air that goes through it has to go into the motor. If it bounces out (ram air intake) or there is any leakage, the a/f will be off. Here will be a few cases:

Ram air intake: When car is at low speed, the throttle is not open all the way. If you force the air in, you can expect some air to bounce back after it goes through the MAF sensor. Since the MAF already sends a signal to the ECU to account for that much air, the injector will be firing according to that. Since some air does not really go into the motor, you can expect an overly rich a/f which causes hesitation. To make it easier to see, look at the following equation. ECU will fire the injector at X % for each Y amount of air. If you have 10Y of air going through the MAF, the ECU will fire the injector at 10X %. But if 1Y of air bounces back, you only have 9Y of air actually going into the motor but the injectors will still fire at 10X %. So the a/f ratio will be about 10% richer than what it should be. If the car is at idle where the throttle plate is nearly closed and there is gusty wind, you can expect the car to die at idle with a ram air intake due to overly rich a/f.

Leakage: The piping from the MAF all the way to the combustion chamber has to be air tight. In an N/A motor, if there is any leakage, you can expect a leaner a/f. Becuase some of the air that got sucked into the motor didn't go through the MAF. So let's say if there is 9Y of air going through the MAF, the injector will be firiing at 9X %. But there is leakage so there is 1Y of air going into the motor not going through the MAF, you can expect a 10% leaner a/f. This problem will be more pronounced during idle. When you install an intake, it's very important that you clamp down every piping tightly after the MAF or you will have idle problem. On a turbo car with MAF and when the car is on boost, air that passes through the MAF will be leaking out so you will see a richer a/f instead.

Stock Intake Design:

Many people think the stock intake is a ram air intake. It's totally wrong. There is no ram air effect from the stock air duct.



The photo shows you that the primary intake duct is pointing side way and Mazda makes a guard to block off any direct entry of the air for the 2ndary air duct. You can also see another shield at the bottom of both air ducts to block off any air entry. When it comes to RX-8, the air gets sucked in by the engine. Engine is doing all the suction work. Any kind of ram air effect will upset the reading of the MAF sensor and Mazda did everything they can to eliminate the ram air effect. The only way to make a ram air intake work will require a very complicated intake setup that has a electronic controlled bufferfly valve in the ram air duct that opens gradually according to rpm and throttle position so you only get the amount of ram air that is needed. Even Mazda's OEM design is not that complicated so don't think any aftermarket manufacturer can come up with a true ram air intake for cheap. We have tried to make one but the gain from the true ram air intake can't justify the cost.

That's it for now.

Chuck Huang

Last edited by Rotary Extreme; 03-17-2004 at 02:53 PM.
Old 03-18-2004, 08:40 AM
  #28  
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I know cooler air = efficiency and power, but is there a real value to a new intake without a freer flowing exhaust?

Btw, I'm not doubting anything...just asking for serious opinions.

-Eric
Old 03-18-2004, 01:39 PM
  #29  
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The sound baby! The sound!
Old 03-18-2004, 02:10 PM
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We will find out this Friday. We are putting a 6 speed base model car without the DSC on the dyno with our intake and exhaust. We will also test it out with just the exhaust with stock intake to see what it does.

Chuck Huang


Originally posted by Sue Esponte
I know cooler air = efficiency and power, but is there a real value to a new intake without a freer flowing exhaust?

Btw, I'm not doubting anything...just asking for serious opinions.

-Eric
Old 03-20-2004, 09:46 PM
  #31  
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Re: More info

Originally posted by Rotary Extreme
Here I would like to talk about different terminology.

Short Ram intake: Actually it should be called short arm (tube) intake. There is no ram air effect when you place the filter inside the engine compartment, unless you have a scoop feeding air to it. Because it takes in the hot engine air, unless your stock intake set up is really bad, you can expect loss of power from this kind of system.

Cold air (fresh air) intake:

Long arm cold air intake: First type is the one that places the filter outside of the enigne compartment but the air flow is not in the same axis as the air entry on the air filter.

Short arm cold air intake: Second type is cold air short arm intake that sits inside the engine compartment but with shields to block off the hot engine air. This term is mainly to distinquish from the one that takes the hot engine air. Of course, the air temp will never be colder than the ambient temp. So when the ambient temp is 100+F, the air isn't really "cold" but it will be at least 40F cooler than a hot air intake.

Ram air intake: The filter is placed on the outside of the engine compartment and the air flow is in the same axis as air entry on the air filter and also the air flow axis inside the tube. Some filters have a entry point on the the top of the filter. Those are used for ram air intake.

Now I want to talk about which one of those will work and which ones will not and why.

The only thing that will work on the RX-8 will be the short arm intake and the cold air short arm intake. The cold air intake that places the filter on the outside of the engine compartment will not work and the ram air intake will not work due to the use of MAF sensor instead of MAP sensor.

The stock MAF sensor is very sensitive. Any turbulence of the air flow will upset the reading. When the air filter is placed on the outside of the engine compartment, the air flow from speed will create too much turbulence. It's even worse with a ram air intake. MAF measures how much air is going through it and then it sends the signal to the ECU and the injectors will fire according to the map on the ECU. So the ecu map is a 3D graph.

MAF signal vs. RPM vs. Injector duty cycle.

With a MAF sensor, the amount of air that goes through it has to go into the motor. If it bounces out (ram air intake) or there is any leakage, the a/f will be off. Here will be a few cases:

Ram air intake: When car is at low speed, the throttle is not open all the way. If you force the air in, you can expect some air to bounce back after it goes through the MAF sensor. Since the MAF already sends a signal to the ECU to account for that much air, the injector will be firing according to that. Since some air does not really go into the motor, you can expect an overly rich a/f which causes hesitation. To make it easier to see, look at the following equation. ECU will fire the injector at X % for each Y amount of air. If you have 10Y of air going through the MAF, the ECU will fire the injector at 10X %. But if 1Y of air bounces back, you only have 9Y of air actually going into the motor but the injectors will still fire at 10X %. So the a/f ratio will be about 10% richer than what it should be. If the car is at idle where the throttle plate is nearly closed and there is gusty wind, you can expect the car to die at idle with a ram air intake due to overly rich a/f.

Leakage: The piping from the MAF all the way to the combustion chamber has to be air tight. In an N/A motor, if there is any leakage, you can expect a leaner a/f. Becuase some of the air that got sucked into the motor didn't go through the MAF. So let's say if there is 9Y of air going through the MAF, the injector will be firiing at 9X %. But there is leakage so there is 1Y of air going into the motor not going through the MAF, you can expect a 10% leaner a/f. This problem will be more pronounced during idle. When you install an intake, it's very important that you clamp down every piping tightly after the MAF or you will have idle problem. On a turbo car with MAF and when the car is on boost, air that passes through the MAF will be leaking out so you will see a richer a/f instead.

Stock Intake Design:

Many people think the stock intake is a ram air intake. It's totally wrong. There is no ram air effect from the stock air duct.



The photo shows you that the primary intake duct is pointing side way and Mazda makes a guard to block off any direct entry of the air for the 2ndary air duct. You can also see another shield at the bottom of both air ducts to block off any air entry. When it comes to RX-8, the air gets sucked in by the engine. Engine is doing all the suction work. Any kind of ram air effect will upset the reading of the MAF sensor and Mazda did everything they can to eliminate the ram air effect. The only way to make a ram air intake work will require a very complicated intake setup that has a electronic controlled bufferfly valve in the ram air duct that opens gradually according to rpm and throttle position so you only get the amount of ram air that is needed. Even Mazda's OEM design is not that complicated so don't think any aftermarket manufacturer can come up with a true ram air intake for cheap. We have tried to make one but the gain from the true ram air intake can't justify the cost.

That's it for now.

Chuck Huang
Rotary Extreme,

So which company makes the short arm intake and the cold air short arm intake.

I know you have lots of knowledge about this and would appreciated if you can answer it

Thanks

White_GTS
Old 03-20-2004, 10:17 PM
  #32  
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Damn White_GTS, did you HAVE to quote his entire post?
Old 03-20-2004, 10:23 PM
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Not to mention asking a vendor who makes an intake who makes the best intake who just explained to you the various details about intakes.
Old 03-20-2004, 10:37 PM
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Typhoon is short arm and RE is cold air short arm. I personally feel after having the Typhoon and going back to the stock box with a green filter that the stock intake is actually quite good. Just needed a more free flowing filter element ( say that 5 times fast)
Old 03-22-2004, 12:54 AM
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More on dynoing RX8 intake.

http://www.rotaryextreme.com/rx8dyno.html

Chuck Huang
Old 04-16-2004, 05:40 PM
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Chuck,

That was a pretty comprehensive dyno link. Very informative. Thanks a lot!
Old 04-19-2004, 12:00 PM
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RE

I do not want to sound like a moron, because I am new to looking at dyno's and etc. So that's my disclaimer...

Just looking at the dyno, I noticed a slight decrease of power around 7000 RPM. This is when I was informed the flap on the inlet on the filter box opens. Is this a coinsidense? Have you played with this at all?
Old 04-19-2004, 01:47 PM
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The variable fresh air duct (intake flap) does open there if you are using the stock intake. Aftermarket intakes do not have this feature. The variable intake valve also opens at this point. From the engines point of view, it shortens the length of the intake runners to retune the runners to a higher rpm. While in reality the runners stay the same length, opening this bridge across them farther down changes their effective length. It is because of this that you will still see a dip in the dyno charts regardless of the intake used. It may or may not be as big of a dip though.
Old 04-19-2004, 05:35 PM
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RG,

thanks for not rolling your eyes to me! I wasn't dwelling on the subject, just thought it was a coinsidence.

FL
Old 04-21-2004, 10:56 AM
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What about the SR Motorsports Ram Air CAI ? It looks like it's getting it's air from outside of the airbox "bay." Would that qualify to be "ram-air." SR didn't report any MAF issues, so I'm wondering what category this one falls under.

Thoughts?
Old 04-21-2004, 12:53 PM
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It's just a short arm intake. There is no ram air effect.

In order to get ram air, you need to place the filter at the incoming air stream and that will require you to take off all the stock air duct and route the pipe all the way toward the front of the car.



We did the prototype 8 months ago. It does not work. It sets off the check engine light. It's not even ram air yet. Just long arm cold air creates enough turbulence to upset the MAF signal.

A lot of companies love to use the term "ram air" to make their product seem better but if you know what ram air is and how the set up should look, you will know it's just a sales pitch.


Chuck Huang

Originally posted by huhsler
What about the SR Motorsports Ram Air CAI ? It looks like it's getting it's air from outside of the airbox "bay." Would that qualify to be "ram-air." SR didn't report any MAF issues, so I'm wondering what category this one falls under.

Thoughts?

Last edited by Rotary Extreme; 04-21-2004 at 12:58 PM.
Old 04-21-2004, 12:57 PM
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When you say that you did the prototype and it set off the CEL, was it a MAF issue? Doesn't the engine do the pulling of the air?

So, as far as you know the SRM Intake is just one of the ones that falls into the same cool air short arm intake as the yours. I realize that I'm speaking with a vendor as well as an engineer, but what the hey.

Thanks.
Old 04-21-2004, 01:03 PM
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Yes, the air turbulence causes the MAF not to read correctly, even though engine is doing the suction. You want the air to have a laminar flow through the MAF. If there is turbulence, the MAF will not read correctly.

Ram air will make it even worse.


Chuck Huang



Originally posted by huhsler
When you say that you did the prototype and it set off the CEL, was it a MAF issue? Doesn't the engine do the pulling of the air?

So, as far as you know the SRM Intake is just one of the ones that falls into the same cool air short arm intake as the yours. I realize that I'm speaking with a vendor as well as an engineer, but what the hey.

Thanks.
Old 04-21-2004, 01:08 PM
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So assuming that the SRM Intake is NOT ram-air, it would (in theory) still work as a CAI or short arm?

Thanks.
Old 04-21-2004, 01:12 PM
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It will be a short arm cold air, assuming the front part of the intake connects to the hole which the stock air box connects to.

Chuck Huang

Originally posted by huhsler
So assuming that the SRM Intake is NOT ram-air, it would (in theory) still work as a CAI or short arm?

Thanks.
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