X E Ryder's Chilly Air Intake Mod

[X E Ryder]

X E Ryder’s Chilly Air Intake (Mod)

As some of you know I am setting my car up for road course, and while working on the front end, I saw an area for improvement. Here is an easy to do mod that you can do in an hour with simple tools, drill, bits, some screws and drive up ramps.

This mod will help direct pressurized air right into your intake. If you have a CAI, and especially if you have the GS Motorsports CAI, this mod should make a difference for you. (The endorsement to the Carbon by Design cover has been removed due to problems with the design of this piece, and customer service at CBD).

When looking at the front end of my car, I noted these two pieces of plastic on either side of the bottom of the radiator, that were flopping around rather loosely. There are designed to keep pressurized air going through the radiator, and not escaping around the sides. The problem is they only have two loose plastic pushpin fasteners to hold them, and they do not seal well at all! We are going to move these two pieces. Use the picture at the bottom for reference.

Drive your LX up on ramps, and pull the service cover under the engine, and the lower cover from the bumper, this will allow you access to see up into the front end below the radiator. Use a screwdriver to gently pull the center pins from the two plastic sidepieces. Note they have a giant “LH and RH” on them for left hand /right hand side respectively.

If you will look up now on the left side, you will see the bottom of your air filter if you have a CAI. By removing that sidepiece, air that enters your bumper will be able to travel directly to your CAI under pressure. In order to maintain pressure in here, we need to seal off the extended chamber we have created.

Take the Left sidepiece and hold its mounting holes up to the frame rail lower spot welded flange, it fits in quite well, but you will have to bend it slightly. Use a felt marker to mark through the holes in the sidepiece onto the frame flange. Obtain a couple screws and perhaps small washers, if you have some OEM type sheet metal bolts with integrated washers, they are perfect. Pilot drill the frame flange where you marked for the screws.

Press the piece against the frame and install the screws. See the picture below for reference. The right side of the car is easier to do, just pull the lower washer reservoir bolt and slip the plastic sidepiece in between the frame and reservoir.

Now that you are done, air under pressure will press into the CAI opening, as well as the leading edge of the radiator, not just the radiator. The sidepieces we relocated help seal off the compartment, but behind the CAI opening now, instead of poorly sealing in front of it. My measured intake air temp dropped between 5 and 10 degrees from this mod, which I logged with my Predator.

[bigsnake]

How do you think water coming up from the road will affect this modification?

[MikeEast]

This is exactly what I've done, quite some time ago - only I didn't document it as well as this, nicely done!

Water won't be an issue at all, unless you make a practice of fording small streams on a regular basis. Any rain/spray coming in will stop at the back of the cavity and not make the turn to go up. Pretty much the same way that the 5.7 intake manifold works when a 9th injector sprays into it.

Mike

[MattRobertson]

Hey we finally have decent documentation on the lower radiator baffle mod! Good show. A little history on this mod as on occasion someone will say it has an adverse effect:

This was first tried on my car a couple of years ago by Leo Now of Weapon-R Motorsports when he was using my car as a mule for their hemi intake. The original idea was to make a place to run a ram air intake tube. After the fabrication session they removed the parts and I found that the open hole itself fed an enormous amount of air up into the engine cavity. Months later when I was testing filters for the Frankentake, I found that the air is actually in a pocket whose size was limited, but still very large. Plenty for all short ram intakes on the market.

Removing this baffle also removes any usefulness found with an intake heat shield, and in fact an intake heat shield impedes the free flow of ambient air in that area (restricting it so you can only get some from the hole underneath and the slit space up front; when without a heat shield air will also pour up behind the filter.

GS Motorsports recommends the removal of this baffle if you use their intake, as well. A GS engineer told me that without removing the baffle, the hemi motor is so greedy that it creates a low pressure area where the filter is down low, and the motor actually starves for air a little; reducing performance.

Removing all of the radiator baffles (the two small lower ones and the two big upper ones) causes a negative effect. You need the air to be forced thru the radiator or it doesn't work as well... the engine is supposed to be water-cooled, not air-cooled. Remove all of the baffles and water temp goes up by a full notch on your water gauge.

I have heard that removing both the lower baffles as seen here does not cause the above problem, but I have to say that I am perfectly happy with just the drivers side. I drive road courses myself and I don't want to hand off any water cooling performance. I also never thought to bolt the scoop up like that. Last time I saw mine it was in the garage at the other house. Doubt I'll ever see it again.

[X E Ryder]

Glad you guys like it.

I would like to note that this mod should retain just as much pressure on the radiator as was present previously. The baffle pieces are moved further back, but still remain part of a trapped area in front of the radiator. Sort of like they were bent backwards 90 degrees to encompass the sides, but they stay in place.

My climate is fairly mild to dry hot, so some climates might be more sensitive to this mod than others - I leave the choice to you, the reader to decide. Maybe this will even help someone have an even better idea!

[X E Ryder]

Bump for Chilly Air Intake / Baffle Mod!

[daddystoy]

Nice write up...what's next??

[X E Ryder]

Nice write up...what's next??

I'm glad you asked! I have a really neat mod half done right now - I'm so excited I'm having trouble sleeping - you know the whole modding your car during sleep thing.

SOON!

[07superbee]

Hey x e Ryder,i think i showed you my intake with header wrap on it,that also help's to keep it chilling.

[striker071]

OK I am new to the forums and havent been under the car like you folks. So you are repositioning this thing is that correct? And if you are couldnt you just get another baffle to redirect the airflow?

[X E Ryder]

Hey x e Ryder,i think i showed you my intake with header wrap on it,that also help's to keep it chilling.

Hey bro! Good point! 07Superbee used header wrap around his intake tube to keep it cooler as well!

OK I am new to the forums and havent been under the car like you folks. So you are repositioning this thing is that correct? And if you are couldnt you just get another baffle to redirect the airflow?

If you do not reposition the baffles, they prevent the pressurized air from reaching the air filter "supply cavity" - granted they do not seal well. Since they just sort of flop around in there stock, moving them and mounting them correctly is certainly an improvement. It allows the highest pressure air in front of the car to continue to pressurize the radiator, but also your air filter.

[Vagabond]

Great write up!!! The pictures help explain what you were doing. The only improvement I could add to your write up would be pics of the Predator readings so that no one could argue your findings. Not really needed though imo. Good job and looking forward to your next mod writeup

[MattRobertson]

07Superbee used header wrap around his intake tube to keep it cooler as well!

Any ideas on what that means when the motor gets heat soaked? As in how long does that wrap hold off the heat? Enough for a whole day? Insulation can hold heat in, once its in, as well as it can keep it out.

[X E Ryder]

Any ideas on what that means when the motor gets heat soaked? As in how long does that wrap hold off the heat? Enough for a whole day? Insulation can hold heat in, once its in, as well as it can keep it out.

No idea. I have not tested this technique, but I wonder if it would be exempt from the effect (or at least reduced) with all the air flowing through it?

Somebody could Predator log the effects and post them.

[MattRobertson]

Well, myself, done and a few others have been doing intake temp sensor testing for a couple years now... in-the-tube tests so far have shown that air is sucked in so fast that there is no temp increase inside the tube. The hot air goes into the engine in a split second and after that its ambient. Tests at the elbow using the IAT (via both the ScanGauge and the MSD DashHawk) show an increase at the elbow, but it looks like thats radiant heat from the block, since sensors in the tube show no increase until it hits the elbow... so if its not coming from the outside, its coming from the inside. No insulation can help you from heat coming off the block and thru the throttle body.

With the lower baffle mod in play there's ambient air everywhere. Ambient air comes roaring in on the inside, and ambient air is flowing around like crazy on the outside... its a solved problem on these cars based on that. You'd need refrigerator coils to bring the air charge down further since you would have to be going *below* ambient.