It's here:

http://www.sca40.com/intake/

 

Very interesting. This looks easier than Peter_bigblock's home made Icebox-like snorkel.

 

Interesting. Did you make that write up?

 

i'm very intrigued. Good write up, did you write it?

 

I like what you're saying here. Makes some sense, but what makes more sense to me about it is spending only $60 for probably $10 worth of material as opposed to $210 to Injen for probably $15 worth of material.

If we still had rep points, I'd be giving you some, though it wouldn't help you much, as I never had any. But the intentions are good.

Nice writeup.

 

<----- would like to see the results on a dyno

 

Was there R&D involed in your intake system?

 

I still think the ultimate DIY setup would be to put a cone in the stock box and disconnect the resonator.

 

no dyno's = the same crap we know already

 

Great write up. I had I paid for my Injen I might be a bit But since it was free expect for some time without a car, I'm with it.

Would still like to see how this dyno's compared to the R&D'ed comerical CAI/RAM's out there.

 

other approach is removing the resonator, using a k&n filter, and dremelling out all the fins on the top airbox.

 

I'd like to see a picture of how the adapter was made from the PVC pipe, then I might have to try it myself.

 

$60 USD for a cone filter is steep.

I use to work at a shop years ago where we got access to K&N cones filters from the same manufacturers without the K&N logo. Cost us $12 CND each. We sold then for $25 and we couldn't keep them in stock.

 

My '05 airbox doesn't seem to have these fins that y'all describe. I should take a pic of it sometime. I already got the drop-in K&N, now all I need to do is remove the resonator.... Cheap 5whp!

 

A for effort... However, I would take a stock intake system without resonator over the hot air SRI system any day. If a temperature sample is taken from the IAT sensor with a scan tool, you would be surprised how hot it is under the hood, especially during summer. Also, CAI is very effective even at low speed to draw in cold air. Additionally, PVC pipe is not a very good idea to use in an intake system.

http://www.madisongroup.com/Services...eanalysis.html

 

So I bet if we just wrap the PVC in duct tape, then it'll be fine.

 

I think duct tape gives about 1 hp/ft used.

 

nice writeup - very interesting perspective, but it remains quite subjective... we need a dyno!

TinkySD, i tottally agree with your suggested DIY setup, i've often thought about that...

I wonder why honda put those fins in the stock air box... do they even have a functional purpose?

 

So this guy recommended to use SRS? I am looking for an improved throttle response and that 'slight' mileage increase. Which part is needed to get this upgrade? Just a K&N cone filter?

 

Hey, thanks for all the feedback guys! To answer most of the questions in the reply, I did write that article after reading tons of reviews and looking at how other products claim to work. The only thing I could find consistent amung all was that they were all trying to reduce the resistance of the intake compared to stock, which is not really that bad to begin with.

I've had thoughts about installing an aluminum heat sheild, but I have yet to act on that. The key here is simplicity. I used a peice of PVC drain pipe to couple the stock intake and the filter because that's the only thing I could find. There are actually guys on ebay selling aluminum tubing to build your own air intakes and intercoolers. I'm sure I could find something with a little more searching.

I'll also post the part number for the K&N I used later today. $60 might be a little steep, but I bought it off the shelf at a retail auto parts store. Might be able to save a few bucks mail ordering, but the one I got has the 3.5" inlet and is significantly larger than what comes with most intake kits. Kinda justifies the pricetag...

Presently this is the only mod done to my car, so a dyno run would tell me the true benefit over stock. I didn't necessarily plan on doing that as the whole purpose of this is for low cost and convenience. That's not to say I coudln't be talked into it... Hmmm.... now I'm curious!

 

I have a quick question...

Is the MAS a plunger style or hot film?

 

I used a PVC drain pipe in lieu of the Comptech Icebox air horn and swapped the stock paper filter for a K&N gauze filter and called it my home-made Icebox. My seat-of-the-pants at that time was that it made a very little difference to power and was a little louder than stock, basically what I've heard from reviews of the real Icebox.

I've been thinking about this home-made SRS mod as well, why buy an aluminum pipe that does basically what the stock intake pipe does? AEM claims (at least quoted in the Temple of VTEC article testing the AEM SRS) that they've had better luck with the short-runner SRS vs. the long-runner CAI prototypes on the TSX. I might try this mod and dyno, but I don't have the money or time to also buy a two-piece CAI and dyno the homemade Icebox, homemade SRS, real SRS, and CAI set-ups for true comparisons.

Like the writer of this article, my gut feeling is there's no difference in performance between a $200 SRS and this home-made version, and likely there's still a couple peak hp to be gained at higher rpm from a CAI.

Here's another question -- has anyone actually measured the difference in IAT between a CAI and SRS on the same car under the same conditions? How would one do that?

 

The measurement is easy to do with an OBD 2 scan tool. I have measured the IAT between a CAI and the stock intake which has the inlet right in front of the battery. The temp is much lower with the CAI and recovers faster from idle. Keep in mind when you are doing any dyno or temp measurement with the SRI, make sure the hood is closed in order to get an accurate reading. Because that's how the car will be driven - with the hood closed. Sorry to say, the AEM SRI dyno test done by TOV, IMO is flaw.

 

How much lower, give or take, is IAT with the CAI? Didn't TOV do it with the hood open to try to compensate for the fact that outside air is rushing through the engine compartment when you're driving but not when you're on a dyno?

 

Just about everyone dynos with the hood open, and there is usually a big fan blowing in front of the car simulating moving air and providing cooling effect. The problem is it gives a false reading when the under hood temp is not taken into consideration. The temp difference is greater for the SRI than for the CAI when the hood is open due to the filter location.

Here are the testing data using a scan tool to compare stock intake and a CAI. The difference is pretty obvious when hot under hood temp enters the intake inlet. The SRI mode would suck in even more hot air without a heat shield, especially when the cooling fans start blowing hot air toward the engine compartment.

Before K&N installation:
Engine coolant temp = 185F to 187F
Outside temp = 48F
Intake temp @ idle = 68F
Intake temp @ cruise speed of 65 MPH, 3500 RPM = 64F
Intake temp @ WOT from 2500 RPM to 6500 RPM in 3rd gear = 66F

After K&N installation:
Engine coolant temp = 185F to 187F
Outside temp = 39F
Intake temp @ idle = 46F
Intake temp @ cruise speed of 65 MPH, 3500 RPM = 43F
Intake temp @ WOT from 2500 RPM to 6500 RPM in 3rd gear = 43F

 

Great data, definitely shows the effect from the CAI. The stock setup warms outside air 16-20 deg, the CAI warms outside air 4-7 deg, or about 12-13 deg cooler. Figure that's probably 15-20 deg cooler than a SRS, and that's where the CAI makes a couple more hp than the SRS, right? Do you think there's anything to the notion that the shorter runner of an SRS makes more mid-range power and the longer runner and colder air of the CAI makes more peak power?

The Rube Goldberg in me went ahead and did the SRS conversion feuss2 outlined -- I had been thinking about it before. The throttle response vs. stock is definite, and it feels like the less restrictive airway more than compensates for the slightly higher (likely, I didn't verify IAT) temps -- that's on the butt dyno. I think, for my next trick, I'm going to get some 3.5" o.d. tubing and plumb it into the stock intake hose for a home-built CAI. Any reason why that would be inferior to the K&N or Injen performance-wise? (Certainly not as cool asthetically!)

When I have that figured out, I'm going to dyno both setups and I'll post the results. Should be interesting, if nothing else.

 

So then if you don't want to mess with CAI and potential hydrolock issues, you could just run SRI mode and drive around with your hood up.

This is a really interesting thread, I look forward to the results of peter_bigblock's experiment.

 

I'm going to do the dyno with the hood down, and the big dyno fan blowing -- try to simulate real-world. My results have to stand up to JTso's scrutiny!

Seat-of-the-pants with this DIY short ram and a K&N filter is that throttle response is quicker and mid-range to high-end torque feels stronger. Noticeably better than my remove-the-resonator "Icebox".

The intake sound is not nearly as obtrusive as I had thought, it's a low, gutteral growl during hard acceleration but under normal driving conditions sounds stock. I didn't want "ricer" -- definitely isn't that.

 

Your goal should be comparing the before and after performance using the same dyno under the same condition (coolant temp, air temp, gear. etc.). Otherwise, the results might not reflect the actual gain. Therefore, a baseline run is very important.

 

That's my plan -- do a run with the short ram, keeping track of coolant, IAT, and ambient temps, switch out to CAI mode (about 1/2 hour), bring the car back up to temp, and do a run in CAI mode. Both with the hood down and the fan blowing. I'll post results, but it will be a week or two before I get the DIY CAI made.

(I'm just a DIY freak, I guess.)

 

I can't wait to see your results! Before I could think about looking for a dyno, the Fedex Guy arrived with the Hondata heatsheild gasket I ordered, so I spent a good part of yesterday installing that. Unfortunately, that takes away my ability to tell what contribution to the power increase each part is making... I know comptech and AEM both give you all the data points along the horsepower and torque curves during their dyno runs. So that would be a really interesting comparison.

I am really interested in adding to that page and putting up the results of comparisons like these... Please message me if you want to work with me on that... I will always give credit where it is due!

 

That's a good plan. You might consider slot out the fog cover to allow even more air in for the CAI test (if you don't have fog lights). It should also help the SRI test by having more fresh air coming through the hole by the filter.

 

So for daily driving, keep it in SRI and for spirited driving put it in CAI?

 

I would say so! Its hard to beleive how many people install CAI's with bypass valves in their everyday drivers...

But then again, when you ask someone how many horsepower their car has, they always answer you with a PEAK horsepower number. Its possible to do mods that totally destroy low- and mid-rpm performance and boost that peak number....

It's a separate discussion, but I'll share a bit of personal philosophy here: The most meaningful thing you can do is take your dyno chart, and take the integral of the HP and torque curves over the rev range, before and after... This way mods that rob lower-rpm performance dont show much of a gain at all, when all they do is boost a PEAK and sometimes meaningless number.

Another intersting benchmark would be to plot a distribution of the time vs rpm for some given test period of driving. Doing mods whose improvements are concentrated at the center of the bell curve would give the driver the greatest feeling of change in performance.

Think about it, when you're doing a 0-60, 0-100, or 1/4mi, how much time are you actually extracting peak horsepower from the engine? for a fraction of a second before you shift? so why would you care if your tsx an awesome peak HP number and sucked everywhere else?

 

So if the the intake is in SRI, we should unplug the bypass tube/valve or am I getting things mixed up?

 

that's why you can really feel the hondata reflash. Its not the peak HP increase but the increase in the area under the HP curve that gets you from A to B faster.

 

I've been looking into that Hondata reflash as soon as I can be without my car for 3 days at a time... I think it does an excellent job of smoothing out the torque curve, especially in that area in the upper rpm range where it looks intentionally detuned for either fuel economy rating, emissions, or both.

When an engine feels like its really picking up, you're sensing jerk--the change in acceloration over time. You feel more jerk when the horsepower curve is less linear. Once you smooth it out, you have a car that will "get away" from you more.

I noticed a huge difference in the feel of my 93 integra vs the 03 rsx i used to have and my 04 tsx. The older integra engine was definitely weaker lower in the rev range and suddlenly built up to a reasonable amount of horsepower around 3500-4000rpm. I was using that change in feel to guage how fast i was going most of the time, and when I got the RSX i was often speeding...

 

When you're doing a 1/4 mi, how much time are you actually spending below 5,000 RPM? Go ahead, suck at 3000 and it just won't matter.

The truth is most of us like our cars as daily drivers, and this is a different goal than a 1/4 mi. racer.

 

In a stock TSX, you have around 40HP less at 5000rpm than you do peak!

And your making less than 90HP at 3000rpm! If this dropped to 60, I bet it would take alot longer before you shifted into 2nd gear.

Regardless, we're making the same point. Most people here are doing rather light mods to their everyday driver, and spending most or all of their time driving on roads with speed limits.

No point in spending time and money to jack up your peak horsepower number if the RPM range where you're always operating the car is unaffected...

That was the exact premise behind the inexpensive, simplistic DIY short ram intake...

 

The question is, what is the difference between sucking cold air from a CAI at low rpm and sucking hot air with a SRI at the same rpm. From my experience, cold air noticeably increase the performance of our NA engine, my car pulls a lot harder at night than day.