I first posted this in first gen but got no responses, so i figured i'd post it here.

I have had a Weapon-R SRI in my car for a little under a year now. It's actually for the H22 engine (2000 prelude) but it fits in our car. The thing about the intake is that towards the throttle body, the piping gets VERY large then goes down to 3" where it connects to the throttle body. Also it has a sharp angle to the piping towards the top. I'll try and find a pic to better illustrate this.

So the question is this: Do the larger diameter pipe and sharp angle cut down on the efficiency of my intake? Should i sell it and get an AEM shorty or is the gain difference minimal? The sound is real ballsy and loud, and i wanna keep that

Thanks in advance!

 

Yeah sharp turns are bad and also I think as the air goes thru the pipe and it gets larger then small again the air must slow down in there, and then must speed up again. Like AEM, I think you want smooth turns and one size pipe pretty much as incoming air as some inertia and this helps fill the cylinders. May be good to go with cool air from beneath the car or from behind the bumper too- 40 to 60 degrees cooler down there.

 

gain will be minimal (if any) if you swap over to AEM if the intake is the same (short ram). However, if you switch over to CAI, cool air makes a little bit of a difference.

 

I just typed up a long post about fluid dynamics and why the changes in size could be either beneficial or detrimental, depending on the way air works. But i then realized that air is funny and the amount coming into the car can change, so i'm posting this junk.

My suggestion? Try and get ahold of an engineer who designed the intake and ask him/her.

 

Thanks for the input. Randomwalk, i thought that at speeds above 25mph, all the warm air gets swept out of the engine bay anyway. Also I heard that the CAI doesn't sound as nice as the SRI and CAI is also a bitch to install. Here is a pic if that helps at all:

 

ABreece, i see where you're coming from. I also know what you're talking about in regards to air, I'm a trumpet player and I know how bore size and bends in the tubing affect air flow and turbulence.

 

My best guess after some thinking is that the expanded tube is there to allow the air to sort of bunch up before going into your car to increase pressure. Then as the tube narrows and heads to the engine, the air is sped up.

But i could be talking out of my ass.

 

I actually put a temp sensor in the engine bay right at the point where a short ram would inhale from....results were that at slower speeds it read 40 to 60 degrees higher below 30 mph and stayed at 40 degrees hotter when going over 30. I even went ninety for awhile...no drop. It was a 60 degree day and it stayed around 100. Come to a red light, climbs to 120! So I went with a cold air intake after that.

 

The expanded tube is designed for 4 cylinders. It helps to maintain a generous amount of air in the chamber when it first needs it...off the line. This is due to the fact that most 4 bangers have small TBs so their ability to suck in air is limited. I tried it on my CLS at WR...its useless on a car with a TB as big as ours.