Calling all Vendors with CAI's - PROVE Your CAI Gains! READ

[2SSRS@Gen5diy]

Originally Posted by JewelZ

so any decision on which CAI is best for the v6?

The one that makes you happy as i don't have a V6. LOL

[Partick]

It sounds like Ram Air may not be a myth per se but in listening to Ted and Jim Hall its pretty clear that it's application is far beyond something that would work on a production performance car stock or modified. Sounds like a good marketing tool to sell a product that won't give you much more than the standard CAI's on the market. JMHO

[axis]

Originally Posted by Halltech

We do NOT have a ram air kit, but I beg to differ with you. I have over 48 years experience designing, and building engines, in particular, ram air boxes for Pro Stock drag racing as a crew member of a motorcycle drag racing team. I engineered a 6 cylinder 1550 cc motor from 1046cc, turbocharged it and ran high 8 second passes at 160 mph the first time at the track. I have over 8 years tuning the LS series Corvettes, GTOs and now the Camaro LS3.

Back in the 70s, our first attempt at running ram air in our carbureted motors resulted in the motors shutting down at around 100 mph, which was due to the fact that the ram air induction was creating some boost at the venturi of the carburetors. We had gravity fed float bowls, so when the venturi lost its vacuum signal at the main jet, fuel was no longer being drawn from the float bowls. The fix was to run lines from the float bowls to the ram air port, which equalized the pressure at the venturi. The result: We gained 4 to 5 mph terminal speed on our Suzuki Pro Stock bike. All Pro Stock 500 cid motors take advantage of ram air with ram air stacks that block the sun from view in the drivers seat. You do not see the ram air stack pointed to the rear.

Here is an article from Sport Rider that shows detailed testing on the bikes that sport ram air. There are many more out there.

http://www.sportrider.com/tech/146_9912_ram/index.html

Now having said this, no ram air system on the market for the Camaro, that I have seen, creates manifold pressure due to the design, and in particular, when you consider the super restrictive filter in the path of the airflow and pressure. Absolute manifold pressure beyond ambient is possible under the right conditions at around 90 mph. The airbox design, sealing, and flow characteristics determine at what speed minor boost can occur. Don't count on much though.

In that respect I agree with your assessment.

Jim Hall

I don't think you're comparing apples to apples with your carb car. A carb is VERY flow dependent and there are a lot of variables that could have caused what happened. Massive air turbulence comes to mind for starters. I don't have anywhere near the experience you have with carbs but to immediately attribute it to a apparent "boost" situation seems rather closed minded, especially since that was the affect you were shooting for. If you had a pressure gauge in the intake to measure the pressure changes, i'd be more inclined to believe it.

The motorcycles aren't exactly a good test either. They were purposefully trying to pressurize the airboxes in those tests, not seeing IF they would. They did a few modifications to the airboxes to acheive what they thought they needed. The results could have just as easily been attributed to the fact that compressing air makes it colder, thus lowering the IAT. Using a compressor opened up to simulate 150mph driving is "as the article stated" a bit unorthodox. It's also VERY suspect. Why did they use two compressors for some bikes and only one for the smaller ones? Isn't 150mph wind the same on a CBR1100 as it is on a CBR600? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that pressurizing the intake of any vehicle is going to give it more power. Would it not have been better/easier to DRIVE the motorcycles at 150mph, then measure the airbox and intake manny pressure? Directing massive airflow at massive pressure DIRECTLY at ONLY the air intake doesn't simulate driving your bike or car at 150mph. It just shows that enough air pressure directed at the right spot, could cause a slight decrease in the negative pressure inside a intake system. It doesn't take into account the affects of aiflow on the vehicle body that may or may not counteract getting that airflow into the intake vents.

Until someone shows me that RAM air systems actually create a + pressure difference, it's nothing more than a CAI. I will wholeheartely agree that grabbing 100% of your intake air from outside the engine bay "should" be better, if done right. Add to that, one that goes directly over the radiator or results in fewer bends "should" be the better intake. This may be one reason behind ADM's street intake being a tad lower than others of the same design. Theirs dips one more time than the others so this is a possible explanation. Fastlanes better gains is likely from the removal of the waterbottle, thus allowing more cold air in, despite having more bends than the rest. Makes me wonder what the other CAI's would do with the benefit of moving the bottle.

[Verio]

Well, there are people who still believe we didn't land on the moon, so let the people who think Ram Air is revolutionary believe what they want to believe.

Look at the test results. The folks who had OTR systems didn't even step up to the plate (other than New Era). What does this say about them?

Vararam (the name you claim is the ultimate authority on OTR systems) had ample time to step up to the plate and prove their product. Hell, they had no issues sending their product to multiple other people.

Showdown time came and went, and they weren't their to prove their product. Discussion should be over with.

[pharmd]

Originally Posted by Verio

Well, there are people who still believe we didn't land on the moon, so let the people who think Ram Air is revolutionary believe what they want to believe.

Look at the test results. The folks who had OTR systems didn't even step up to the plate (other than New Era). What does this say about them?

Vararam (the name you claim is the ultimate authority on OTR systems) had ample time to step up to the plate and prove their product. Hell, they had no issues sending their product to multiple other people.

Showdown time came and went, and they weren't their to prove their product. Discussion should be over with.

Personally, and this is just me, I would cancel my pre-order if I had one. Why would you support a vendor that didn't have the nads to step up and be counted with the best? Do they have something to hide? Would their outlandish claims be seen for what they truly are? As you can see from the test those intakes that got their filter/intake area out of the engine bay perfomed better (Fastlane)...I think you'd see ADM's race system perform as good or better, and I think the New Era (when the car is moving) would out perform the rest. The faster the car is moving, the better these systems that are designed to "direct" cooler air towards the intake or have a filter location that is moved out of the engine bay, the better these type systems perform.

Those 3 systems would be my personal pick...Kudo's to those companies that have installation video's up on their site...Nice use of technology, and taking the guess work out of the process.

[Edrock]

I say..."Who cares if it is RAM air or not". If it make people feel better, hell, re-classify Vararam and New Era as OTR CAI and move on. The real debate is which CAI is the best bang for the buck IMO. Vararam or New Era type intakes may still be the best at getting the coldest and cleanest air into the intake most efficiently and if that is the case, then that's where my money is going. Let those vendors call it whatever the hell they want to call it. Who cares? The results are what really matters, however they get the job done.

[JANNETTYRACING]

Originally Posted by soonerfanru2

You said ram air is a myth but in the test you did I think you had a fan blowing air 60 miles per hour If getting more air does not help why did you do it in the test? Just wondering it does not make sence to me.

Because we are simulating on road conditions, we don't want to contanminate the incoming air with exhaust, we want cooling equal to on road conditions.

Moving air cools that is a fact.

Moving air does not increase atmospheric Pressure this is also a fact at least at automobile speeds less than Mach 0.3

[Edrock]

Originally Posted by pharmd

"...Why would you support a vendor that didn't have the nads to step up and be counted with the best?"

While I do respect your opinion, I feel it necessary to point out (as others have) that Vararam did not have a production product to send to the trials. Sure they had prototypes and testing models but I would not send something like that to a product shootout. As most people are painfully aware, they are still in testing phases or were just finishing up when the trials were set to go. I'm not holding that against any vendor. These tests were setup on a volunteer basis only. They were not designed to try and tarnish/banish any one vendor from being considered for their products just because they did not enter a product into the testing session. I don't think that reflects poorly on them at all. I'm not defending them because I am on the pre-order list because that does not mean I'm gonna buy at this point. That decision has not been made yet. I'm just saying don't write someone off just because they did not participate in the trials...

[Croathlete]

I believe Vararam still has an opportunity to send in a unit when they're ready.

[JANNETTYRACING]

Originally Posted by Halltech

We do NOT have a ram air kit, but I beg to differ with you. I have over 48 years experience designing, and building engines, in particular, ram air boxes for Pro Stock drag racing as a crew member of a motorcycle drag racing team. I engineered a 6 cylinder 1550 cc motor from 1046cc, turbocharged it and ran high 8 second passes at 160 mph the first time at the track. I have over 8 years tuning the LS series Corvettes, GTOs and now the Camaro LS3.

Back in the 70s, our first attempt at running ram air in our carbureted motors resulted in the motors shutting down at around 100 mph, which was due to the fact that the ram air induction was creating some boost at the venturi of the carburetors. We had gravity fed float bowls, so when the venturi lost its vacuum signal at the main jet, fuel was no longer being drawn from the float bowls. The fix was to run lines from the float bowls to the ram air port, which equalized the pressure at the venturi. The result: We gained 4 to 5 mph terminal speed on our Suzuki Pro Stock bike. All Pro Stock 500 cid motors take advantage of ram air with ram air stacks that block the sun from view in the drivers seat. You do not see the ram air stack pointed to the rear.

Here is an article from Sport Rider that shows detailed testing on the bikes that sport ram air. There are many more out there.

http://www.sportrider.com/tech/146_9912_ram/index.html

Now having said this, no ram air system on the market for the Camaro, that I have seen, creates manifold pressure due to the design, and in particular, when you consider the super restrictive filter in the path of the airflow and pressure. Absolute manifold pressure beyond ambient is possible under the right conditions at around 90 mph. The airbox design, sealing, and flow characteristics determine at what speed minor boost can occur. Don't count on much though.

In that respect I agree with your assessment.

Jim Hall

Hello Jim,

Looking at your accomplishments using the laws of fluid dynamic one could argue that all you did was get rid of the vacuum created at air box by the wind passing over the previous design opening.

I would argue that you did NOT raise Pressure above ATMOSPHERIC but brought it closer to atmopheric at the inlet of the carbs.

This can be proved with a 50 dollar pressure guage.

Taking the carb foatbowl vents from behind the engine where a vacuum was created from the air passing around the bike at 100 mph was nessasary due to your air box redesign.

Fuel is Not drawn through a main jet it is Pushed through by atmospheric pressure in the float bowl, the lack thereof is what caused the lean condition at 100 mph.

So You Did Not Create Ram Air, you just improved a poor design.

I too, designed and built the worlds quikest and fastest stock engine stock chassis Yamaha RX1 Snowmobile in 660 FT at 4.91 et 136 MPH with 1.11 60 ft. times at 726 lbs, if you do the math it would run 7.6 Quarter mile at over 165 mph.

I run against hand built drag race only ice dragsters that cost more than 45,000 dollars, that have 550+ hp.

I qualified 2nd with a 4.91 to a 4.86 1st with my 10,000 dollar modifications on a 10,000 dollar production sled with 350 hp.

Google, Jannetty Turbo RX1

Enough about me back to the discussion

[DrumDawg]

How come a Ram Air Trans Am has more horsepower than a non-ram aired car?

[ZombieEatsYou]

Saw this on another thread a bit further down:

"Calculating Ram Effect

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is some info from some engineering sites.



Quote:
The calculation is quite trivial if you have had exposure to gas dynamics and understand the Isentropic Flow tables. Take the speed of the car and divide by the speed of sound. This gives you the Mach number of the air relative to the car and presumably the air intake. Go to the Isentropic Flow table and find the value of P/Pt for the given Mach number. Take the inverse of P/Pt this gives the ratio of the stagnation pressure to the atmospheric pressure. For choked flow the maximum flow rate is directly proportional to the stagnation pressure Pt. And it I calculate the change in pressure as 1.2% at 100 MPH which makes ram air meaningless for these cars.

Josh Gillett
Oregon State FSAE



Quote:
RAM AIR

Operating Conditions
Temperature = Tair = 20C = 293K
Atm. pressure = Pair = 14.7PSIA
Cpair = 1005J/KgK
K = 1.4
The Cpair and K are constants for air.

Case 1 @ 100Kmh (62Mph) = 27.78m/s

Calculating temperature of the ram air

Tramair = ((Vcar^2/2gc)/cp) + Tair
Tramair = (((27.78m/s)^2/2(1kgm/Ns^2)/1005J/kg) + 293K
Tramair = 293.4K

The temperature increased by 0.4K or 0.4C.

Pram = Pair (Tram/Tair)^(k/(k-1))
Pram = 14.7PSIA (293.4K/293K)^(1.4/(1.4-1))
Pram = 14.75PSIA - 14.7PSIA
Pram = 0.05PSIG (gauge pressure)

So as you can see driving 100kmh will only have a gain of 0.05 psi! now lets try for 200kmh.

Case 2 @ 200Kmh (124Mph) = 55.5m/s

Calculating temperature of the ram air

Tramair = ((Vcar^2/2gc)/cp) + Tair
Tramair = (((55.5m/s)^2/2(1kgm/Ns^2)/1005J/kg) + 293K
Tramair = 294.5K

The temperature increased by 1.5K or 1.5C.

Pram = Pair (Tram/Tair)^(k/(k-1))
Pram = 14.7PSIA (294.5K/293K)^(1.4/(1.4-1))
Pram = 14.97PSIA - 14.7PSIA
Pram = 0.27PSIG (gauge pressure)

By seeing how the velocity of the car increases the ram air effect...it is barely anything! I'll conclude by saying that in racing circles where a 1/100th of a second counts, it's worth it, but not on the street."

I don't have an opinion either way but thought I'd post it for sake of expert discussion.

[Verio]

Originally Posted by Edrock

While I do respect your opinion, I feel it necessary to point out (as others have) that Vararam did not have a production product to send to the trials. Sure they had prototypes and testing models but I would not send something like that to a product shootout. As most people are painfully aware, they are still in testing phases or were just finishing up when the trials were set to go. I'm not holding that against any vendor. These tests were setup on a volunteer basis only. They were not designed to try and tarnish/banish any one vendor from being considered for their products just because they did not enter a product into the testing session. I don't think that reflects poorly on them at all. I'm not defending them because I am on the pre-order list because that does not mean I'm gonna buy at this point. That decision has not been made yet. I'm just saying don't write someone off just because they did not participate in the trials...

They already have a unit they were going to have tooling done on. I don't know how much more close to production you can get. If they want to compare the fit and finish of the units, that's another story. As for pure HP numbers... they should've been on the list of participators.

If Ram Air is so much better, why is it not in place on every other higher-performance vehicle?

[2SSRS@Gen5diy]

If all you members, Go back and read what they have said.

Testing- we are approaching our mileage goals without issue.

latest test data: (2010 SS Automatic)
DA= 2400-2600ft above sea level
dead idle launches in drive
all runs are hot laps, "NO COOLDOWN"
Using same G-tech etc..

0-60 = 4.67-4.71
1/4mile 13.07-13.12 @ 109.1-109.3mph

these would be strong 12 second runs@110-111mph in a decent Density Altitude. ( NO TUNING)

We are still working on several of the key components in the tail of the system that have Patents that are pending, so at this point we still cannot show pictures of the rear of the unit.

We know many other companies rushed intake kits out the door and have since thrown check engine lights and required a retune.

We are spending time data logging with EFI live to keep this diaeled out as we have continued to turn up the wick on the unit. Unlike most intake kits Vararam units are nothing but baby superchargers with efficencies well over 100% and as such we have more to deal with on the E38 computer than simple static dyno readings.
One testing example: a 0-60mph run
We have reached 105KPA in 1st gear alone! but the time to that KPA is reduced by 33%!
By the numbers we are seeing we are close to the max at this point.
Now we must reach our target milage without issue before switching to production tooling, we will not compromise this.

The next shots we release will be 99% the real thing.
And this from a member that reads all the posts.

Quote:
105KPA ??
kPa = kilopascal

I went to online conversions.com
and 105KPA = 15.22 psi

That cant be right 15.22 psi , is online conversion off or what ?

Or

does your equipment also read the atmosphere psi (14.7.or 101.3 kilopascal) so yall are getting .5 psi gain ?

Just thinking out loud , thanks

And this is there reply yo the Q

People have asked about the 105 kilopascal readings .

These were taken using "THREE" different data logging systems.

1. We used EFI Live, for basic engine function and MAF scaling to correlate with long and short term fuel trim information etc..
This was piggie backed by a wideband sensor as well.

2. We also use a Motec data acquistion system plumbed into the manifold and in other "areas" of the car .

3.We piggie back both of these with an electronic Omega millibar guage that reads to a thousandth of a PSI !

We allways use a min of two sometimes three methods of data acquisition for testing of our systems in real world inviorments.
This helps to establish true and accurate readings during the devlopments process.


The 105 Kilo conversion is correct, but the on road "PEAK" PSI gain is slightly greater due to the loads in gears etc...VS stock as far as total PSI gained at peak.
.
(HP gained) This will vary greatly from stock to modified etc...( This will be abvious as to why when the kit is released)
The basics are whatever gain you get on the dyno stock (,without tuning) + the pressure generated under the curve at the base of the runner during the ram tunning cycle and what is gained at peak .5 is about +12 hp at the wheels in 1st gear from pressure alone on a car making 360hp to the rear wheels.

We look at all of this information to create a "TOTAL POWER CURVE" that maximizes acceleration on a 3850 pound vehicle, because 105 Kilo's is not our peak MAP! thats just where we stopped it ( "For Now" ) for the factory tune.
( Tuners are going to love what they can do with this system)

We are concentrating on the reduction of windup time in real world testing as well as overall drivability.

The efficency of this unit is far beyond any unit we have built for street use! (Our systems are allways over 100%)

The new Camaro unit has exceeded every goal we set for it to date ,now its just about readying the system for production
while continuing to run mileage on existing test mules.
We should have more pictures for you soon!!!!

I don't mean any disrespect But the test was not worth the time as no one drove the car after CAI change this E38 ESM need time to learn or it FU.. up the AFR and that is why it makes so small a deference in HP in all the units, If you wear on and looked at the New Era install you will see it was smoking good as you start the car and it was tiring to find its happy place.
It also stalled after it started.