gkmccready

Gary Hoffman posted last year that in his C6Z his IATs were real close to ambient temps once the car was moving. My C6 is nowhere near that good with the stock intake, stock motor. Even cruising down the highway in open air my IATs are at least 10F higher than ambient and stopped in traffic with 65F ambient I can see >100F IATs. I should connect an outside air temp thermometer up to the data logger...

Cooler air is denser air. Denser air means more fuel. More power, right? Starting with hot air is just wasteful... what're the potential solutions? Anybody charted the aftermarket intakes? I know that on some other vehicles the aftermarket intakes can be worse than stock... they may flow more, but they grab hotter air and effectively kill the gains...

Thoughts?

Zenak

if you want a CAI - Vara Ram or Honker.

One is a front forced air, but you have a minor risk of hydro lock in a deep puddle.

One is a bottom feeder with little risk of hydro lock unless your car is about 2 feet submerged.

Many other ones like the blackwing, etc all jsut suck the hot air from under the hood IMHO that is not smart.

Sherminator

Vararam has to be the most expensive gross fitting intake sold for corvettes. They seal up the filter housing with stick on barn door sealing tape...the housing that seals up dirt from getting into the engine. They also have a ram air scoop that's great for fresh dry air but rain and bugs ram in there too. Price out a quality Lingenfelter unit or a Callaway honker. Don't bother with anything that doesn't breath from below the rad shroud like the Blackwings or K&N units. They make power with the hood up but give you the same issue that you're currently having when the hood is closed.

flink

Is the IAT sensor inside the MAF housing on the c6? I'll assume so.

The sensors read the air temperature wrongly.

The thermistor is positioned inside the MAF, and its temperature reflects a combination of a) the surrounding air temperature and b) the heat conducted up from the MAF housing. When the MAF housing gets hot, the IAT sensor reads too high.

The MAF will still correctly read the air flow, so your A/F ratios should be OK. But once the IAT readings get too high the ECU will start to pull timing. On the LS2 GTO that happens at 83F (or is it 86?).

So you'll find that your intake air is really quite cool - certainly not 100F above ambient! If you fix the sensor to insulate it from the MAF housing, the readings go way down, even when you've made no other change to the intake at all.

You should fix the sensor before installing CAIs or whatever - get the readings right, then decide whether the air is really too hot.

Here's my home-made insulated IAT sensor:





And here it is in the Vararam intake:



It works well - temperature readings are way lower and response times are much faster.

When all's said and done, none of this matters much. Once the car is moving, the readings fall fairly close to reality fairly quickly. I think the only time this issue really matters is for drag racing style stuff: the car sits stationary or slow for a long time and the sensor heatsoaks. Then you launch and the sensor is still reading too high and the engine pulls timing.

Nimo

My IATs shoot up when stopped, but when moving they are the same as outside. Halltech Bee and APC style hood.
- I had no idea until I installed my logger.
Picture with Iphone and I have just rolled of the track. Temps climb as I slow down or stop, but the Z06 nose duct seems to work fine.

/Nik