At what speed is a ram air effective. At what point is it worth the time and effort. Seems to me all c-4 already have factory ram air of somesort. As an old drag racer i to experimented with fresh air.i had two hoods,did not notice an et change until 140 mph or faster or 9.70s. Ended up running the flat hood no scoop. Car looked cleaner and the sleeper look shocked everybody

 

Ram effect will be negligible. Any gain would come from slightly lower temp of air if any.

 

those are a couple of nice looking units

 

I did a write up some time ago but it seems to have been lost on the forum. I will try to explain the process in steps

The reason I did this modification was to get more cool air to my air to air intercooler for my supercharger. The air to air intercooler sits in front of my radiator and pre heats the air going to the radiator. The supercharger kit came with a diverter to split the air coming from the factory air dam so that half is diverted to the air to air intercooler and the other half to the radiator. I needed cool air into the air to air intercooler.

I looked at the forced air intake and for what they wanted for the kit, at the time it was $450.00, I thought I could do something similar for next to no cost.

Tools needed:

1. Dremmel (or similar tool) I recommend Sears brand (some of the kits come with attachments).
2. Flex shaft attachment (looks like a dental tool attachment)
3. Drill bit that fit’s the flex shaft attachment
4. Cutting wheels (thin that fit the above attachment about the size of a silver dollar, they are sold in packs)
5. Lead pencil or white correction pen
6. Shop light or flash light
7. Painters tape

The tools pay for themselves after just this one job considering the $450.00 cost previously mentioned.

I took the filler plate with the Corvette name and taped it off with masking tape. I wanted to keep the name and make a cross hair. This helps the plate from flexing. I used a dremmel (Sears brand) with the flex shaft and cutting wheel. Take your time cut a little less at first you can trim more after the initial cuts. You will be essentially cutting out four squares. As a side note I drew up several patterns and this simple one allowed the most air to pass through. You can also dress it up with ss or aluminum screening behind the plate when you are finished. I was looking for maximum air flow.

Next trace your license plate attached to your factory attachment points. Remove plate. IMPORTANT - I left the tabs for the license plate bolts in place if ever I should have to mount the plate. I then used the cutting wheel to cut out the plastic behind the plate leaving the mounting points in place. Try to take our in one piece in case you should want to put back in place in the future.

Now you will be facing a grid or egg crate plastic bumper enforcement. Using the dental attachment with the cutting drill bit and cutting wheel remove the section of material behind the license plate. The grid material is gray in color. I painted everything remaining black.

The next step use the light to look inside the opening. You should see a black steel bar(DO NOT CUT). You will be cutting the area underneath it. I placed a small thin board in front of the air to air intercooler as a safety, it was not needed. I then proceeded to use the flex shaft with the drill bit and made an outline of roughly a upside down triangle. Take your time and take a few brakes. I then just connected the holes with the bit until that piece was removed. If you wanted you could use some flex hose to the air filter cover from the opening giving you the forced air you were looking for.

Taking your time it should not take more than a few hours. You will also have the pride of telling someone you did the job your self. It is not a difficult process, I thought it was a fun Saturday project. It did help to cool things down for my supercharger.

I hope this helps. If you look at my pictures you will see a close up of the front plate filler and the parts removed from the bumper. Good luck! Let me know if I can be of further assistance.

I believe once you have selected the tubing you will use you could affix it to the air filter cover with some adhesive. Check out your local plumbing department and I am sure something will come to mind.

 

 

It's fairly straight forward to build. Mod the front plate, use Great Stuff or whatever, to seal off inside the bumper area. This simplifies the project, you aren't making a tube. Then inclose the filter, from the bumper. The ram air effect will be very minor unless speeds are very high. It is more of a looks mod since these cars already have cold air. It may be useful in reducing frontal area. I think it's a waste of time with the stock air bridge also, it turns so many times and is small in cross section.

 

Dear LORD, put the front plate cover back on!

 

It would seem to me that using smaller parking lights and turning the inboard areas into the scoops would give you more than just the single center scoop. I have begun looking for smaller parking/driving lights that I can use there. I do not like the little round driving lights that they used on the C5. They look totally out of place.

 

Learn to read for god sakes.

 

There IS an alternative that does NOT require the butchering of the energy pad or bumper cover...

Visualize the stock air cleaner box upside down so the air filter is on the underside....
Then all that is required is an opening in the top radiator shroud for the filter box to sit in, with a seal around the edges.
The air-box that contains the condensor and radiator is designed as a "high pressure" area to draw air in for the cooling AND to duct some up to the air intake in an indirect way. By placing the air filter box face down,. you put the intake in that high pressure area. As long as the air-dam is intact and the car is in motion the high pressure area stays charged with positive pressure thats absorbed by the intake thru the filter and the radiator pulling the rest back into the engine bay where its exhausted below and supposedly thru the side louvers...

It takes a little fabrication and some effort. I did this yrs ago on another C4 I had. The only other mod was a baffle that was mounted in the airstream to duct more air against the filter box. This acted like a "spliter" and had to be adjusted so the radiator did not starve for air at lower speeds. All you wanted was enough of a lip to catch some of the flow and aim it at the filter box.

I also used 3" tubes in a different design that ran from the MAF to a big cone filter that was mounted inside the air-box that that worked well, but it crowded the air-box area a LOT and was a PITA to access the filter....and it needed regular service with the big increase in air flow also comes a BIG increase in DIRT in the filter,.That was a super clean, nice set-up. Just a single tube that ran from the MAF to a hole in the top shroud and then disappeared. Clean. But too crowded down below.
Laying the stock square filter into an opening flat on the shroud solved all the problems and yeilded the results I was looking for. A ram effect with minimal butchery. Only downside was the cutting of the air filter box to flip the filter upside down was not very pretty. If someone wanted to take the time it would not be impossible to make it nice with fiber glass or even a sheet metal housing to hold a K&N face down. All you;re looking to do is get the intake/filter in a high pressure area. That air-box handles that if you can access the air-stream and not starve the radiator....not too difficult.

 

I once put a ram air setup on an 84 and it did make a noticeable 1-2 car length differerence(or maybe the other guy forgot how to drive).

Anyways, sheet metal, rivets and aluminum dryer duct was my route. My skills were more beginner level at the time. Under the front bumper is a nice area for dual rectangular scoops. If you like your design you can always refine it with fiberglass. Try to take into consideration the way air flows over your car at speed. A lot of scoops are on the hood, and when you think about the way air flows, not much air will enter those scoops. The design that uses the license plate area is reasonable if you don't need a license plate. I would actually widen it up and go with a mesh vice louvered cover if it were mine. I may actually work on a design of my own in a few years, if my car needed to be any faster.

 

Here is what I had on my track car. I cut everything out behind the front plate area, so incoming air had a strait shot at the open element filter (cut lid).



Smaller side ducts were for front brake cooling, oil cooler, and power steering cooler.

 

No lie. I hit a cement wall doing 80 in a c4 with no seatbelt on and got out and walked away. Then cried about my car.

 

did you notice a decrease in temps ?

 

Sweet, that is by far the fastest looking wheelbarrow I've ever seen.

 

Being an old school Hot Rodder It's nice to see people trying to make these C-4 a better ride. Most parts people have just given up on the C-4 ..Just me... but the C-4 I think could be the 57-Chevy or the SS for today..Just need some parts we can aford to buy ..These are not Z-6s don't need $1,400+ headers ...Thanks Dyno Don L for steeping up ..good C-4 Hot Rod parts at a good price...

 

I'd like to see a rolled over C4 where the w/s frame is still intact. The thing is tiny (take off the plastic and look!), thin, and flimsily spot welded! If you take the roof off, and lean on the top of the A-post, the whole frame bends down. (!)

Not to say that *I* wouldn't chop a small, insignificant hole in the bumper for fresh air...but I REALLY don't think that w/s frame will support the car. No way.

 

^That is not right. The C4 (and 5 & 6) all have under-hood, "hot air" intake, with absolutely zero deliberate ducting to create either a ram air effect, OR a cold air.

This is right^. The benefits of the thru-the-bumper "Ram" air, is that you are getting the best air source available; higher off the asphalt than the other options and no radiant radiator/condenser heat in the vicinity.

 

Definitely lowers the wind drag coefficient.

 

sometime ago i did some 3d previsual using 3dmax,that is a CAD aplication,it requires a fiberglassing work on the hood,some guys did it.It consists in creating a some sort of naca in front connected inside directly with the maf by inserting in between an air filter,just an idea:

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