Wrong again. You need to read a little more. That was an exchange between friends. The rest of your statements regarding personal attack are right on.

 

So in response to question 3 which was:

your answer Bob is:


So they were concerned about trashing their engines with a foam filter but were "experimenting" with various shots of nitrous.



They were "protecting" their engines against the "evils" of foam filters by using varying shots of nitrous instead

Bob, you are a comedian

Which one do you guys think will trash an engine quicker, running an early post WWII nitrous system or a foam filter???

If using pantyhose over the throttle body offered any advantage, someone would have reported so by now. I already know people who have removed the Vararam's filter from its box and made quarter mile passes with no improvement whatsoever.

 

leeman you have no way of knowing but Bob and I are pals. I have decided to accept him although he is sadly misguided when it comes to my beloved vararam. And actually I do occasionally make a dumb post so he is right on there. But some of my good posts make up for the dumb ones.

The thing is Bob has some problems with the vararam that hold some water.

1. Filter inadequacies.
2. Height of air inlet tubes.
3. Difficult to install
4. Fit and finish problems
5. Engine cooling problem
6. Company claims are exaggerated
7. Priced to high

I do not disagree with the problems Bob has brought up in the CAI posts, but I like many others view them as trades offs for superior performance.

1. The high flow design of a filter will usually degrade the filtering capability. It is a trade off for performance.
2. I don't think anyone would argue 20" of the pavement would offer cooling and debris advantages. But using the basic design of the C5 the fog light area is the best place for the air inlet tubes. This is not a trade off really just a design constriction.
3. The vararam is probably the most difficult CAI to install. I consider this a trade off for performance. I would not recommend it for a state where the CAI needs to return to stock for emissions testing.
4. Fit and finish. I have to disagree with this vararam criticism. I think fit and finish are fine. I believe most fit problems are from poor installation. I have installed two and they looked great.
5. The engine cooling issue is simply in a Z06 or a C5 with modified fog light shrouds the cool air will be diverted from the engine to the intake. This is also a trade off. I would rather utilize this ambient air for combustion rather than cooling. It is N/A on a stock C5. I believe this could be offset with a 160 thermostat (Evil Twin will be proud of me here), new fan settings, and a product like wetter water or 40 below.
6. Company claims are in my opinion less exaggerated than most high performance add on's. I think vararam does claim some things that can be disputed, (HP, ram air), but their estimates on mph trap speeds and ET improvements are pretty close to what forum members have seen.
7. Priced to high. Well except for the Callaway honker it is the most expensive CAI. Is it worth it? Well I will let you decide, you seem to think so and so do I.

 

I agree. The question is whether or not the filtering compromise is significant enough to warrant concern. No one has reported that it is in a normally aspirated application.





The fit and finish are consistent with the fit and finish of the rest of the car.



The company drag strip performance claims are actually right on target. They are consistent with what not only I have personally seen in my own car, but consistent with the findings of several others, too many to list, on this very board.

The original attack against the Vararam was directed towards it's performance claims. The drag strip performance claims issue has been put to bed. It yields the drag strip performance results they claim. And lots of credible members here have seen them.

The ram air/cold air issue is still debatable as well. There are those who claim no ram air or cold air, but there are just as many who claim otherwise.

Regardless, this much we do know. The Vararam is the best performing intake system out there bar none. Very few will dispute that. And that is what the original poster said he was looking for.

The Vararam is anEffective performance modification. Thus it comes at a premium.

 

I do not know you guys but I did enjoy the bantor back and forth with Bob. I do not take it seriously and I have learned a lot from Bob and others like you. If I can help someone at the same time I'm happy. Thanks for the feedback.

 

Rick you have done a side by side blackwing-vararam comparison. It matched the test results on the vararam web page. I remember prior to this you were skeptical but optimistic about the vararam. Now you are a believer. I have said this before and have been flamed but there is more to the vararam than just ambient air and high flow filter benefits. Whether or not you call it ram air, the fact the air is funneled into these inlets directly into the intake system has a positive influence on performance.

 

I was very skeptical about it. But in a comparison with the Blackwing and making no other changes, and correcting for weather, the Vararam outperformed the Blackwing during my testing by making multiple runs on two seperate testing days, weeks apart, and at the same drag strip.

Results could not be "explained away" by weather, 60ft times, etc.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show....php?t=1066313

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/show....php?t=1078518


As I stated before, there was a lot of talk that it would not deliver a performance benefit over the Blackwing at all. In my case, I have documented that it did and does. I saw a 0.15sec/2.95mph improvement over the Blackwing

Rick

 

Something I noticed from this post. Improvement in trap speed is around 3 mph over the blackwing. Normally you can expect about a 4 mph improvement over stock. Earlier I posted the vararam claim of HP may be exaggerated but if you use mph from trap speed calculations it is right on target. My calculator says crank HP is increased 35-43 HP over the blackwing and stock air cleaner. The vararam will not show this on a dyno because the dynamics are different than in an actual performance situation. I would have to say the vararam's performance claims are in general on target.

 

I've got it... Tigershark front facia, Blackwing and Magnuson

 

Exactly, and if we are looking at 3 MPH over the Blackwing and 4MPH over stock, then what would one expect from the Blackwing in terms of improvement over stock?


This is why I do not consider the Blackwing to be a performance piece, I consider it to be an oversized air filter element and nothing else. The same as this is:




Just a big filter. If you simply want to "supersize" your air filter then the Blackwing is the way to go. But if you want an improvement in ET and 1/4 mile trap speed performance then a CAI is the way to go

 

Supersize your airfilter, get a blackwing Classic Hey Korreck are the supersized airfilters (AKA Blackwing) available at the Mickey Dee's drive thru? I know I keep telling you but, one more time for the heck of it.... VARARAM

 

 

Hey Mr.Korreck,

With all due respect,may I ask you something?

Since you are always at the track anyway,why don't YOU make a run with your pantyhose mod and see if you can gain .3 in the quarter over your stock blackwing with it?Just 1 run...back to back,with and without it

Maybe that would be too easy...

If the vararam design is not effective,then you should be able to show the.3 increase in the 1/4,that the Vararam has shown so many times..due to the ineffective filter!

Is there a flaw in that scenario?,Why shouldn't you see the same gains with a crappy filter and no intake "system"?

Another thing I wonder... Why does GM ,as well as many other automakers, use forward facing brake cooling ducts, if there is no air being forced through them?

One individual here stated trying to "cup" your hand out the window at 60mph and see if you feel any pressure.I definately do.Why would gm place those front cooling ducts in such an ineffective position?,right up front where that low pressure zone is?next to the foglight surrounds...


I believe in this system,and it will remain on my ride
But GEEZ,I have to tell you,you have not changed my mind or many others from what I have seen

Is it your whole point is to warn other brothers about this inadequate system by jumping into EVERY SINGLE THREAD relating to this subject?.......It just seems to me that,after a while, you may be doing just the opposite...

Thanks

P.S. (My take on this is that you will decline this,stating you would never run such a crappy filter on your car,but seriously, One run?What could that hurt? Put this baby to bed!!)
BTW..I do appreciate both sides of this argument..it's just that it's time for closure..imho

 

In regards to answer 3. Where do you find engines other than bikes with foam filters? Point made.

So you finally admit it. I am going to copy and save this. You admit that running without that piece of crap offers no performance gains. That's what I've been saying for months. It doesn't filter. That is the only reason it could possibly be for having the performance gain you experience with that Vararam. The design itself is about as bad as it could be. You could have saved several hundred dollers and just ran without a filter instead of buying that junk. Thank you.

 

As you can see EB20003 already made my point about the ineffective filter as did Andy at A&A. Do a search and see what he found.

Put your hand out the window and feel the DYNAMIC air pressure. What has that got to do with compressing the air and forcing it into your engine? You're confusing dynamic with static.

I run in Florida with a typical DA of at least 3000. I run 12.7 which is faster than EB20003 with his mods or leeman. How come?

 

My vote goes to the Halltech units, either the TRAP or the Stinger.

 

Question 3 had nothing to do with bikes.

And your reply to that question was:

You have posted some funny stuff over the last few months Bob. But that takes the cake.


You would tell us that a 1940s, 1950s era street racer, weekend drag racer would be perfectly willing to run nitrous, which was in it's infancy as a performance modification on internal combustion engines, but would somehow "draw the line" at running a foam filter if it too were to show a proven performance improvement for fear of "trashing" his engine.

Man, I needed a laugh like that. You belong on Leno or Letterman.

Heres a hint Bob. If they had even suspected that foam filters would give them an edge they would have run them too. They were already toying with nitrous.

So why didn't they use foam filters with any degree of frequency?

Why didn't the foam filter "catch on" as a "performance" filter. As a performance edge?? Not even over the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s or 90s. If foam offered such a track demonstrated performance advantage as you are trying to give it credit for, then surely it would have caught on over 6 decades.

Why???? Because the foam filter does not offer the staggering performance benefit which you are trying to assign to it. It is NOT the reason why the Vararam trounces the Blackwing in terms of performance.

The effectiveness of the Vararam is not entirely in the filter. Not by a long shot.

Rick

 

Now thats real funny

You have an open invitation to come to ol EB and outrun him on his home track.

But if you lose, we are going to install a Vararam on that Anniversary Edition

Hey Bob



Supersize It


I know I keep telling you but, one more time for the heck of it.... VARARAM

 

Is it worthwhile to swap out a cold air system like the Vortex or Pro-Flow for a Vararam? Also if I have Z06 screens up front would that inhibit the Vararam's effectiveness?

 

So you finally admit it. I am going to copy and save this. You admit that running without that piece of crap offers no performance gains. That's what I've been saying for months. It doesn't filter. That is the only reason it could possibly be for having the performance gain you experience with that Vararam. The design itself is about as bad as it could be. You could have saved several hundred dollers and just ran without a filter instead of buying that junk. Thank you.