Does anyone know how heated the air is when sucked into the engine WITHOUT the cold-air setups?

With the Halltech CAI you bring ambient air temperature into the engine. Let's say that is 75 degrees. Assuming barometric pressure of 30.5 inches, dew point of 55 degrees and altitude of 820 feet above sea level, the engine would produce 5.1% more horsepower than if the intake air temperature was 125 degrees (all other factors held constant).

I'm not sure if the intake temps would be that high without a cold-air addition, but if anyone has ever measured it would be great to know!

 

I had my car dynoed recently. My IAT was 111 degrees F even with fans blowing under and the hood up.

Ambient was about 82 degrees I think.

 

I'm assuming the IAT is measured at the filter not at the combustion point in the engine. If so, then drawing in the ambient air would have a significant impact on engine horsepower.

Assuming the 111 degrees air intake temp drops to 82 degrees using the CAI, and assuming normal dew point, barometric pressure, and 800 feet above sea level, the car would realize a 3% increase in horsepower. Sounds like Jim Hall has developed a great product, and can't wait to get it installed!!

 

A little fuzzy here, if the hood was up where is the heated air coming from if it wasn't the same as ambient.

 

There are a lot of factors at work here. If you are traveling at highway speeds, there is probably only a difference of maybe a few degrees between stock and one of the cold air intakes because there is enough air exchange through the engine bay to get the heat out. The trouble comes when you sit at a traffic light for even 2 minutes. Heat soak can cause intake air temps to rise rapidly while you sit at the light and when you go to take off, your underhood air (which is where the stock intake gets most of its air regardless of what other people tell you) is heated and parts of your intake start to get heat soaked too. While some of the heat will dissipate after you get going again, it can take some time for things to cool down again. I look at cold air intakes as not so much of an overall performance booster but more of a device that can make your car perform up to its full capabilities more consistently (under more conditions).

Mike

 

Another cold air intake advantage from Halltech is a dust free engine compartment. Installed a week ago and like the unit alot.

 

I honestly don't know... I was wondering that myself. Perhaps it's hot air getting trapped under the plastic covering piece of the stock intake?or maybe it's sucking up the air that's passed through the radiator already? I'm going to go get my CAI installed on wednesday.

 

Not to bust Jims' (or anyone elses bubble).

The CAI is a case of "rather have someone else do it" for those of us that HAVE (or have seen) one, and aren't into DIY projects.

The "revised" plastic piece allows outside air from the corners of the lower grill, to enter the engine compartment. It's "natural flow" brings it across the air filter element first. If you look down into the "pit" on either side of the radiator shroud, that's where the air enters. Unlike "bottom feeder" style intakes, you really would have to "submarine" the grill to force enough water up onto the filter element to do any engine damage.

As far as "dust free" - I don't think so. In a "average" dusty environment, you will develop enough air-flow at speed to at least push the dust towards the rear of the engine compartment. In an "above average" dusty environment, you will push alot more, which will naturally settle on the FRC's and elsewhere.

Hat's off to Jim (credit where credit is due) for thinking of it first. Hopefully he will sell enough of these to offset his development time, before the DIY's (and profiteers) figure it out for themselves. The parts to make this are not very expensive, even if you don't want to mod your original part. Regardless of how inexpensive the DIY is, I'm a lazy fokker, and it was worth the $$ spent to be one of the first kids on the block to have one of these.

Regards,

Rick

 

If you really want to know the answer to this, just move the temp sensor before you install the cai and drive it for a day...Jim recommends that you move the sensor and relocate by the air filter when installing the cai just for this observation. I moved mine when I installed the cai so I don't have the answer for you, however 3 minutes work and a couple of drives and you'll know for sure...BTW it's located on the passenger side in the front lower corner of the engine bay, the little rubber tit that sticks out on the passenger side of the front air intake (where your grill is) is a good point of reference to locate...
Pull the sensor out by hand.(plastic rivet)
Drill a new hole in the radiator shroud in desired location(by the filter assy)
and reinstall
viola...

 

When I first installed the Stinger I ran some test using EASE software on intake air temperature (IAT). The Stinger data is WITHOUT the Halltech CAI. If I remember right the outside temperature was 82 degrees when I ran this test. For both runs I started at my house and went for a run on the highway. It takes about 10 minutes of less than 15 mph driving to get to the highway from my house so the engine has plenty of time to heat up without alot of airflow. I actually ran the car a few more times at WOT on the Stinger test and did not see a rise in IAT at highway speeds. Also the IAT readings for the ECM are not measured at the filter, it is measured at the MAF sensor.

Stock unit
Max Tq 359 ft/lbs
Max MAF Airflow 302 gm/s
Max Air Flow Calculated 33.5 lbs/min
Max IAT 136 F
Min IAT 86 F
Avg IAT 106 F


Stinger

Max Tq 373 ft/lbs
Max MAF Airflow 308 gm/s
Max Air Flow Calculated 33.2 lbs/min
Max IAT 134 F
Min IAT 82 F
Avg IAT 102 F

 

Very interesting. Good work!!

 

Any guesses on how much the ambient air temperature increases by the time it hits the MAF sensor?

 

The only time the MAF sensor should show higher is when at idle or very slow speeds. Heat soak from the engine will cause the IAT sensor to read higher. If anyone in the Houston/Beaumont area has a CAI system, I would be glad to plug in the laptop and test it out.