I have a engineer friend at Honda and they test intake design combinations using a flow bench device that Honda has developed. The device simulates the "pull" at the TB opening. Among other things, they measure pressure at various points in the Air intake being tested. The lower the pressure in the tunnel the less effecient the Air intake is. Small things make a lot of difference in the intake effeciency, Shape of the tunnel, length of the tunnel, filter used, oiled filters versus dry filters all make a difference. Smoothing of the flow thru the air intake tunnel from the filter to the TB opening makes a difference in HP realized. In his opinion the biggest culprit in "losing" hp in most aftermarket intake designs is turbulance in the tunnel between the TB and the filter.

No induction system makes HP, some just "lose" less than others.

I did not address the "Ram" effect but I tend to agree with SHOPDOG.

 

Every test I have done has shown IAT to be very close to ambient while on the road. The only difference is when idling, the IAT can climb well over 100 degrees with the stock setup and due to heat soak it can take a couple of miles on the highway before the IAT drops. Which means at the drag strip you will probably notice a difference with a CAI. However on the street or road racing they should make very little difference. Since IAT can be easily read through the ECM I am surprised that there hasn't been any results posted from the manufacturers.

 

HEY DVL.also a new yorker here.long island .i am considering that Vortex you have for my C6.i like the sysyem.seems to work by all the reports.was it easy to install??.do you also have headers??.any other mods??

 

Don't forget that the intake relies on ram-air pressure. So you never know, maybe at 120mph it prvides enough air to create a 40HP gain, but on the dyno you will never see that.

If you pick up 3mph in the 1/4 then maybe it does make 40HP at top speed...

 

i have seen the pictures of this unit and let me tell you this p.o.s. looks like it will explode at about 120 mph from the air pressure coming into the unit

 

In the C5 it picked up 3 tenths and 3 mph through the traps over stock, depending on your race weight that is 30-40 HP. The C5's air box was very restrictive though and little to no air gets to the C5 air box outside of the under the hood air. I think the C6 is set up better for airflow so I doubt you will see the same gains, but many have also found it is a mistake to doubt the vararam claims. They due tend to produce close to what they say, with the C5 anyway.

By the way in the C5 section the only guys who believed vararam performance gains were the guys who actually had one. Lots of engineer types over there also said it was physically impossible also. Usually they will post a study with lots of equations that 99% of the people reading it have no idea of what they are looking at, but they believe this instead of the people who have actually run the product at the track. I know from experience with vararam on two C5's that the idea there is no ram air effect from a vararam is naive, nothing else explains it's gains over other CAI's.

Also I would like to address the drag strip vs dyno run issue. I don't go to dyno's, I would for a tune but I don't care what my HP is. I go to the track, and I can predict my ET using WX info, (temp, humidity, and barometer) constantly within 3 hundreds of a second. If you guys think a bracket drag racer would not notice 3 tenths and 3 mph for a bolt on then you don't understand the nature of the sport. The track will not lie, it is the best place to gauge performance.

 

What happens if you have a tail wind?

 

 

Well I did not mention wind, and although I do pay attention to it, the wind has a negligible effect on ET. The reason for this is ET is most effected at the start of a qtr mile race when the car is going relatively slow, the amount of HP to overcome wind effect at these vehicle speeds is negligible. Wind begins to effect the vehicle speeds and power required to overcome the wind much more as your speed increases. Thus it effects trap speeds much more than your ET. ET dial in is the make or break prediction in bracket drag racing.

With that said the wind will effect trap speed, and this would affect your weight to trap speed calculation for HP.

 

You missed my point, was in regard to negating this so called ram effect.

 

Your right, I missed it. I am still missing it actually. No big deal, not in the mood for a CAI thread anyway.