1998 SVT Cobra #4941 of 5174 built on June 19,1998
4.30s, Speedcal, WMS CAI, Pro 5.0 shifter, Sniper Tuner, March pulleys, Mac O/R H pipe, Flowmaster orig. 40's, King Cobra clutch, D/S rotors, FRPP 9mm's, Max. Motorsports C/C plates, Termy front control arms, H&R SS springs, MM solid steering rack bushings, Tokico HP struts and shocks, Mac subrames, HID Bi-Xenon 6000k kit, Saleen 18" wheels, Saleen S-281 spoiler, sequential tails
Up Next: Termi diff, 31 spline Axles, LPW girdle, MM LCAs
My gains were only based on stock numbers. When I say stock I mean the filter was obviously K&N and there was a trimmed snorkle being used.
However, my car was FAR from stock in other areas....
Long tubes/ high flow cats - pulleys - gears - chip - MAF - Wires -
So in all fairness I may have gained more than a 100% stock car simply because my car would utilize the extra air being forced into the intake at higher speeds.
So your gains are based off of gains from a K&N filter in the stock location with a trimmed stock snorkle?
How would those gains compare to a CAI as opposed to RAM Air. I'd still maintain that you could gain 3 tenths and 1 mph with a CAI over your "close to stock" setup.
Cold Air is Cold air whether its from a CAI or a RAM AIR the benefits from cold air are the same. The velocity needed to compress air to any appreciable amount is not anything you would reach in your street car.
The only difference between RAM AIR and CAI is the RAM AIR effect, which proponents will say is the pressurization of the air reaching the cylinder due to the velocity of the car moving through the air. I agree with this. There is a RAM AIR effect, but at street car speeds (100-125 mph) the pressure increase in the cylinder is not going to sigificant enough to show a huge performance increase over a CAI.
I understand Strikers point of view, but street cars do not move through the air at the same speeds as "military fighters" and thus the RAM AIR effect will be much less of a benefit to a street car.
A cool engine compartment and cool dense air to the intake are all possible without RAM AIR. If your feeding a supercharger, then yes I see the need for the volumes of air a scoop will provide, but in a naturally aspirated vehicle I cant see RAM AIR producing enough of an effect to justify a big scoop.
PS I just read your article on "RAM AIR" and that is more a CAI than RAM AIR. Though that is a good way to get good clean air without a big chang in aerodynamics in your car.
Supercharger / Turbocharger is Forced Induction, in my world.
don't get me wrong, i agree with you. i was just kinda foolin' around. i mean...wouldn't "forced"induction and "ram air" be doing the same thing?
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1998 SVT Cobra #4941 of 5174 built on June 19,1998
4.30s, Speedcal, WMS CAI, Pro 5.0 shifter, Sniper Tuner, March pulleys, Mac O/R H pipe, Flowmaster orig. 40's, King Cobra clutch, D/S rotors, FRPP 9mm's, Max. Motorsports C/C plates, Termy front control arms, H&R SS springs, MM solid steering rack bushings, Tokico HP struts and shocks, Mac subrames, HID Bi-Xenon 6000k kit, Saleen 18" wheels, Saleen S-281 spoiler, sequential tails
Up Next: Termi diff, 31 spline Axles, LPW girdle, MM LCAs
if you really want "ram air" install a k&n cone filter and remove your passenger's headlight.
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1998 SVT Cobra #4941 of 5174 built on June 19,1998
4.30s, Speedcal, WMS CAI, Pro 5.0 shifter, Sniper Tuner, March pulleys, Mac O/R H pipe, Flowmaster orig. 40's, King Cobra clutch, D/S rotors, FRPP 9mm's, Max. Motorsports C/C plates, Termy front control arms, H&R SS springs, MM solid steering rack bushings, Tokico HP struts and shocks, Mac subrames, HID Bi-Xenon 6000k kit, Saleen 18" wheels, Saleen S-281 spoiler, sequential tails
Up Next: Termi diff, 31 spline Axles, LPW girdle, MM LCAs
I have never been of the opinion that RAM AIR doesn't work at all, my opinion is that the real world HP gain by choosing a RAM AIR over a good quality CAI, is so minimal that the excessive drag from the RAM AIR offests any "Ram Air effect" at street car speeds.
That's not how your article reads. If this is your opinion you should just say so. The drag from a well designed intake hood should be minimal as in the case of the late WS6 hood. It takes air in from the area of high pressure and using a very short path directs it to the air filter and plenum. This is an almost ideal setup that was then altered to deal with the real world of rain and large pieces of things that wreck engines if allowed to be ingested. What I did was to remove all of these extra blockages and there was a measurable improvement over the stock design. I would NOT recommend this for a daily driven WS6 though, there's too much junk flying around in the air these days and it will be ingested by the engine with bad results.
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Originally Posted by kulak
As far as CART or IRL goes, they need that scoop, they have a rear engine setup and there is no other good way to feed air to the engine. NHRA cars tend to have enormous forced induction units to feed and the negatives from the drag on those scoops is far outweighed by fully feeding those units with loads of clean air.
No they don't need those scoops to feed the engines. Long before there were scoops and after the European Formula class car BRM mid-engine revolution of the 60's in Indy Car racing, there were usually Weber carbs with velocity stacks or injector velocity stacks just sticking out behind the driver's head. You can also see this in the Can-Am cars of the 60's, just look at any Chaparral or Maclaren to see the forest of tall injector stacks sticking up behind the driver.
Did you read what I wrote? I used NHRA Pro Stock cars for a reason, they are door slammers with NA 500CI V-8s and manual transmissions. Those scoops are feeding a carb. not a power adder! The scoops used on the NHRA blown Nitro cars are tiny little scoops that are no more then a place to put the throttle butterflies. The more I read of what you write the less I think you have any idea of how stuff work in the real world.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kulak
The closest "race car" to what we drive on the street is NASCAR, and those cars are all the same, they are all front engine, rear drive and naturally aspirated. If you're running a car with a similar setup you can get all the "clean & cool" air you need without any scoops.
That's B.S. almost no car sold in America has come with a carb in 20 years! As to NASCAR race cars being close to a street car you gotta be kidding. I've NEVER seen a full tube chassis street car made in any kind of significant quantity sold for street use.
The closest "race car" that I've seen recently that matches up with a street car is a new Mustang GT race car that (ready to sort out), you can buy from Ford for about $180K to go Grand-Am racing in. Oh yeah, the Porsche GT and GT2/3's are pretty close to the race cars on the track too. They are based on the production chassis and have all of the stock type suspension and real production body work of the street cars.
As to clean and cool air it's obvious that you don't need scoops to get air (contrary to what you said in the previous paragraph), to an engine. But with a ram air system you don't just want clean and cool air, you want to get air that has the pressure and volume to lower the vacuum at the intake valves. This make HP, witness any engine with a port and polish. This trick works by lowering restriction (vacuum), and increasing air flow to the intake valves. To get to this you'll need some kind of plenum fed by a large duct fed by an opening in an area of high pressure. The area of highest pressure in the front of a car such as you have described is usually going to be the leading edge of the hood on most vehicles.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kulak
RAM Air works, but works so much better than a quality CAI that it is worth all the extra money and work to put one on your car? Not for me, but I garuntee I would have one if I ever put forced induction on my car.
Now you're going to claim ram air works? Maybe you should change your website. If you ever build a serious forced induction car you'll have no need for ram air as there is not enough advantage on even a race car to overcome the drag.
Ram air for cars only works on NA engines. Forced induction engines have no need for ram air and to build a ram air system that would work for a supercharged (forced induction including turbo and direct engine driven types), engine you would have to build a very large system with a very large scoop and go very fast to have a measurable reduction in vacuum in front of the supercharger. This is easy to see, just look at any current NHRA Top Fuel and Funny Car (Pro class Nitro fuel), class intakes. These classes top out at over 330MPH and you won't find a ram air scoop on any of them. Look at ANY supercharged LSR class cars and you will find that there are no large ram air systems feeding the superchargers. Why? Because there is no advantage to be had from a ram air system with supercharged engines.
I don't know what else I show you to help you understand how stuff works in the real world. Maybe you should take that theoretical stuff and try it on the track. Maybe then you'd see that your theory would need some revision to match up with the way stuff really works.
I never wrote any article, I dont run a website similar to what you describe, the only website I run relates to Everquest (an online video game in case you are unaware).
If you are so certain that RAM AIR does increase cylinder pressure, I'd like to see some proof. I have yet been able to see any proof worth documenting that shows a significant performance advantage of RAM AIR over a CAI.
All claims and proof of RAM AIR are based off of improvements over a stock configuration. Which all are very similar in gains to a CAI over stock.
Run and intake pressure gauge on your car, see how much that RAM affects your intake pressure. I have done it and I know the difference is virtually nil, until i reached speeds over 130 mph. At that point, yes there is a measureable difference. In my car, and with my setup when switching form a CAI to a RAM AIR it showed a change from an average of 20 vacuum to an average of 19 vaccum.
I was never consistantly faster with RAM AIR over CAI, nor was CAI consistantly faster than RAM AIR. The changes in time and speed were nearly always more to do with track conditions, weather & driver ability.
Perhaps you race somewhere where you consistanly run at speeds over 150 mph, but I have yet to top 120 on any race track I have been to. I think most people that have mustangs would fall into this category, an my reason for saying there is no real world advantage of RAM AIR over a good CAI.
If you want to say that a good quality CAI is basically the same things as RAM AIR, I agree, and that is my point.
If you're saying that RAM AIR creates significant pressure gains in cylinder pressure at street car speeds, I'd be happy to be proved wrong. I just have never seen it, in any of my cars or any cars I have come across.
I will agree that cars routinely running at high speeds that a RAM AIR effect would be more siginificant and you could see a measureable gain. Though I am fairly confident in saying that I doubt you routinely race your car at speeds in excess of 130 mph.
As such, RAM AIR for real world street car applications, is a myth.
anyone on a track running excess of 130 mph is probably supercharged....so whether or not ram air affects cyclinder pressure is kind of a stupid question?
The only way ram air will ever work is to have a 100% completely straight pipe with no bends and a constant diameter with the inlet of the pipe located the the area of the highest atmospheric air pressure possible. If someone can show me that setup and not include a turbocharge then kudos to you. Even then you will see minimal effects at any sane roadgoing speed.
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Sometimes I think that government fits that old-fashioned definition of a baby: An alimentary canal with an appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
- Ronald Reagan
I don't know what else I show you to help you understand how stuff works in the real world. Maybe you should take that theoretical stuff and try it on the track. Maybe then you'd see that your theory would need some revision to match up with the way stuff really works.
Not to get in the middle of this, but the 'real world' is where the theory's come from
That is one of the most preposterous videos I've ever seen. The test itself does nothing to emulate 'real world' situations. If they had held the leaf blower directly in front of the vehicles where the air intake begins, then it would be much better. The fact that they held the discharge of the leaf blower in the intake, bypassing the air filter even, makes that test a test of the leaf blower as a centrifugal supercharger. I will admit, it's quite humorous though.
And no, most theories don't come from the real world. They come from someone sitting around and brainstorming on a topic.
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Sometimes I think that government fits that old-fashioned definition of a baby: An alimentary canal with an appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
- Ronald Reagan
That is one of the most preposterous videos I've ever seen. The test itself does nothing to emulate 'real world' situations. If they had held the leaf blower directly in front of the vehicles where the air intake begins, then it would be much better. The fact that they held the discharge of the leaf blower in the intake, bypassing the air filter even, makes that test a test of the leaf blower as a centrifugal supercharger. I will admit, it's quite humorous though.
That is why I said i would have to get my son to run along with the leaf blower joke my friend joke
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And no, most theories don't come from the real world. They come from someone sitting around and brainstorming on a topic.
Yes they come from the 'real world', you do not have a theory first and then try to apply it (that is called a hypothesis), it is the other way around.
Newton thought why does the apple fall to the ground, and then went from there to figure out gravity and its relation to mass, not the other way. Same as the basic laws of motion first you have the motion and somebody said why and they went from there.
You have an idea first, then you brainstorm on a theory and come up with a hypothesis. You can't hypothesize on something unless you have a theory first. Theories should come from research and data analysis, which is done in a lab or under controlled conditions, and that is definitely not real world.
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Sometimes I think that government fits that old-fashioned definition of a baby: An alimentary canal with an appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
- Ronald Reagan
True, I guess we are splitting hairs, but when it is said and done they do emulate the real world when applied correctly. If they did not then they would be usless.
Take ROUSH for example, how do you think they came up with an exhaust system for the Mustang, trial and error, no to expensive. They used CFdesign, a flow analysis software built on the theory of fluid mechanics. It worked so well that they only made one prototype before production.
If the theory is applied correctly it will emulate the 'real world'.
I have been a mechanic for over 20 years, and 9 of them spent at a GM dealership putting my self through college getting an engineering degree. I used to think the same way 'this book stuff is not like the real world' it is just a bunch of stuff though up by guys who can not even turn a wrench. Then a professor explained that the book stuff is just the basic building blocks for engineering, once you get in the real world you have to learn how to apply the basics to the 'real world' stuff once you do that then things workout real good.
I see that you are a nuke guy, so I now you must operate with some type of technical or engineering degree and/or background so you have to see were I am coming from.
I work with scientists and physicists and I to sometimes I wonder if they ever get out, so when they give me something to work with I usually have to tweak it to add in the real world parameters, but the theories still hold true.
