Originally Posted by ZKindaGuy

I'm reading the responses and I am getting the impression that folks here think that if a car runs air intakes with no box enclosure or shields that form an enclosure with the hood that the temperatures of the air are going to be outragiously high. I believe this is coming from a lack of detail understanding in regards to the dymnamics occurring with the air under teh hood. There are alot of things coming into play that impact the intake air temperatures.

I have performed air intake temperature tuning while collecting and analyzing the ECU data for ambient and air-intake temperatures as measured by a function of the MAF sensor when aggressively tuning my various Mustangs and using air kits composed of various materials and physical configurations. I found the following results when doing the testing:

If I used a kit having titaneum piping + air cones with shields, I found that WHILE THE CAR IS MOVING the air intake temperature and the ambient air temperature consistently stayed within 4 degrees of each other.

If the titaneum piping was replaced with a chrome plated pipe I found that WHILE THE CAR IS MOVING the air intake temperature and the ambient air temperature stayed consistently 15 to 30 degrees apart from each other. BTW the chrome plated test actually had the air intake out in the wheel well. I was expecting cooler intake-air temperatures and found instead the chrome completely saturates the incoming air with heat.

If the titaneum or chrome plated intake piping was replaced with a rubber pipe I found that WHILE THE CAR IS MOVING the air intake temperature and the ambient air temperature stayed consistently within 2 degrees of each other.

If the shielding was removed on any of the above configurations I found that WHILE THE CAR IS MOVING the air intake temperature and the ambient air temperature consistently stayed within 4 to 6 degrees of each other.


So a couple of things I concluded about judging air intake kits in terms of the overall performance of each or compared with each other:

1. Consider the materials used to construct the kit as this is usually the major factor (versus containment OR location) that causes the air temperatures to rise. CHROME plated piping is the worst piping material one can construct an air intake kit from. Titanium is usually better and rubber intake piping is usually the better of either of the other two. The question you need to ask yourself for this one is "Do I want performance gains or do I want the engine bay catch the onlooker attention at the expense of potential performance?"

2. The location of the air cone is important (inside the bay v. outside the bay)....HOWEVER...it's position is NOT going to mean jack-squat if you disregard #1 above (what are the materials comprising the piping?). In the case of exterior bay located air cones, if the air kit uses CHROME PLATED pipes then they will not soak heat to warm the air intake air IF THE CHROME PLATED PIPING IS ON THE EXTERIOR OF THE BAY. However expect that that portion of CHROME PLATED PIPE that is running inside the engine bay to get hot and heat the air intake temperatures which can result in some temperature-gain offsetting of some temperature loss made from the exterior locatied portion of the intake-piping.

3. Notice in the testing I had done I kept emphasing "WHILE THE CAR IS MOVING".....the air-intake and ambiant temperatures will stay within a close range of each other (except CHROME intakes) if the car is MOVING. The moment the car stops at a light or something and begins to sit for more than 10 seconds the air intake temperatures will begin to rise fast and continue doing so until the air starts moving again through the engine bay when the car is moving. Depending on the weather outside and how long the car sits still, I have seen the air temperatures arise as much as 75 degrees above the ambient air temperatures. And then expect a good five to ten minutes of continuous moving of the car to get teh air-intake and ambient temperatures back within a reasonable proximity of each other.

This is the one point I find most people just don't get. The air-intake and ambiant temperatures stay within very reasonable and close proximity of each other while the car is moving. WHY? Because you just wouldn't believe how torrent the air flow is from the free flowing air entering the air-damn areas and being deflected off the various angles of the engine part assemblies. And yes I actually did a study of this as well when I was trying to decide between using a "no-shield" versus a "shield" configuration for that particular Stang....so yes there is HOT air occurring under the hood produced by the engine BUT when the car is moving the HOT air is being continuously flushed out of every crevise the air can get through by the torrent currents of air caused by the air entering the air-damns while the cars is moving. This is a good reason to have heat extractors as part of the external hood surface design.

And this brings me to point #4: From what I determined from teh shield testing the shields are there more to mitigate the torrent air flow happening as explained in #3 and just about zero in regards to functioning to control the rise in air-intake temperatures. In fact, I don't call these shields "HEAT" shields...I refer to them as "DEFLECTOR" shields or "WASH" shields as their function is mostly about controlling currents of air around the air-cone so a smooth induction of air can take place before being measured by the MAF sensor.

So my point I am trying to make here is there is alot of myth wrapped up in the various discussions about CAI kits because people are just repeating hearsay again and again from others without realizing the true nature of the complex dynamics occurring under the hood in regards to the CAI kit material design and its functional physics.

So I hope this provides a basis for understanding your car in this particular area of interest a little better.