Ben's intake doesn't seem to clear the driver side bumper mount (could be a bad camera angle) and his core support is all cut up. Also, are his A/C lines gone?

AC lines are still there. Pause at the 15 second point to see them. He is doing great work, but I (and some others) don't like how much was cut to make it fit.

Keep it pushing guys. Trial and error is gonna be a normal thing when breaking the norm. Don't let some people on the forum sway you from what you are trying to accomplish, I am positive there are other people out there like me waiting patiently to see the fruits of your labor.

It just looks like fiberglass. It was printed in ABS and then coated with clear epoxy.

That placement looks a little less than ideal, hit a small puddle and you're hydrolocked.

The inner liner of the wheel has a triangle-ish point on the bottom that mates to the front bumper cover. There are some holes in it, but you should be safe as long as you don't submerge it for more than a few seconds. Thos holes could be sealed up pretty easily too, if desired for a little extra protection.

You all know I am a huge advocate of outside the box ingenuity. This thing will probably breath very well. It definitely will only be palatable to a certain group of enthusiast who dont care what they need to do to get the job done because the amount of material and support structure that was removed is pretty intense. I hope the hood latch support has enough material to not give way at high speeds and the hood doesnt end up over the windshield. Also, it is going to be tough to get someone to buy your car unless all of that is replaced before selling.

As for hyrdo-locking, maybe i'm off base, but i'm not sure that it is so easily achieved. I believe one would need to pretty much submerge the entire filter for it to happen. Otherwise, if the filter is just partially submerged, that means a section of it is still exposed to the atmosphere. And considering that water is so much heavier than air, the air will be sucked in much more easily than the water. Plus, if you are driving through a puddle, you would (should) be going slow and at a low engine RPM which means low blower speed which means not a ton of flow through the filter. The less flow, the less likely the heavy water will be picked up. With that said, I would be more comfortable w/ a filter that is a bit higher off the road. Just my 2c.

I have definitely seen a few posts about people hydrolocking with injen intakes which is placed very similarly. However, we obviously don't know the actual circumstances behind it.

This car has been all kinds of hacked up. No one should ever need to do this now, but Ben was the 1st do go at it, so good for him. If you watch the other videos he's made, the bumper uses clips and snaps, none of which are stock. All the OE points are gone. The hood also does not use the stock latch. You can see hood pins in red in the video. That should at least prevent any hood snaps.

Another video from Ben showing the design, talking about scanning the car, and printer working.

https://youtu.be/DY5cE-lR9yw

I agree with this piece, which is why we're trying to do something similar to what you are putting together for your kits, albeit a little more crude. The goal was to hack away as little as possible while freeing up as much breathing surface area as possible.

I hear ya bud. There's only so much that is possible in an envelope of dimensions.

Disclaimer: I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Just to add to the discussion, I made a video of the intake. I'm printing it now and may need to make some changes.

My philosophy with this design was to create a 4" diameter intake if possible and to keep the airspeed constant. By keeping the square area, and hence the volume of the intake consistent, I hoped to accomplish that. I dont think Ben's 3D printed intake took the same approach. His looked more like it was designed free-form, by hand.

This is a video of version 2. Version 1 was all done with solid modeling, whereas this new version uses surface modeling, and then thickens the part to create a solid model. Precise sketches are created for the actual shape and maintain the square area. Lofting is then used to smoothly transition from one shape to the next. In the end, I specifically transition to a 3.5" diameter round shape to match the SC inlet.

If you look at the lower right-hand corner of the video, you'll see the diameter and square area for each of the sketches that make up the intake.

https://youtu.be/8ElWbGIkLNc

That looks promising. Look forward to seeing the finished product.