Yeah, but if you use a larger intake tube with a less restrictive filter it makes it easier to suck in more air. I don't think this ram air idea would yield any benefite to a the 2.0 but it would be a good way to keep a fresh supply of cooler air. However I disagree that a CAI doesn't help on a supercharged car. Some filters and intake kits simply allow you to get more air easier. Also remember that the supercharger is a engine driven accessory; if you've got a restrictive or extremely dirty filter it gets harder to pull air through and takes more power to spin the s/c to try to get that air in. Take a shop vac for example and hold it up to a blue household a/c filter then hold it up to a coffee filter. Just image how many more amps that vac pulls when you put the coffee filter up to it.

Scott

 

you are correct sir it does work slightly but only truly ramming air at higher speeds, but however the only reason why that does work well is because the air going directly to the intake is cold air flying thrugh the ram air box, instead of heated air passed through feet of piping which is comming from inside (not ram air style which would be outside) the body of the car, so imo that should actually be called a real CAI, not a pipe with a cone fliter stuck at the end of it, cause that is true cold air

 

The aftermarket applies the term CAI to an intake that is outside of the engine bay for colder air than found in the engine compartment (however, the factory intake also takes air in from outside the engine compartment). A CAI is used to refer to an aftermarket performance intake that is located with the intake outside the engine bay. An aftermarket intake with the intake inside the engine bay is referred to as an SRI.

 

there both comming from the engine bay in the interior of the body of the car but its just that the piping is longer on a CAI than a SRI. if you actually think about my post before it makes sense, actual cold ram air.

 

I'm gonna go ahead and hmmm disagree on that, ram air will not work at our speed, you will not see any psi increase in your intake manifold what so ever.

To answer your question of why the big scoops:

Top Fuel: it's not a scoop it is a big ass TB, and also for the same reason as below

Pro stock: it is to redirect the air path, I explain:
friend of mine had an RX7 with a 386 SB on it, tall intake and a Dominator 750 on it. It had no filter and sat about 3" higher than the hood (had to cut the hood). At around 50 mph and up, the car would studer. We figured this: the air going over the carb, since so close to the hood line, was creating turbulances over the carb, thus messing up the meetering. We promply put on a Cowl scoop over it (4") and guess what, no studder from 50 to 140... The scoops on them pro stock are in there so that this same issue doesn't happen to them as well. Remember, they do not run an air filter on top (and I also believe that an air filter would have solved my friend's issue. They also use it to redirect the most amount of ambient air, as to not suck up any warm air. At their level of competition any hundreds of second are crucial.

Please don't let me break out my dusty physic/Aeronautics books, post graphs and other physical formulas to prove you this, and remember, PSI in your Manifold is what the motor see...
Also, I've asked a co-worker who has a little more knowledge on this matter, and you cannot have ram air (ie: compression due to speed only) below Mach1 (so around 600 something mph at sea level, if I recall)

Also understand that I'm open to discussion this matter and if you have any information that state otherwise to goahead and post it.

to sum it up (key points to remember):

Ram air, or the effect of creating a pressure difference into something (intake, inlet of some sort), is not possible bellow Mach1
PSI in the intake manifolt is what will create more power, meaning, psi before your intake valve, past any air/fuel controling devices.

 

ok, so maybe gm when they put it on the camaro called it the wrong thing... it is still outside air induction... either way outside air is still cooler then inside engine air, and i really think it will help more than harm..... just my 2 cents

 

mach 1 is acually closer to 700 knots at sea level and the higher you go in altitude the slower you have to go to break mach due to the air is not as dense ram air is more effective on an na engine then a force inducted engine chrysler was the first company to develop it on the super stock cars and the altered wheel base cars they actually seen an a drop in et in the 1/4 mile as it was exp;ained to me by a aeronautics enginner while i was in the airforce is if what ever you are trying to ram the air in to increase performance an internal combustion engine matters on the size of the engine and the application for which it is intended like a ram jet wouldent work un less the jet was hauling major ass and the scram jet wouldent work untill the aircraft passed mach but on a car it would work at a way way way lower speed but it wouldent be realy drastic to increase the performance a few tenths of a second at most and i do love a could debate about things your alright nightmare keep the info coming

mrb

 

The pic of the black concept cobalt with the ram air has a nice setup. The scoop pulls in lots of cooler air and it has to have some kind of ram air going on at speeds a little less than 500mph.

 

yea I did mixed up my scale (knots and mph)... I lost you after "...1/4 mile" so what is it that you are saying?

The effect of making pressure with just speed is not possible, air cannot be compressed bellow mach one, you would need the air to form a shock wave first, and exploit that to get any compression (you'll have to bare with me on this, this is an old dusty subject, but I'm geting help on it from some of my Aero Engineers on site to phrase it right).

I believe you are geting more volume, but you are not geting any pressurisation of that air. That scoop isn't pressuring the air in your intake. And in order to get pressure in your intake manifold, you would need to be able to displace more volume than what the motor is capable to displace on its own, this is why when you have a tiny turbo, or blower, on a tiny motor, that makes 20psi, it will only make 10 on a much larger motor.

Shall we continue this? my bud's only one desk away, I can post all sorts of formula that will prove to you that you're not geting pressure from that all might "ram air". Also you might want to define which pressure you are talking about, static or dynamic.

To sum it up:

pressurising your intake manifold to produce power with just the speed of you car and a scoop: no, unless you hit mack one and have an intricate scoop

Geting more volume directed where it counts (aka carbs, intake etc) and thus helping production of hp (by adding volume, not pressure) sounds more ok to me (as well as accounting for air temp).

this is alot of fun for me

 

Also, to make matter simple:

get your buddy to drive you at a 100mph, stick your head out the window, open your mouth...what happen? nothing! if you had "ram air" you would explode, the air would go in your boddy and pressurise your insides...same for skydivers, the fall at 200 smothing mph, and they don't have a broblem breathing and they don't explode...

...more as we keep going...

 

i have the K&N intake and i take mine out when i go to the track also cause the intake sits rite there

 

lol nightmare i will concied tis one to you i can see you your point but please no formulas i do well to add lmao here is a piece of airforce trivia for you did you know that a human being broke the sound barrier in free fall flight well if not the man who did it was hoisted up to about 90,000 feet in a weather balloon (it had a platform simular to what a hot air balloon uses) then he proceeded to jump off the balloon and fell for 3 hours and broke the speed of sound in free fall he also passed out in the process

mrb

 

lol where do you get that stuff honestly!

 

Effective....probly
Wierd looking....definatly
how bout moving the velocity stack back a little behind the bumpper and add a second one on the pass side just for looks so the car isn't lopsided

The K&N filter sock is great, good investment for rainny days but still avoid deep water. hydrolock is real easy on a CAI and its not pretty what it does to a motor!!!!

 

hey nightmare check this out http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=397 i got some of the facts wrong but read it its realy interesting

mrb

 

good reading! 108,000 feet is out there! aaahh the internet lol

 

I did both the above ^^ and removing the driver-side headlight at the track w/ 30 min cool downs in between. It made no difference my trap speed or ET w/ similar 60fts.

 

Ok I did not read this whole thing but I did read page one and the first 1/2 of page 2.

I can tell you one thing about ram air from haveing it on my cavalier. It works at anything over 55MPH, Sort of.

I had the SS style ram air hood on my car with a sort warm air intake that put the filter right under where the hood dumped the air.

I drove the car like that in december and the temps where in the 30s. Any thing over 55mph and the the temp pf the motor would start to drop. At 75mph I had no heat at all and the motor was runing at about 120 all the time.
It did seam to pull alot harder at speeds over 55mph then it did befor the hood.

To get my heat back I had to block the hood off in the cold or freez!

So if it dosnt work to give you colder air and more power at lower speeds then explain why it did that to my cavalier?
The car had a moded 2.2L in it and it was a 5-speed. I traided it in on the cobalt.

Later

 

Here's a solution, On anything that cannot go 700 mph, the scoop is called a cold air scoop, since that is all it's doing, pulling in colder air. This will give some increase since the motor likes colder air. I think everyone is saying the same thing over and over, just using the term "ram air". Which confuses those of you that know the technical def. of "ram air".

 

agreed

 

ok, here is my 2 cents, although I may be completly wrong. When I stick my head out the window at 60mph, mt cheeks puff out. why? because a pressure differeance inside my cheeks and out. I don't explode becuase my throat can hold WAY more pressure than that. Even if 'ramming' the air, raises the pressure 1psi (it's going to be more than that though) that's 1 psi the SC dosn't have to push. True, it will not raise manifold pressure, but it will reduce the ammount of work it takes to turn the SC, and intern make it more efficient, draining less HP. So in the end, if it is an efficient set up that is pulling air AT LEAST the same tempeture as the engine bay (and we all know that it will be WAY colder) HP will effectively be increased. I don't know if there is any other way around it.

It's the same idea sa a less restrictive exhaust. more flow pottential = HP gains

 

still not, you'r not creating pressure, think of it that way: parachute jumpers don't explode eather and they go around 200+mph. The argument is nul, you're not making any pressure at our speed. Plus you are forgeting also another factor: what the blower itself is sucking compared to what you would be able to collect volume wise.

This is what I suggest you do, if you have the time to kill (and before I wip out the equations): take some pvc tubing, about 3", have it bluged at one end, open at the other. Tap of boost gauge in it, anywhere. Have your friend drive around at diff speed and look at the boost gauge.

Now, you *might* give the blower some "help" volume wise, that I am not sure of, but even then I'd have to look into it more. You ARE helping with air temp, and I'm wondering if there is a windshear factor with "cold air" scoops/intakes. That would also explain the hp gains. I'm going to have to look into it, it might take a few days, but I will look into it and settle this once and for all

 

I just like how it looks, who cares if it's functional. I have a K&N intake.

 

It dosen't matter if it forces air, it does matter that the air temps are way low and the amount of air is pleantifull. So this setup is nice. If you raced this ram air setup against the same car with just a cai, that ram air cobalt would win. That's what really matters.


[/QUOTE]

 

I'm telling you right now that the pressure will rise. It may not be enough to messure with a boost gauge (maybe an industiral pressure gauge running about $200) but pressure will rise. To say it dosn't is to say that air has no mass. (and there is over 14 pounds of air on your right now per square inch, thts going to be WAY over 150 pounds on your head alone, you don't feel it becuase not only are we used to it, but the volume of your body provides bouyancy in the air)

here is an easier expiriment.. and an even easier equation...

PSI = force / area (aka pounds per square inch)

Hold your hand out the window. Feel that force. It's there, and that is undeniable. Now if you could messure that force, and devide it by how many square inches your had is, that would be pounds per square inche, also known as PSI. ANY force over ANY area will give you pressure, period. It may only be a pound on your hand at 60mph, and over ~28in^2, so thts diffinatly not enough to be messured by a cheap sub $100 dollar gauge, but non the less, it's there and it's undeniable.