What if you leave the front honeycomb inserts. Would that be enough?

 

You'll need to do that unless you spray paint the interior anyway (or unless you have a white car). It looks hideous otherwise.

 

I've had mine debaffles 3 years, no problems, even in heavy rain. Barely any drops the air box, for insurance I got some rain shields.. I do believe you get high speed performance and I get 25 miles more per tankful ever since I did this mod..

 

Wouldn't it reduce mileage? More air means more power through more fuel.

 

I thinks it has to do with air/fuel mixture... I do know consistently I get 25-30 miles more per tankful, then before the mod...

 

True enough, mix is important. But that's what the PCM is supposed to handle.

But if you're at WOT and off closed loop a lot of the time, I guess it could be getting a little richer than ideal. But even then, in theory, the PCM should still be able to make ideal power mix for any amount of air it gets, whether it be a little, or a lot.

Not saying it's not happening for you, just pondering the technicals. lol

BTW, where did you get that sealing kit?

 

PM'ed you the info

 

Hey,Hey there are no secrets here. Share with the rest of us the info on the kit to seal the hood. Thanks

 

Info on the hood seal kit please!!! I just order the intake deal from Shane (tranzam00), so debaffling seems like a good idea for me.

 

Still looking for some info on this kit - Anyone?

 

Yeah, what he said.

TTT for seal kit info.

 

fbody99@shaw.ca

http://community.webshots.com/album/44929351NTfDIv

 

My friend had a big problem with water being sucked in through his intake. Only during very heavy rain fall though.

 

If you're worried about that, then that is when the "Rain Shields" come into play, Zero water!! air still plenty from under the car

 

Maybe I'm wrong here and someone who knows the physics of fluid dynamics would know better, but isn't removing the baffles rather pointless? If a certain volume of air is entering the nostrils doesn't the same volume have to come out the other end regardless of how many bends there are in the path? Or am I missing the point?

 

This is what I do know... I feel a stronger pull at high speeds and I get 25-40 miles per tankfull, better gas mileage ..

 

Is that extra mileage between a regular ram air hood and one that's debaffled? Or between a stock hood and a ram air one? I just ordered one of those composite plastic WS6-style hoods and it would be great if I could tell "she who must be obeyed" that I'm going to get better mileage with it.

 

Restrictions always reduce flow. This is why we seek mandral bends in exhaust tubing, and as few of them, and as slight, as possible. It's why CAI's for just about every car out there smooth the inside of the tube, reduce bends, and if possible, shorten the intake distance.

Such restrictions cause turblence. Turbulence interrupts flow.

I'm trying to think of the best way to explain it. Go to a pool, or even fill up your bathtub, and stick your hand in and push or drag it along and notice what happens. While water overflows around the edges and fills in the area behind your hand, it also gets pushed forward. The effects of which (a wave) can be seen pretty far ahead of your hand. And the faster you move it, the farther out that wave front gets.

The water is getting pushed ahead by your hand, and it can't compress, but because of the water off to the side, it can't get out of the way fast enough either, so it just pushes the water in front of it, and so on, until you get far enough out that the pressure is low enough that it can get out of the way.

Air is much the same. Air can be more easily compressed, but not by a car moving through it at normal car speeds.

That baffle is basically your hand. Some air can get over and behind it, but mostly it's just swirling around and building up in front, getting pushed along, and pushing the air that it in turn contacts as you move.

Removing the baffles removes that restriction and opens up a striaght shot. Basically allowing more CFM of flow.

That said, the hood internals aren't ideally shaped and will create flow and drag issues of another kind if all you do is remove the baffles and nothing else. But it's still less restriction in the system over all.

Now the real question is about the demand on the other side. You're not force feeding the engine. The car's not going fast enough. But, you may be helping the engine get the air it needs more easily. Kinda like applying a given suction to a straw, and then the same suction to a larger straw, you're making it easier for the engine to get what it wants in the short time it has to pull air in.

However - if it's getting all it needs anyway, then debaffling would have *zero* effect of any kind what-so-ever. Which may be the case.

Someone in the Advanced Tech forum noted that he saw a tested and measured increase of 3" in the manifold, but he was using a camaro with a custom front breather where the endire catfish mouth was turned into an intake ram, and sealed to the lid. That's a much larger opening with a much better connection (no turbulence on the back end since it was sealed to the lid). It's encountering so much more air at any given speed than we will with our much smaller openings.

Many people were questioning his gain. It almost certainly came from simply de-restricting the intake tract. We won't see even that much gain, which is still rather little anyway, because our openings are so much smaller.

 

The straw analogy is like the one used on the ramairhood.com site where I ordered the hood. They claim that adding their ram air hood is like drinking directly from the glass as compared to through a straw (i.e. little or no restriction).

So, is there any way of testing (besides seat-of-the-pants) whether removing the baffles actually improves performance? A dyno won't help because you're sitting still so the ram air has no effect. If the air isn't being compressed significantly at normal highway speeds then it would seem that smoothing the flow wouldn't increase the amount of air that the engine takes in. Or would smoothing the flow increase the compression of the incoming air?

 

If you wanted to test, wire up a pressure sensor directly in the manifold, block the hood, drive around and get readings for various conditions. Then unblock the hood and re-test.

I think you mis-understood me.

No, you won't increase the compression of the air by smoothing it's path. That's not really the issue though. My point about compressiblity was that it's (relative) lack of compressibility means that the baffle in the hood would act as your hand in the tub/pool. The air hitting it would get caught and pushed, and in turn push the air it hits, and so on, *rather than* flowing through to the back of the system (the mainfold).

As for any benefit - it'll be small at best. All you're doing is trying to decrease lack of flow efficiency. But the way it's being done doesn't offer much intake opening area. It's also quite possible that enough are is getting through the filter from under the nose that the holes in the hood have even less (as in virtually no) effect.

This is why the flat hoods make the same power as the WS6 hoods. The difference is marketing.