i built a ram air for my 98 blazer with the 4.3l vortec and it is at the moment supported by the hose to the radiator.....is there anyway i can get it off the radiator hose? i have looked on ebay and cant find ram airs that wouldnt ride on the hose.....i link to a good ram air or anything would be helpful...thanks

 

You could always make up your own brackets to hold it up higher... I know that not everyone has the tools to build their own intakes, etc, but those ebay intakes are a joke and even though they flow a tad bit more than the stock intake, the fact that they draw in HOT engine bay air makes them less efficient than the stock airbox which gets air from in front of the radiator through the core support. An ideal intake would draw cold air from in front of the radiator, would be isolated from engine bay heat, and would have more filter area than the stock filter with a higher flowing filter media.

Are you doing a cold air intake? The term 'Ram air' really means nothing at the speeds that most all automobiles travel. In order to gain anything but fresh outside air from an intake, you'd either have to drive around at 180mph (with an 8" diameter scoop) or have a scoop the size of a greyhound frontend sitting in front of your vehicle and then it would barely overcome the pipping losses in the tubing just getting to the throttle body, not to mention trying to push that through the air.

 

i put an performance cone filter where the old filter box was...right by the air inlet from the headlights....i hav looked and cant find anywhere that i could mount anything

 

In order to get the full effect of the cone filter, you really must build a box around the filter to restrict the air flow to outside air as much as possible. You can either make a box out of flat lexan or aluminum sheets (use cardboard templates to build your box out of first) or you could build a can for the filter to sit in, and duct into the can. Mounting is possible, but you may need to get creative inorder to do it. It won't be easy, but it will be worthwhile!

 

wat do u mean a can? and where wood i put the ducting? i hav look at where the filter box used to be and there is no opening to the outside other than through the headlights........and if i were to make a box out of aluminium sheeting....how would i connect the different pieces? or would i just make one big cutout and then bend it to make the corners?

 

You could do it any number of ways. Best way to connect it together would be either small bolts or sheetmetal screws. I would bend it out of a single piece if it could be formed properly around the filter and into the space available. Just leave a 1" or so extension on any edge that would over lap with only one extension per overlap area.

For a larger source of cold air, the box could be sealed from engine air/heat keeping the factory air inlet location open to the inside of the box and then put a duct down and possibly through the inner fender where it flattens out near the radiator core support.

To get a better picture of what needs to be done, try doing a search through google.com for cold air intakes in general or pictures of cold air intakes to see what you find.

By 'can', I mean an enclosure for the filter. Here is a very complicated 'can' that I had designed for use in my old intrepid, but never got around to making the fiberglass mold.



But a large coffee can with a fabricated endcap could be used just as effectively.

 

Would a snorkel constitute as ram air? Not all that direct to a throtle body but fresh air is received.

 

Like I said earlier, nothing short of air at 180mph should be termed 'ram air'. While a snorkel will pull cold air, the restrictive nature of a long tube would out weigh anything gained by the colder air.

 

"ram air" means nothing more then as you drive the fresh air is rammed into the intake. Like swart posted, not real effective unless your going really fast.

To get the best cold air intake you need a hood scope over your intake with a filter between the scoop and intake to keep dirt out. Anything other then that is a compromise. Any time you run the air intake through the engine compartment you are subjected that fresh air to the heat of the engine bay. It warms up before it gets to the intake. If you are drawing your fresh air from inside the engine compartment, you are drawing in air that has been heated by the engine, and then it will get even warmer as it travels to the intake. At least when you draw the air from behind the headlight (factory location) you are drawing in fresh cold outside air. Yes it will warm as it travels through the engine compartment on its way to the intake. But it wont warm as much as if you drew it from inside the engine compartment to begin with...

So now your wondering why a K&N cone filter indside the engine compartment gives you more hp then the stock set-up. Simple, it is allowing more air past the filter. Thats it, more air, more hp. Realize those aftermarket "performacne" filters also allow more dirt to pass into the engine. Which is fine if you plan on rebuilding your engine sooner rather then later. Sure they can offer a 1,000,000 mile warrenty ont eh filter, your engine will never live that long. The dirt will chew the bearings up long before that.

To be honest the best air filter is the factory original AC Delco. It flows the best and captures the most dirt. Granted you have to change it more then a K&N, however your engine will live longer too.

If you want to increase your hp, pumping more air into the engine is a must. However it comes at a price. What compromise are you willing to make will determine which way you should go?

 

My point against 'ram air' is that even with a scoop, the difference between a good CAI in an enclosure isolated from engine heat and one with a scoop to bring in fresh outside air is so small that even a controlled test will not show the difference. Tests run on a Grand Prix GTP with a sealed CAI, FWI (fender well intake), and with the hood off and a scoop to the CAI box showed next to no difference in IATs. All had a degree or two above ambient air temp at the IAT sensor, but all were better than the factory box by atleast 5 degrees. The comparison was on one of the regional ClubGP sites and was run at a drag strip on a club event. If I had some time to waste, I could probably find it, but it's been a long time since I've been on those forums and can't remember which regional one it was on...