WAI on Civic NOT good - Free WAI GOOD :)

[rjacob]

Originally Posted by smwoodruff0908

the tube attached to the intake lid, and the giant intake box looking thing?)

The "giant intake box looking thing" is the intake resonator.

[hondaworkshop]

I have removed the resonator box on my 00 DX and put on a bit of metal flex-tubing sucking air near the header as an experiment.

My findings were that in the coldest winter months, it is a big benefit in getting the car warmed up quicker. That alone saves alot of mileage for me. However as soon as the cold weather is gone it quickly becomes too hot (140+) and needs to be put back to a more normal location, like behind the headlight.

I have not tried it without a tube...but I'll give it a shot for grins.

[ShadeTreeMech]

I discovered this thread and thought it wold be a good read for newbs on the forum. And so here's a bump with my 2 cents.

On my Maxima I left the intake tube intact and just cut a hole in the bottom part of the box to let in the engine compartment air while allowing the snorkel to feed in the cooler outside air. I think it makes a bit of a difference

My Explorer has a tube coming off the exhaust manifold that goes to a valve leading to the intake. The valve apparently is designed to open/close to keep the air temp at around 100 degrees. Wonder if that couldn't be modified to fit other vehicles.

[brucepick]

My current setup is similar to ShadeTreeMech.

I like this setup.
I cut holes in the underside of the air filter housing. This sucks air that's just passed through the radiator. I capped off the shorkel with duct tape - and cut about a 3/8" (~10 mm.) hole in that tape cap. This reduced the intake "moan" noise considerably. With the snorkel fully capped and big holes in the filter box, the noise is pretty bad for passengers who don't care about FE - and I do have such passengers.

Intake air temps are typically 30-40 degrees above ambient air. In winter I wish it were a bit hotter, in 80-90 deg. weather it seems to top out around 110-120. Air and ECT coolant temperatures all read on the ScanGauge.

My grill is mostly blocked, but is OPEN at the upper part of the radiator in front of where the intake cut holes are. So the air goes thru there and gets warmed. Lower grill is fully blocked in winter, and in warmer weather I remove blocking gradually as needed to keep coolant temps low enough that the fan doesn't kick in (ideally, about 182-198 deg. F., imho).

[ECONORAM]

Originally Posted by vtec-e

I tried the same thing recently and the gains were tiny. Intake air temp was 140 F when driving at night and 170 F during the day. Bloody hot! It seemed to stay in lean burn more but my commute is rolling hills and i need to get to work in a reasonable time so it had to go. I was having to give it more throttle to get anywhere. So now the intake snorkel is pointing in, towards the engine but is all stock. Intake temps are now 90 F and things are running ok. I got a temp probe with an lcd display and drilled a 3mm hole in the filter housing before the filter. Stuck the probe in there and have the display on the dash. Engine is up to temp in about 2 to 3 minutes in the 50 F weather we are having now. It used to warm up a good bit faster with the hot air intake. Suppose we had a heat exchanger on the exhaust to be the HAI but had a valve to switch away from that to a WAI when up to temp. Then we'd have the best of both worlds, no?

ollie

I recently found MetroMPG's notes about warm air intakes and was intrigued. Has anyone thought about routing a pipe from the radiator to their intake? I do not know what the temp change would be, but it would be warmer than a CAI...and you would get a little ram air benefit, I think.
The flapper to swap warm/cold would be a good idea too!

[redline5th]

Just toss on a short ram intake and call it a day.

[ShadeTreeMech]

I suppose that a lot depends on the location of your intake.

On my Maxima, I initially had the resonator dislocated, which put an air intake right behind the radiator. I was reading 120 degree F temps with that while moving. When I completely removed the snorkel and was sucking in pure under hood air, i was rading temps only 10 degrees more than ambient while moving. If I stopped though the temps quickly spiked. This is of course assuming the air intake sensor is accurate.

So far I've not experienced any pinging on the Maxima with WAI. The Villager with its much cruder engine, now that's another story.

[brucepick]

FYI if you have a ScanGauge or plan to get one, you can read intake air temp on the "IAT" gauge that you'll find.

[cujet]

Many years ago, Smokey Yunik used hot intake temperatures to boost MPG. However, to make that work, he needed a turbocharger to keep the pressure up. (remember, hot air expands) Therefore, to recapture exhaust heat energy and use it for MPG, a turbo was needed, and it had to make about 15 pounds of boost at very low RPM.

When I lived in Daytona, I used to talk with Smokey from time to time. He was always willing to show me his latest project.