Adjustable warm air intake (WAI)
 

Everything I've done here is before the filter. This is important, especially if your car has a Mass Air Flow Sensor.

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This is my old setup which was the incoming air routed through the stock resonator of my 1995 civic VX. I was only able to increase the temperature about 20 degrees.

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This is my modified lower filter box. The original intake hole is plugged with sheet metal with a 1/8" hole for drainage. A hole was cut in the front of the box and a three inch diameter aluminum elbow, from an old CAI system, was installed and sealed with silicone.

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Stock resonator must be removed or the box can't be re-installed. On the VX I had to remove the inner fender well.
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This is the "cut-out" that I am using as a mixing valve, they are $68us at Jegs.com. The bottom is connected to the hose from my exhaust manifold. To be honest, my car came with the “cutout” already installed, so I don’t know if the cable bracket comes with it or my Dad made it.

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The modified box is now in place. The small wire runs from the temp sensor to the gage installed on the dash.
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The cutout is attached to the elbow with a spectre silicone hose adapter from AutoZone.
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Hot air hose attached to cutout
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Hose intake at manifold is ziptied to the radiator fan shroud. And the manifold is enclosed with a flexible heat shield material (not sure where he got it).
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The cable is run from the dash through a sheet metal plate. Whichever side of the cutout is routed to hot air will dictate whether cable in is hot or out is hot. Mine is labeled “IN/HOT”. Above the cable you can see my gage, it is battery operated so no wires except the sensor. These are available at Walmart for about $10.
I am already seeing around 50°f increase from ambient!

Good write up. Thanks. And 50 degrees above ambient would be about 20 better than I get. In summer you're going to run upwards of 150 IAT.

Hopefully. I think I can get a few more degrees with a grill block in place. Maybe this weekend.

three questions here...

What is the highest tolerated IAT for a typical engine?
What are people here successfully running at, positive impacts?
What negative impacts have been noticed? other than power loss....

I know at somepoint pinging, detonation and other metalic noise will be noticed, but likely for other reasons such as timing advance.

My dad has a VX with this setup. He said 130° -140°f is the sweet spot. At 150 he starts getting detonation and timing retard, thus great power-loss.

Thanks,

Those seem to correlate with some of the extreme temperatures found on this planet. Now to figure out a way to get the plumbing run within my cramped engine bay. I would love to figure out a way to heat that air with coolant. My car has a anti-ice coolant loop through the throttle body. For now I just have a snorkel that pulls in the air from just below the hood.

I have considered using a heater core or a motorcycle radiator as a "inter-heater" as opposed to an "intercooler". This would not be practical on a VX in the winter because it is already a challenge to keep the engine at operating temperature.

I bet that I can reach those temperatures! :)

A few updates. The Spectre brand silicone adapter is from Advance not AutoZone. The silver heat shield material is from one of my dad and uncle's race car projects, and is expensive. If I were doing this from scratch, I would probably use thin aluminum like what lines the transmission tunnels of most modern cars these days. I would think it would be fairly inexpensive at a wrecking yard. Also the elbow is fastened to the box with machine screws and nuts, the silicone is only used to seal the seam.

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Not my best work, but I got the grill blocked this weekend! Black coroplast and zip ties, price of mod: $0.00USD!

First test was this morning. Ambient temp 46f, intake temp after warm-up 150f! Yikes!! I had to adjust the cable for the first time. I got it at a steady 130 after a little fiddlin'.

MPGs look good on first stint, 60.5 on my 35 mile commute with a 55mph average speed. normally I see 51-58 depending on wind and temps. I’m pretty happy so far!

Next: Make the grill block adjustable and add a fan-on indicator.

My Volvo has a factory wai, which seems to send hot air to the engine until the engine gets to temp, then it will heat the air to about 90F once the engine is warm. I could easily make all the air come from the stovepipe all the time by locking the temperature control valve in the hot position, but I fear hurting the engine. This is my first decent car and don't want to ruin the engine.

I would not have done it on my car if I did not have a way to monitor and adjust the temp.
Just out of curiosity, how do you know it holds at 90F?

First fill up after mod showed an average of 58.05 mpg! This tank was run with the WAI installed at the beginning, and the grill block installed near the middle. Looks promising, I hope it is not a fluke.

Anyone who may be subscribed to this thread, may also be interested in my Dad’s car.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...avy-28815.html

http://i855.photobucket.com/albums/a...1/P1010167.jpg

Finally made the top 10!!! 90 day average 59.96!!!
So now, my dad "the donkey crx" is number one and I'm number 10! Sweet!

Congrats! I always start moving down the list this time of year, as the warmer weather elsewhere inthe country brings everyone else's number up, while mine stay pretty steady at 62 or 65mpg. Hey! Can we get you and your dad to join the friendly team competition, join EM "team honda"? There's nothing to it but a click of the mouse and your averages will be added to the total honda ave on EM.

I have tried in the past. Will you post a link? I've gone to the team search page and evem IM'd various members and never received a reply

Never mind.
EcoModder Team Competition
I'm joined!

Excellent!

Hey, I just went there & saw there was a "Team Suzuki" with zero members. I fixed that!!! And it looks like my lonely ol' White Gnat was enough to launch "Team Suzuki" into 2nd place! Go, Gnat!!!!
:thumbup:

Hey ecoTex and John, Can one of you guys get this old analog guy set up on Team Honda also?

Thanks

Click on the team honda link under my picture on the left. The click the join team link. Good luck old timer!

Uh-oh..... So much for "Team Suzuki" being in second place!
:eek:

Pop, if you don't get it, I'll do it tomorrow so we can destroy team suzuki!

Well, being (almost) on top was fun while it lasted - for what? 3 or 4 hours? .... sigh
:o

I see Team Suzuki got knocked down a notch by "team wagons", but not, ahem, "Team Honda".
:p

Great Mod. Do you happen to have the mixing valve part number from Jegs.com?? I tried looking for it and their site is massive.

: *JEGS Performance Products#555-30862

JEGS Performance Products 30861 JEGS Cast Iron Exhaust Cutouts - Free Shipping on All Orders @ JEGS

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...-vx-27752.html
I thought I had the link here in this thread, but it was in my introduction thread. I'm glad you pointed it out.

I concur. I'm pulling air directly from behind the hot coolant entry into my radiator and get 20-30* temp rise, depending upon the time of year. I also put a small grill block right in front of that point to help drive up the temps.

Thanks for the idea to use a wally world temp sensor. I've been wanting to see what kind of temps I'm pulling in before I think about changing things but couldn't think of a good (cheap) way of "remote monitoring". All I've done so far on my Saturn is block off my "cold" suction and remove the resonator to pull in "hot" air from the general engine compartment. I want to pull in hotter air but don't want to until I can monitor it.

My truck has two temp sensors. One is outside air temp that is part of a console display. The other is in the intake tubing, and I can read it with a ODB gizmo.

This summer, with outside temps at 100f, I only use the hot side from the manifold at start up. When the engine is up to temp, the valve has to be "full cold" or the intake temp goes over 160f. My "cold" side is behind the radiator so it is not exactly cold.

Just wanted to give everyone an update on my WAI. Still pulling air through the radiator, but I modified the radiator shroud so that I have a 3.5" circular opening at the corner where the hot coolant enters the radiator. It was about half that size originally. I use a 4" dryer vent hose to route air to the air filter box. With the revised opening I now see, depending on right foot input, a 25-45* temperature rise. I'll have to look at some sort of adjustable mixer now, since it's been 55-60* this week, and from what I've read here 130* is about as high as one wants IAT. I'm considering using a PVC T-joint to route WAI in one side, cold RAM air in the other, and figure out some sort of flapper door to adjust. Thoughts?

The only problem I see with that is waiting for the hot coolant to enter the radiator before you get any heat in the intake.

I think that design is better suited to big engines that heat quickly. My wee Civic had real difficulty today heating the passenger compartment at a balmy -10C. Very impressed with the design you have EcoTex.

Thanks pletby, my father The Donkey CRX designed it, and has one similar on his car.

True, it takes a couple minutes to warm up, but using the block heater helps shorten that. Before the cold snap, I would see it warm up in about 3-4 minutes. The engine heats up a bit quicker since I put the under drive on it... I may still try putting a surround on one of the cats and pulling air from around that, if I get some free time. Not sure I'll get a 30*+ temp rise from that though.

Do you have a temp gauge for the incoming air? And if so did you see any heat today in this south Texas cold snap?

ECONORAM, have you seen this pic from the Donkey CRX's build thread? It is on the "show car" white vx that belongs to my uncle. I believe it is in the top five right now. This is a prototype HAI. Pretty slick!
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