Editing Cold air intakes

altaricbo
Making a CAI, or a shortram intake

When I think of Cold Air Intakes, the first car that I think of is the 1964 Ford Fairlane THUNDERBOLT. Detroit Steel Tubing, known as DST purpose built these cars for drag racing for Ford. The engines that they were using were 425 HP 427 Cu. In. How do you feed cold air to a engine of this size? BIG PIPES! How big? About 6 inch diameter. When you need to get cold air from the frontal area to the gigantic carb intake you take the most direct route. Kick out the inner headlights (who needs four headlights on a drag strip), add some grills to keep out large debris, run the expansion pipe up to the aluminum intake box and you have it. Check out the pictures on how they did it back in 1964.

[[Image:Headlight_intake_grill.jpg]]


[[Image:Side_view_of_cold_air_intakes.jpg]]


[[Image:Dual_intake_pipes.jpg]]

Of course, other people have their own views on what cold air intakes should be, and they're entitled to them. '''BIG IS BETTER'''


This is really quite simple; a great project for the budding automotive enthusiast.

First you need to know the diameter of the stock intake tubing, and where you want your filter- usually a cone type reusable gauze filter.

Then you look under the hood... 
It probably looks something like this
[[Image:http://www.ayocee.com/cmine/albums/oilchhowtwo/normal_Oil%20Change%20Howto%20002.jpg]]
It's a stock 1.9L Saturn engine, of the SOHC (single over head cam) variety.  Notice the stock intake tubing on the right side of the picture.  It's designed to be cheap to make, reduce noise, and be easy for the guy on the production line to install, with minimal care for performance, especially in a non-sports car (think Corvette or Porsche).

Take the measurements of the throttle body outside diameter (OD) and head to the parts store.  Since the throttle body is horizontal (if it were a carb, it'd be a sidedraft), you'll need a 90-degree elbow to follow the general path of the stock stuff that has .  Make sure it's heat and oil resistant, and then get some tubing with the same inside diameter (ID) as the throttle body.  The intake tubing (some people use pvc pipe, I prefer metal such as aluminum) needs to have the OD the same as the ID of the 90* elbow.  Using various parts, being creative and inventive, piece these together ensuring you have enough room for the air filter at the end!

Lastly, make sure you have provisions for crankcase lines (or a crankcase breather filter) and have enough hose clamps for all joints in the system.  The picture below is of a Saturn 1.9L engine (the twin cam variety) with a shortram intake.  It's not a true cold air intake since the air going into the engine is from the engine compartment.
[[Image:http://hotrodders.com/gallery/data/3121/IM000157.JPG]]

Normally a shortram/warm air intake is a better idea if your car sees snow and other wet, inclement weather.  A CAI is better suited for track use or for a car which rarely (if ever) sees bad weather.  If your car pulls water up in the intake then you'll hydrolock it and if you're lucky you can pull the spark plugs out, crank the engine a few times, reinstall plugs, and be on your way.  Lots of times you'll ruin the internals of the engine since water will not compress.  The engine parts will bend before water will compress!