Hmm. removed most of the excess airbox ducting in my lancer today. Pretty much goes Intake manifold - Throttle- Plumbing - Filter-box -> engine bay.

I'm currently designing a conduit to plumb cold air from the lower bumper area.

Question : Since taking off the excess airbox plumbing, the entire intake assembly seems to be much warmer after driving than normal . I find this odd, seeing as the original air intake was in much the same place as the filter box, the only difference being there was a long, convulted set of plumbing that directed air through an area away from the engine.

So is this temperature rise anything to worry about? all the plastics of the intake, (the little thats left) seems to be heating up an awful lot more than normal.

sounds impressive, though

Edit : figured out the effect was simply due to the different heat soak/disspation rates of metal versus plastics. Hmm. Time for some heatshield methinks.

colder air from tests i have seen doesnt really do to much on an atmo engine, power wise. most of the gains from fitting cai kits, seem to be just from better/more air flow rather then cooler air

Indeed - a proper K&N high-flow filter in the end will be the only thing which offers a substantial (noticable) gain in your performance.

That said the CIA has been said to offer minimal fuel ecconomy benefits and reduce engine wear - so if you are going to do it properly you may as well duct the air from somewhere cooler than the engine bay.

Just make sure that the intake isn't anywhere likely to go underwater and she's all good!

yes, i'm aware of that. You also get a damn nice induction noise on WOT.
And technically, it does make a minor difference, so why not do it?




I'd contest that, but only for my particular model car.

Theres been a few interesting studies around the place that showed that while removing the ducting from the filterbox > out did indeed reduce the intakes airflow restriction, leading to a technically provable increase in economy, replacing anything from the filterbox back did nothing, in fact in one instance it decreased economy, airflow, and HP. Albeit minimally.

Also, aftermarket filters, for lancers (especially the K&N) have been shown to do one of two things
1) Flow more (but not much), but filter drastically less (about 60% filtering effeciency compared to a lancers OEM panel filter).
2) Flow less, and filter drastically more. = restriction.

Seems the filterbox < BACK assembly on lancers was made pretty much spot on.

That said, an aftermarket kit will again make the induction noise louder than just doing the CAI part.

OEM design can really suprise you sometimes, another example that pops to mind is the toyota supra's MK4 B.O.V (a tiny, fragile looking thing) outperforming most aftermarket B.O.V.s. hehe.

another thing you may need to consider...

When getting air from closer to the road, it's going to be warmer, specially in summer!

the road is considerably hotter than at waist height....

The point is air directly from an outside source, while your in motion, should be still considerably cooler than air trapped in the engine bay, and that most cars have an easy path down to the bumper area, while not many have a point you can plumb air from thats higher up AND NOT in the engine bay.

maybe consider one of those bonnet mods, with the weird gill look alike things!

they look okiesh on lancers

f*** it get a snorkle and be done with it

i would, but for the fact my head would be very close to underwater by the time the engine bay flooded entirely

CAI is all about w4nk factor, manufacturers dont spend a large portion of time researching the best intakes for their cars for nothing. If CAI does provide an increase it would be hardly noticable and yes you do get a nice note from doing the mod, this could also trick the brain into thinking gee if it sounds good it must also go harder. I did a cold air intake on my MY99 WRX and it sounded great, but if anything it sent performance slightly backwards and I would get a backfiring sound through the intake system, hence to say I got rid of it quit quickly. To do a CAI properly you should also get a chip to program the engine to respond properly to the excess amount of air entering the intake system, only then will you get the full potential of cold air intake.

On *some* cars, your right. On many others though, your wrong.

a CAI does make a difference, theoretically and practically. Admittedly, as you say sometimes its just a small one, but sometimes not.

and yes, to take full advantage of it, you'd probably get a proper tune, but again, manufacturers tend to tune their EFI maps towards economy more than power anyway.

If your getting a backfiring sound through the intake system, i'd look further upstream. That sort of problem is rarely the intakes fault, more the valves/headers.

yeah back firing through the intake isnt cool, and i wouldnt blame a cai for it, it u only heard it after the cai, maybe the stock system was muffling the noise

It was the CAI pipe that picked up the cold air straight from under the indicator and rammed it straight into the air filter box. It mainly backfired on colder nights when the air was dense, I ended up taking the induction pipe off and ran without that or the factory one, that way the airbox still sucked air from inside the guard but wasnt being rammed in, it took what it wanted and the car responded better and still had an induction sound, could also hear the stock blow off valve.

again, this is a sign of larger problems. A ram air intake will not cause backfiring.