Cold air intake questions...............

[rangerkid91]

Is cold air intake worth putting on my ranger, or on a vehicleat all? It is a 2.9l I hear it can increase your horse power and gas mileage.

 

[Beanmachine7000]

No... They don't do anything except waste your money...

 

[BlackBII]

Ford put one on for you, in 1987.

 

[RustedRanger]

Cold air might increase horse power but usally it adds power in the upper RPM ranges. From my experiance I have gotten better gas mileage with underhood air. A number of years ago I read an article in 4 Wheeler about a test on a diesel and they saw more horsepower with cold air but more torque without cold air. Usually more torque means increased mpg.

 

[Pat Kunz]

Increase horsepower, yes. Increase gas mileage, no. 87's are actually quite easy to make a ram air setup with. There is a plate just behind the grill on the passenger side where the air intake is. Remove this plate and remove the ductwork between it and the bottom of the airbox. Replace the ductwork and hot air pipe (if applicable), with 3" aluminum drier hose. Keep it as straight as possible along with securing it to the inner fender on the passenger side. Next using the grill as support, I cut up a bunch of plastic lids and grafted a scoop to the air intake opening behind the grill. Nothing gaudy or crazy, just if it hit the grill in front of the intake it would be forced into it. This setup with a bit of tweaking worked great and was cheap to do. It actually flowed very nicely, I could have someone blow air into the scoop behind the grill and easily feel the air at the throttle body. Now considering that I can feel somone blow air into it, I'd imagine it was flowing quite a bit at 60 mph. This was the basic idea of it, there were a few airbox tweaks and some other minor stuff in there but that's the major part. Combine this with some phenolic spacers and you will deffinitly notice a power difference on a cold air day. I ran a setup like this for years, I eventually went to a cowl induction setup, becouse I needed the airbox area for my nitrous equipment. But the original ram air setup did make a bit more power.


Pat Kunz

 

[Wicked_Sludge]

Ford put one on for you, in 1987.

+1 save your money. there are no improvements to be had on the intake in front of the throttle body.

and ram air has been mathimatically disproven to work at speeds below the speed of sound.

 

[Pat Kunz]

Yea, what do I know I'm guessing all the pro-stocker and formula 1 teams are wasting their time in the windtunnels trying to force a bit more air into those scoops since neither hit mach 1. I'm also guessing the factory ford teams that ran the old thunderbolts were also silly for running ram air scoops out of the front headlights. The simple fact is colder air is more horsepower, as long as you can deliver enough fuel with it. The quicker you can get it through the intake tract the colder it will stay the more power potential it has. The colder the air the more oxygen dense it is per a given amount of space. So again why is trying to get the cold air into the intake faster a waste of time


Pat Kunz

 

[fastpakr]

True cold air is great, but every aftermarket 'cold air' kit I've seen so far just eliminated the stock external air box and replaced it with an underhood filter drawing hot engine compartment air.

As to pressurized air boxes - they also work, but most of the systems people install have no real science/engineering behind them at all. For examples of real, functional ones, check out what's installed on modern liter bikes.

 

[mjonesjr]

Increase horsepower, yes. Increase gas mileage, no. 87's are actually quite easy to make a ram air setup with. There is a plate just behind the grill on the passenger side where the air intake is. Remove this plate and remove the ductwork between it and the bottom of the airbox. Replace the ductwork and hot air pipe (if applicable), with 3" aluminum drier hose. Keep it as straight as possible along with securing it to the inner fender on the passenger side. Next using the grill as support, I cut up a bunch of plastic lids and grafted a scoop to the air intake opening behind the grill. Nothing gaudy or crazy, just if it hit the grill in front of the intake it would be forced into it. This setup with a bit of tweaking worked great and was cheap to do. It actually flowed very nicely, I could have someone blow air into the scoop behind the grill and easily feel the air at the throttle body. Now considering that I can feel somone blow air into it, I'd imagine it was flowing quite a bit at 60 mph. This was the basic idea of it, there were a few airbox tweaks and some other minor stuff in there but that's the major part. Combine this with some phenolic spacers and you will deffinitly notice a power difference on a cold air day. I ran a setup like this for years, I eventually went to a cowl induction setup, becouse I needed the airbox area for my nitrous equipment. But the original ram air setup did make a bit more power.


Pat Kunz

This is the man to listen too.

If you do it the way listed above, it will be a true cold air intake and will draw in cooler air.

The bolt on kits are a waste as they only draw in hot air from the engine compartment.

 

[Pat Kunz]

This is the man to listen too.

If you do it the way listed above, it will be a true cold air intake and will draw in cooler air.

The bolt on kits are a waste as they only draw in hot air from the engine compartment.

Oh yea, one thing I forgot to mention in my original post. Drill some drain holes in the bottom of your airbox after doing this. I had a problem with filling the area below the air filter with snow one time and it turning to water once trapped under the filter.


Pat Kunz

 

[fastpakr]

Pat, if everybody else put as much thought into their systems as you have over the years, the aftermarket scam artists might not exist. Shame. You've been very helpful to the RBV community over the years. It would be great if you could design a real kit to sell through the TRS store.

 

[Pat Kunz]

Unfortunately I don't have a 2.9L truck anymore in order to fab something up with measurements and parts lists, otherwise I would. One of these days I'll start playing with the 4.0L SOHC engine of my wife's truck as soon as I pay it off and quit playing with the 08 GXP. I still have one of my old Delta 50 flowmasters that used to be on my 73 bigblock before the sidepipes. I think that may work fine with the Ranger. I may have to look a bit at my 01 and see if there is a better way to deliver cold air to it, If I can get my wife to leave it at home long enough


Pat Kunz