Brain teaser of the day!

[SY1616]

I have seen a few guys here get rid of their complete air inlet tubing (filter, crossover pipe, orange hose) and run a screen in front of the turbo (sans any filter). Don't blame me, Morgan gave me the idea :lol: Now I imagine this is risky but yesterday I gave it a shot and I gotta say it's a nice difference in terms of power. This could be that I have a dirty K&N, I don't know, but it was a good thing. After running around town for 10 minutes, all of a sudden the power didn't come on nearly as strong....hmmm. Pull into my garage and reconnect everything (including the two black hoses to the crossover tube) and all is back to normal. What caused this? Heat? I suspect not since the time between power loss and reassembly was maybe 4 minutes so nothing cooled too much.

any ideas....thanks!

 

[Flyin Ryan]

Re: Brain teaser of the day!

no idea on what the problem could have been.. doesn't make sense really but anyways you gotta love the difference in spool noise without any restrictions

 

[turbodig]

Re: Brain teaser of the day!

I have seen a few guys here get rid of their complete air inlet tubing (filter, crossover pipe, orange hose) and run a screen in front of the turbo (sans any filter). Don't blame me, Morgan gave me the idea :lol: Now I imagine this is risky but yesterday I gave it a shot and I gotta say it's a nice difference in terms of power. This could be that I have a dirty K&N, I don't know, but it was a good thing. After running around town for 10 minutes, all of a sudden the power didn't come on nearly as strong....hmmm. Pull into my garage and reconnect everything (including the two black hoses to the crossover tube) and all is back to normal. What caused this? Heat? I suspect not since the time between power loss and reassembly was maybe 4 minutes so nothing cooled too much.

any ideas....thanks!

Stick a thermocouple down in the area around the turbo... you'll have your answer.
It's probably 50-70 degrees hotter there than on the other side of the engine compartment.

 

[SY1616]

Re: Brain teaser of the day!

Stick a thermocouple down in the area around the turbo... you'll have your answer.
It's probably 50-70 degrees hotter there than on the other side of the engine compartment.

So you think once things heated up that the turbo was getting only hot air thus the degredation in power? It was a fairly big difference.

 

[Don W.]

Re: Brain teaser of the day!

So you think once things heated up that the turbo was getting only hot air thus the degredation in power? It was a fairly big difference.

IMHO, yes... When I race at Infineon there can be 20* difference between afternoon and evening temps, sometime more. I can easily see a .05 difference in ET's. Makes dial-in an adventure.:roll:

 

[turbodig]

Re: Brain teaser of the day!

So you think once things heated up that the turbo was getting only hot air thus the degredation in power? It was a fairly big difference.

Yup. And it is a big difference.

It's for this reason that I'm surprised that so many people put an open-element air filter immediately off the inlet elbow. That's waaay too close to be cool.

There's a reason ATR and KB went through a lot to create enclosures on that side....

I'm quite surprised that I haven't seen, with an electric fan, a 3-4" pipe coming off the turbo inlet and going to the other side. Would require a shroud removal or modification, but it would certainly be a much cooler place to pick up air.

Or, if you really wanted it on the passenger side, run some 4" oval tube inside the fender and down. Or, even some of the flex-wire stuff.

If you ever get to see an IRL motor up close, look at the lengths they go to to keep heat away from the intakes.

 

[GM tech]

Re: Brain teaser of the day!

More likely the engine reached operating temp and the air from the radiator is pulled into the turbo.
My inlet mounted filter pulled most of its air from the fan side of the filter,battery blocked flow from other side,had problems with IAT temps spiking @ WOT,but it ran great for the 1st 5-10 minutes of driving.
I relocated my battery,got a Cobra elbow and modified my KB cold air kit to fit below the stock battery location.Fits great,looks clean,high flow,cold air from the most forward part of the engine bay.

 

[QWERTYphoon]

Re: Brain teaser of the day!

Ya, what he said, it's just pulling hot air in from your radiator and surrounding area. Put on your Data Master on and watch your IC temps soar. I fooled with the same stuff, cold air is good air!

 

[#2875]

Re: Brain teaser of the day!

FYI: heat aside... a screen will be really hard on your turbo and not make as much power as a cone filter setup. the screen restricts airflow too close to the compressor wheel and its blades will actually flex towards the screen. it took my buddy a few hours on the dyno to figure that one out on a customer's evo. not to mention it doesn't filter dust. i'd lose it fast if i were you.

edit: looks like you already did. my oversight.