Monday, May 2, 2011

Research Project-Aftermarket air intake





For my project, I went through many different ideas. After deciding I probably shouldn’t try and make a video camera. I decided to do something car related. So I have heard a lot about after market intakes but personally have been very skeptical. I decided to buy one and try it out. See what I think of it instead of listening to other people’s opinions online. There are two types of aftermarket intakes available, Cold Air Intakes (CAI) and Short Ram Air Intakes (SRI). I chose an SRI, mainly because they are cheaper haha. After ordering an Injen brand SRI from my local tuner shop (Tru Motorsports, I highly recommend them), I went home to research some more about them. I have researched intakes a lot, but this time I was going to go in depth a little more. I found many people that hate aftermarket intakes, and many that love them. All of the companies that make intakes claim gains up to 12 horsepower and 11.5 foot-pounds of torque. I was getting excited to see if my car would gain power. After receiving my intake, I quickly installed it. I started up my car and didn’t notice any Check-Engine lights or anything. So I grabbed my little brother and took it for a test drive. I was pretty happy with the results. Right away I noticed the gas was much more responsive; when I got onto a straightaway I gassed it and was very happy with the power and most of all the sound. It made the car sound very aggressive. After owning it for a little while I have also noticed that my gas mileage has gone up, I average 2-3mpg’s more than I did without the SRI. I haven’t gotten my car dyno-tested but I know that it has more power than it used too.

So next thing I wanted to know was, why does this intake make a difference? Here comes some research. I found a pretty good explanation of why it makes a difference. Stock air intakes on cars are designed mainly to silence the car. They basically choke the air supply to the engine so that the car isn’t loud. Aftermarket intakes don’t care about sound and only car about performance, so they open up the intake and allow the engine to breathe better. So, more air to the engine=more power. Pretty simple, so basically the stock air intake is like breathing through a straw and the after market intake is like breathing through a paper towel tube, its not all the way open but its pretty close.

So that is my research!


Source's

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_ram_air_intake

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1 comment:

  1. Its really interesting and will be beneficial for all of us thanks for the research.

    ReplyDelete