cold air intake is wide open in engine bay

[apollo18]

hey guys! the person who had my truck before installed a cold air intake but what is odd is that the truck already has a side vent which brings in outside air from the fender for the stock airbox so i am confused on why he upgraded.

any how the original airbox on my gm v8 truck pulls air from the side vent from the fender and the air goes into a cold air box with the filter and then to the throttle body. the whole unit is sealed and theres no gaps or nooks or crannies for any of the hot engine air to somehow get into the original intake.

 

well with my cold air intake. it has a big air filter like ever other cold air intake and it sits in a open air box. what i noticed about this airbox is that it has alot of nooks and crannies so hot engine air could easily feed into the air filter. secondly the part where the air filter sits in the airbox/ the part where the tube enters the open airbox is relatively open so hot air could easily slide into the air box again.

thirdly and fourthly, it is wide open on the top in the engine bay and i dont think it seals shut against the hood when it is closed, i looked and measured and there seems that there will be a gap. but even if the top of it seals shut against the hood, there is alot of space for hot engine air to hit the air filter.

lastly the cold air from outside doesnt even channel into the airbox like how a stock gm air box would.

 

 

so i wanted to ask, is this worse for my engine? i tried asking a air filter company but they said the heat and air in the engine bay doesnt sit long enough for it to get into the air filter causing a loss of performance. but everytime i open my hood, it feels pretty warm in there and the air filter is pretty warm to.

 

the only way i could see this actually helping is if it channeled the cold air from the fender with a pipe kinda like the original gm airbox and then have a large covered sealedd airbox that has no space for leaks to house the aftermarket air filter. this way cold air would come from outside and the larger air filter would allow more cold air to hit the engine. and the perfectly sealed airbox would stop any hot air from the engine from entering the air intake.

 

so does it not make a difference if it is wide open like my picture below / when there are nooks/crannies and space open for hot air to enter the air box.

what i have noticed is that when the engine is cold started and i first drive, for the first 5 mins the throttle feels noticeably more responsive. after 5 mins it loses that responsiveness and i think that is attributed to the facvt that the engine gets hotter releasing hot air into the engine area which leads to the intake.

 

is the only way i can see if this is degrading performance by monitoring IAT with some type of obd2 scanner or something?

 

attached is a pic in this link before of my airbox

 

airbox pics

Edited July 22, 2020 by apollo18

[Colossus]

It's true that the factory stock air intake is already pulling in a good amount of air.  In fact I'd think that the factory set up would pull in more cold air vs, those cone after market things which I think would pull in more warm air from the engine bay.  I've always wondered about that though.  Unless you have some major mods done to your engine or have a tune done that takes advantage of a larger more open aftermarket air intake, then you likely won't see any benefits other than *maybe* a different sound.  But back in the day when everything wasn't as computer controlled as it is, a good K&N would get you positive noticeable results. 

[Doug_Scott]

The factory standard air filter/inlet is sealed to the side and front of the rad support, limiting hot air from getting into the housing.  The main drawback to it is the "muffler" system that is added after the air filter, before the throttle body.  It is a tuned resonance type of thing whos main function is to make the air intake noise quiet.  Why it is there I do not know for sure.  I know that vehicles must meet some drive by noise standards, but can't see how that would be noticable since those tests are done at a set speed, and not at WOT.  AirRaid makes a replacement inlet tube that removes the resonance chamber, returning the intake noise at WOT with just a flat panel K&N million mile air filter.  GM have even gone so far on the stock intake box to put closed cell foam seals around the box inlets to prevent hotter engine compartment from getting in.

It is nice to see that most manufacturers have finally started calling these types of air intake "cold air" intake instead of the "Ram Air" name that was incorrectly used since the car equipped with shaker, cowl induction, etc.

[tlaw91]

The factory GM ‘cold air’ kits are sealed and use the stock intake setup. They do delete the noise filters and they give you a neat clear plastic cover so you can view your wicked sweet air intake.

The unfortunate thing about the aftermarket ones especially cheap ones are they aren’t sealed and they used medal tubing which runs hotter then the stock plastic.

I personally hate that garbage because customers completely forget they have them then never clean them


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk