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Old 10-17-2007, 11:35 AM
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Old300D Old300D is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Denver, CO
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Number_Cruncher View Post
Although this flies in the face of conventional wisdom on this and many other mortoring web sites, taking intake air from behind the radiator is not IMO an entirely stupid thing to do.

When you are sludging around town, the air behind the radiator will be quite a bit hotter than in front. The engine isn't being used to make a lot of power, and the hot air improves the engine's efficiency.

When you are motoring on the open road, the air blasting through the radiator doesn't actually become that much hotter, and so, the power loss is minimal.
No, ok, just partially stupid, since the factory air cleaner does an entirely adequate job. If you are making the claim hot air improves "efficiency" maybe you need to state what you mean by "efficiency" as there are many types -- air flow efficiency, engine volumetric efficiency, thermal efficiency, get my drift?

So basically to justify installing a "cold air" intake which is really a "hot air" intake, you'd need some reason to do it. Oh, it looks cool? Fine, just say so.
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