I wasn't trying to be a smart ass I was telling the truth. The the price of 41 Pounds (around AU$120 after postage?) for the cold air intake from the link above, you could spend this $120 on many things that have proven to give you HP. By putting in a cold air intake it's like going into experimental territory where you may or may not get horsepower.

Example: For $120 I'd think about a cylinder head unleaded conversion, skim a few thou off the head and get a higher compression, run on 98 octane fuel and for sure you will get a noticeable increase in power.

I'm just saying that you can spend this money elsewhere and get good, proven hp, whereas a cold air intake is questionnable to say the least.

I bet $10 that if you took your car to the Dyno and paid the guy $120 he could tune it up and get you 1 or 2 hp by changing no hardware! Maybe an SU needle or two!

Any other questions???

Kev is right, Vizard does say that it is worth nothing. The piping and amount of hack work you got to do is just not worth it...

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Lillee - 1969 Morris Mini K

I am hurt by that accusation

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Lillee - 1969 Morris Mini K

actually i think that doc said that visard said it wasnt any good with SU's..
but have a think about this..
why do some air intakes on various makes have a summer/winter adjustment..
well in winter some places in Australia still get cold enough to cause problems like the icing that we hear about from the UK.. but why then not just leave the intake near the exaust manifold all year??? It would be cheaper for the manufacturers to not have the adjustable section.. the reason is because they know there is an advantage in cold air..
As fuzzy said if any car is going to benefit from cold air its the mini, with its carbs shielded behind the motor and directly above the exaust its a bad location.
an internal combustion engine is just that ... a controled explosion/burn and things burn more efficiently in the presence of extra oxygen... in the pic which doc posted as a good example he mentions plenum size.. and ther is a lot to be said for the plenum size as how much positve pressure exists in the system is governed in a fair part by plenum size.
I am not advocating the kit in the initial post as being a particularly good example,or a good price for that matter, but the facts as i know them on todays technology is that cold air is far more advantagous than maybe you realise in burn charateristics and efficiency..

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No longer Ms Westwoods mini outside her original kings road shop

In addition to Danidad's post above..... i have seen quite a feew examples in MiniMag/Miniworld whereby the bonnet is hinged higher at the rear.......... as in a gap between car and bonnet, i gather this would enable the hotter air to "vent" out so to speak?????

Anyone done this or maybe shed some light on the subject?

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I got nuthin......................

Fine, but I am not going to stand by and tell the guy to go ahead and buy it for $120 and for sure it's going to be a good thing.

I said what I said cause I beleive what I said might help the guy to save his $120 and spend it elsewhere. Obviously he is looking for hp gain but he doesn't look like the type that wants to spend $120 on an "experimental" setup.

I think the way my Dellorto is set up now with the air intake coming directly from within the engine bay works fine. The hot hair blowing over the engine and into the carb is negligeable on HP loss to say the least. The fact that the intake manifold sits very close to the exhaust manifold maybe defeats the purpose of cold air intake?? I dunno?

Now lets talk in relative terms, if your engine was producing 120bhp at the flywheel then perhaps an ingenius cold air intake system may give you that slight 1-3hp increase, but on a near stock or mildy worked engine producing sub 80bhp outputs I doubt this will be any noticeable gain at all? I am speaking on a totally hyperthetical basis here...

I'll go back into my corner now...

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Lillee - 1969 Morris Mini K

OK so you can't get a Dyno reading that means anything from a cold air intake cause the air is stationary but if you ram air down your carby at 100km/h then I think you will get more air into your engine at a higher pressure. Add to that that the air is hopefully colder and you are getting even more air in there............

OH SH@T

I think I just thought of what the problem might be as you were saying Danidad the engine gets more air but only when the car is physically moving fast. This is not something the engine can know about and react to. So even though the engine is getting more air the carby is still set up for recieving still air so putting in air under pressure is causing it to lean out. Because the carbie has no knowledge of car speed or air volume it can't adjust the mixture to compensate for the increased air flow so it leans out.

We can't set it up for increased air flow because there are times when there will be no airflow and we don't want it to run like a dog when you are stopped at the lights. I guess you could set up the carb to run at say 50km/hr(halfway) but you might loose power above and below that.

So why does the turbos and superchargers work? Well the air they supply is based not on car speed but engine Revs the carbie doesn't know about this but engine revs are more or less dependant on throttle position and this the carbie can and does react to so therefore there is a gain in horsepower.

So the only gains you will see from a cold air intake will be from colder air but air under pressure should be avoided hence the around bit for the SUs ?

But then outside air temperature is not as stable a temperature as air under the hood so maybe having a stable temperature may be more important for carburettored engines than having more air????? I am guessing here but as Kev said cold air around the carbies can improve performance then it is there as the carbies need it not force fed.

I was confused because I had seen a lot of cold air intakes on modern engines and I know for a fact that my camry will perform better at night in cool air. BUT modern engines with EFI can measure how much fuel is being burnt or not burnt and react accordingly. As a result the EFI engines are able to take full advantage of the cold air and occasionally pressurized air they are recieving therefore better performance.

Forgive me if I just wrote gibberish
and I humbly surcumb to the superior knowledge of Vizard and Kev

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Roads need more corners
A Deluxe(CG13DE), 2 Clubbies(998 and 1275) and 2 Morris 1100Ss

i'm seeing a new mod develop here. i'm thinking you could take the Esky/drink cooler out of a Toyota Crown Royal Saloon, and build it around the carby. whack a TRD sticker on it, give it a fancy name, and watch the McDonalds carpark all gasp with praise for your invention.

What can of worms have we openned Danidad?!?

OK i am not going to say anymore on this topic. Go buy a cold air intake for your mini then! Definately worth $120!!!

[EDIT] OK i just read your whole post. Interesting... good detective work!

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Lillee - 1969 Morris Mini K

That wasn't detective work it was the garbage that came out of my head so I am afraid it has probably even less credability than before but it seemed to make sense at the time...

But thanks anyway, but I am still unsure because I am not up on how webers / dellortos / SUs work I had read that the air going past the venturis on webers causes a suction which sucks down the fuel which may mean that I am wrong (yet again) and that a weber will react to increased air flow. For the moment I am resigned to not knowing cause I don't have a weber book and I should be doing work.

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Roads need more corners
A Deluxe(CG13DE), 2 Clubbies(998 and 1275) and 2 Morris 1100Ss

Just a thought.
The vaporisation of fuel requires energy.
A colder environment offers less energy to properly vaporise the fuel.

Therefore, wouldn't a cold air induction potentially reduce the effectiveness of the vaporisation, therefore surface area of the fuel, therefore rate of burning?

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Jonathan
http://photobucket.com/albums/y64/FatMaserati/

Yes, because if you lean a carby off (ie less fuel) it won't take as much fuel in to burn. But can do engines a bit of harm running lean.

I'm not sure the cold is the problem because otherwise the ducting delivering cold around the SUs would produce the same problem I would think

To me it would seem to have more to do with pressurized air, that's the only reason I can see that you wouldn't connect the cold air intake straight up to the SU

here are some sites that explain how webers and SUs work
Weber:
http://www.teglerizer.com/dcoe/rasorcom.htm
SUs
http://www.zparts.com/zptech/articles/mal_land/ml_sucarb2/images4/SUcarb_111601b.htm

and I still don't know

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Roads need more corners
A Deluxe(CG13DE), 2 Clubbies(998 and 1275) and 2 Morris 1100Ss

Some good discussion here, but getting "cold air induction" and "ram air" all mixed up. For the record, the set up on my car is "cold air induction", the air is NOT pressurised, or is not intended to be. Just picks up cooler air from the front of the car. The box around the carb is to isolate the carb as much as possible from the under bonnet temperatures.

Does it work? I had the engine set up on the dyno, mixture and timing set, made good power. The very first run I had after the dyno, I felt the car wasn't pulling as well as it had been/or could. I went to the next size up in main jet, and bingo, back to where it felt right. I've maintained that bigger main jet size since then, runs fine.

This is just my experience, not meant to be the gospel, but a cooler charge does work. There are many different ways to getting there.

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Steve

A word of warning about cold air ducts from the front of the car might be wise here. If building one do not run it to low. If the car is run through deep water and the air intake picks up a lot of water it could finish up getting into the carby. This is most probably only a real problem if the duct is run straight into the air filter, but be warned, it has happened and motors don't like a lot of water.

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Chris

Everything I like is either
illegal, immoral or fattening.

now that reminds me... in the year the Jags came to bathhurst wasnt there 3 of them and didnt they come first second and DNF????? im thinking the DNF got a broken headlight and glass got up the cold air intake (which was located beside the headlamp)..
is this a good recallection, or altziemers...

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No longer Ms Westwoods mini outside her original kings road shop