> With the filter on top of the throttle body, you're pulling in hot > air from inside the engine compartment. As a rule of thumb, > for every 10 degrees cooler the air coming in is, you get 1 HP.
Everything you've said this far is absolutely true. > The Hot-Shot intake puts the filter in the front where there's > cooler air Believe it or not, it isn't that much cooler at all. Perhaps with some ducting, it could be, but just the intake sitting there is not. In fact, what's even worse is that when underhood temps warm up, the area in front of the battery *does not cool off* once you're moving again! How do I know? I have an OBD-II scanner and software for my Palm (http://www.ghg.net/dharrison) that, among other things, allows me to actively monitor the intake air temp, using the same sensor the PCM uses to calculate the mixture and all that. I had a chrome Powerstack, which I recently sold. On a 45 degree morning this past winter, I drove to work while keeping an eye on the temp. As long as I kept moving after the engine warmed up, it hovered around the 50s. Once I stopped at a light, the temp shot up into the 90s - to be expected. Unfortunately, once I got moving again, the temp stayed in the 90s all the rest of the way to work. In contrast, I performed the same test with the stock intake, and though the temp rose while stopped, it went right back down again once I was moving again. Yesterday, I popped the air temp sensor into the K&N I currently have clamped right to my throttle body, and again monitored temps as I drove. This time, the outside temp was around 70, and underhood temps stabilized around 90. (No way I'm going to get 50s under the hood in these conditions!) When I stopped, they went into the low 110s. When I got moving again, they dropped right back down to the low 90s where they were before. This was simply a baseline run, before making any efforts to fabricate a heat shield and/or induce some cowl induction, but it appears that I may already have some cowl induction going. I need to experiment some more. What I really need to do is back-to-back runs, on the same route, same stop times, etc. - one with a Powerstack, and one with my shorty intake, for direct comparison. > while the ceramic helps to shield a lot of the heat. Not really. It's a nice theory, and one we hear very commonly, but the engine is sucking in air so quickly that it moves through the intake almost instantly, and won't heat up whether the tube's made of ceramic, metal, plastic, unobtanium... > And on that note, if the engine doesn't know the true temp of the > air coming in, it's not going to perform as well. If you fool the computer, > find a way to reprogram it. If it's not done right, why should it work? I agree. Saturns naturally run a little too rich anyway. If you fool the PCM into thinking it has cooler, denser air to work with, it would add *more* gas to the mixture. This won't help if you're already running rich. I also make sure the sensor is actually in the intake so that I can get accurate readings on the OBD-II scanner. :) - Justin Visit SPOC National at http://www.spocnational.org Don't forget to update your Profile in the Owners Database. To unsubscribe from the list at any time, send an e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with any subject, and in the message text, "Unsubscribe spoc".
