If it was a dedicated track car, I'd want the shortest/coldest path of air possible and I think GerryK's headlight cut out would be appropriate. Plus, air pressure is going to be greatest right at the front of the car which would force more air in.

An AEM has a much longer tube which would affect throttle response, I'd think. But I'm not an expert so I digress.

 

The whole ram air thing is BS. My intake has the largest scoop of any intake, and actually blocks half the opening in the bumper. It doesn't matter whenther I am going 30 MPH or 100 MPH, it doesn't build any sort of positive pressure in the manifold at all according to my datalogs. When it cools down, I plan to cut my intake scoop much smaller, since it blocks too much of the rediator IMO.

 

Doesn't this look like it would generate some "ram air" effect? It doesn't ...

 

Isn't ram air kind of nonsense anyway? Because the rate at which your engine "sucks" in air on a NA motor is much greater than how much pressure is passing over areas of your vehicle where the "scoop" would be anyway? I would think ram air would only beneficial when trying to obtain optimal air pressure over a radiator, intercooler, oil/tranny cooler, etc.

I would suggest that the best scenario is locating the area of the vehicle that would attract the coolest ambient temps.

But like PilotSi, I'm not an expert either

 

The thing is that there is not more than 5 degrees difference from the air that is 1 foot above the ground in comparison to 2 feet above the ground. Even if there is, that 5 degrees difference in temp isn't going to make more than 1 HP difference in power. However, the difference in harmonics will easily make more than 1 HP difference, and could make 10 hp difference if you get it "right".

 

Ram air can be effective if you actually build positive pressure in your manifold, which would mean that the pressure coming in has to be greater than the rate at which the engine is sucking in that air.

Having said that, your scoop doesn't look very effective because of all those bends and paths...it might scoop in a lot of air, but it has to actually have enough velocity to maintain 'positive' pressure from the point of entry all the way to the intake manifold - that's where I'd think you'd have the highest gains *along with* proper harmonics tuning of your intake system.

Having said that, I still think GerryK's best choice is a short-ram for best response b/c most of us can't tune anything like that. I'll tell you what though, looking at your picture Gernby, if you could get a custom radiator that's smaller in length, and fit an intake that just goes straight through...you'd have a pretty effective 'ram air' intake system. I'd only do this on a race car tho. Just sayin', lol.

 

Are you stil using your AEM V2? If not, would you let me borrow it for a weekend? I'd like to datalog it to see how it compares to the other intakes I've tried.