Hi everyone. I'm brand spankin' new! I purchased an 06 Limited a month ago and am wanting to mod the intake a little. Since the stock intake already seems to be a "CAI" (more so than hanging a set of air cleaners aft of the radiator anyway...) I was thinking of buying a set of devils' horns from Needswings. The stock inlets seem small and partially obstructed by the frame and the horns might offer a slightly more "forced" induction. My question is, where can I obtain a set of connecting tubes? The ad for the horns mentions that most customers are supplying their own.

I've searched the forum and wasn't able to find anything specific and would be grateful for any help. Aluminum would be great. Blue anodized aluminum is probably too much to hope for...

 

Just ask Rob at Needswings to give you a price on supplying those as well. Then you have the option of coating them i.e. powder coating, teflon coating, ect..

 

Thanks very much for the help!

 

Save your money and buy something that works. These horns may help rain water go into the the intake but not air.
http://www.paladinmicro.com/documents/RamAirMyth.pdf

 

"... Ram air is a myth because it does not exist, for the following reasons:
- Air is incompressible at any automobile speed (I.e. speeds less than Mach 0.3).
meaning that the kinetic energy of the air cannot be used to compress the air and
raise the static pressure.
- The “ram air” nozzles commonly employed on automobiles tend to be the wrong
shape. A divergent nozzle is required for ram air. Straight-profile scoops cannot
provide a ram air effect.
Select one of the two types of intakes, warm air, or cold air. Beyond that its just about
looks."

Damn. That is a sucker punch to the gonads. But I do appreciate the information. I think you just saved me some money and headaches.

I may still put a "ram air" badge on the fender, tho...

 

I bought the TVT tubes, but opted NOT to get the devils horns. For $110, I'll pass. My father said the same thing about those horns... that they're a huge waste of money. I argued with him for about an hour until I was convinced that he had a valid point. There were two things I argued. I said that by getting the horns lined up behind the open grill you A) get colder air and B) get the advantage of the air pressing into the tube better. He said the difference was so negligible that he wouldn't even pay $10 for them.

Just saying what I ended up doing.

 

Here's how I see it:

I could choose to listen to physics nerds as they give me 110 text-book reasons NOT to buy them, and leave my car stock so that it is forced to breathe through two 1" oval openings.

OR

I could follow the lead of the men and women that own the fastest cars on this forum.

All of them have switched to bigger intakes. Most of them have intakes routed outside the engine bay. Many additionally have the intakes routed as far forward as possible.

Instead of the arm-chair physicists giving me hypothetical numbers from airplances, textbooks, etc... we need to figure out how many CFM the intake sucks in at ~2,000 RPM, 4,000 RPM and redline.

We then need to calculate the CFM and circumference together to approximate a figure for the velocity of the air traveling through the tube.

Once we've figured out the rate of the air exiting the back of the "scoop" we can then figure out how much more beneficial it would be if there was a constant supply of fresh, cool air buffeting the front of the scoop. At ALL rpms.

The people always crowing about mods being useless are the same people that DON'T mod their cars for performance. So, in essence, performance mods WOULD be useless because those types of mods necessitate performance drivers. Yep, I said it.

If saving every penny in the name of practicality was the name of the game, none of us should own this car. A Honda can get us to work.

But, in a car with $100 oil-changes and caviar-taste when it comes to service, a ~$110 intake mod shouldn't break your bank or your conscience.

The devil-horns are on my short-list of things to buy. Why? Because I want my car to be drawing cool, clean air from as far in front of the smoldering-hot engine as possible. They smoothe the air flow out, and move the intake point out to the coolest area possible, gulping all the air they can jettison out the back.

The alternative is a squished, oblong opening flanking each side of a 180-degree radiator.

Call me crazy, but that's an effective mod. Regardless of what the Canadian research says.

 

I see a number of holes in your argument, but it doesn't matter... you think you need them and you're entitled to an opinion. If it makes you all warm and fuzzy to think you are getting an added benefit, then more power to you. Seriously. I wanted so badly to think the same thing. I would be the first in line to buy some if there were something more substantial than just "I have a hunch that it works". I think erring on the side of saving yourself some hard earned money is more warranted than slapping those things on and betting on pseudo physics being right.

And I definitely don't buy the "oh an oil change is $100 so why not spend money on the tubes" argument. With all due respect, that sir is just plain stupid.

Synikol, may I ask why you didn't go with a needswings intake setup? If you're looking for horsepower, put that 110 toward a NW intake. If you're looking to keep the stock look, then perhaps this is your only option. It depends on what you want and if the cost/benefit is acceptable to you.

 

CAI's are in front of the rad as is the stock one and no one has gone farther forward than the rear of the grille.

Max volume is 1.6 Litres per rev. or 1,600 Liters/min at 1,000rpm.

At 1,000 rpm the air will travel at 18.8 mph through a 2.5" diameter inlet.

We do not want any buffeting, we want a smooth flow of air.

I never said mods were useless, each to their own. But why waste money on mods that have little or no benefit. You are correct, I do not race around these days.
They do nothing in this regard, the air will just bounce of them and continue through the rad. All the air around the horn is going through the rad and to think that an open path will be made at some angle through this is pure wishful thinking.

If the air has not gone through the rad it will not be hot.

It's not an effective mod and OK, you're crazy.

Check my figures, the Institute is closed at this time and there is no one to check them here except the cat and he said they were purrfect. Of course they are calculated with no losses and apply in the perfect world which may exist somewhere.
I can see no scoops on F1 cars, just a hole. This hole opens up inside to slow down the air and increase the pressure(? beats me) and is far more complex than we can figure out on our fingers and toes.

 

I'd be happy to buy the original air intake hose assemblies you take off! I'm a newbie also and am trying to get everything fixed on my '05 LE Roadster before I post pics. I'm missing the tubes from the front to the air cleaner! These are very hard to find

 

Perhaps you could post a WTB thread in the classified section. Lot's of members who purchased aftermarket intakes and may part with theirs..

 

If this were the ONLY modification you make I doubt you'll see anything noticable, performance wise, in every day driving. If you do other mod's that benefit from modifying the intake it's a needed modification to get the most out of those modifications. Engine performance depends, to an extent, on the velocity in the intake so length, shape and size all play a role in the design of the intake runners.

DeLornut

 

Seeing as the Needswings Devil Horns won't even mate up to the stock intake tubes, I think it goes without saying that any members utilizing the NDH system would have an aftermarket style intake.

180's point of "buffeting" is moot because the screen over the MAF serves to smooth out the airflow via laminar effect. Think kitchen sink; without screen, water gushes out. With screen inside nozzle, the water comes out smoothly at ANY flow rate.

The scoops were designed to be used in conjunction with a system with filters further down the line. They cannot be used with a normal Needswings intake for street duty, or you risk FOD.

However, I'm running a much bigger airbox than stock, with K&N panel filters and 3" intake tubes running through the radiator core. Max Cichon and BoilerUpXfire are also running intakes that would be able to utilize the NDH system.

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the Canadian's assertions that the engines don't benefit from forward-facing scoops.

To wit, I think we'd all agree that "ram air" has zero compressing benefits.

MY assertion, to clarify, is simply that the scoops yield a true, unadulterated, unobstructed clear path to fresh cool air. Yes, an opening that flanks the radiator can inhale air that is cooler than the air right beside the block. We get that. But I think it also stands to reason that ANY decrease in IATs is beneficial. Cooler air is most-certainly denser air.

At any rate, I think the only way to really lay this whole debate in the shade is to do real world tests; not ASSumptions from people who have no physics degrees. Until the people debating me present their PhD in physics, their opinion is worth exactly as much as mine. Math can make any statement true, but 100 degree weather and horrid humidity will make you actually start considering modifications that promote cooler breathing, not simply club the concepts with desktop mathematics before the first wrench is even turned.

Max has already obtained the figures for the stock intake's IATs @ 75 mph. Once the weather gets back into a reasonable temp range (i.e, LESS than 95 every day) I would love to test the IATs of a modded airbox under two conditions:

Intake tubes only; tubes will rest at either side of radiator, with no smooth path for direct frontal airflow to reach the tubes and remainder of intake.

Intake tubes and NDH system; scoops will be placed immediately behind the grill opening, forming a smooth channel directly to the intake tubes with no obstructions and shielding the IATs from radiator ambient heat.

In the end, the lowest IATs will reveal which intake system is most effective. We shall see.

Until the test results, all of the amateur, uncertified, self-proclaimed physicists in the world won't sway my agreement with the design.

 

Did you just refer to me as a "Physics Nerd"? Really?

So where did this "We" come from? As in: "we need to figure out how many CFM the..."

Sounds to me like you need a: PHYSICS NERD

Just yankin' yer chain, bud!

 

Nope. I was referencing 180... haha.

You, my friend, actually DO test your mods. So, my post was actually putting you up on a pedestal, to put it bluntly. LOL

And we = forum

 

Well, after reading this last, very well thought-out post-I must agree. To a point. Extending the intake tubes to a plane even with the grill face (or even farther) would be beneficial in that you have optimized the location for drawing the coolest air available. But you could actually do this anywhere hot air, escaping the engine compartment couldn't reach.
Under the headlight assemblies, for instance. Don't roll your eyes at me! Most contemporary really high-HP and CID muscle cars do not use forward-facing scoops. The have an insulated airbox inside the engine compartment with a high-flow tube routed either to the grill area (no straight line-of-sight here!) or into a body cavity (!) with no hot air.
Of course, if the car is actually moving forward I have a hard time seeing this as an issue. Any visible scoops on newer cars is only to provide a source of unobstructed and cool air.

And it might look cool too. A styling cue.

But back to your point, J, the concept of the devil horns is valid, IMHO, only as an extention tube. Not as a funnel, scoop or ram.

And then there is the price. I'm not a skinflint, but YIKES!

But it's only the opinion of a physics nerd.

 

Good points.

And I agree, it's not dirt-cheap, per se... but it's cheaper than the R&D I would have to employ to find cooler areas. I'd be out the materials, bloody knuckles, time, and possible hacked-up areas underhood. And to me, even an insulated "box" would still be a bit warmer than a direct shot to cool air. We all know how great of a job our hoods do at venting the warm air our of the engine bay...

And yes, scoops look amazing too. Fake ***** don't perform work any better than real ones, but they sure do beat the gravitationally-challenged alternative.

And they cost $8,000, yet many marriages justify them. Hehe

 

[quote=JHM2K]

180's point of "buffeting" is moot because the screen over the MAF serves to smooth out the airflow via laminar effect. Think kitchen sink; without screen, water gushes out. With screen inside nozzle, the water comes out smoothly at ANY flow rate./quote]
Buffeting in front of any intake hinders ingestion of the air, that's pretty obvious I think.
Thats inferring that I favour rear facing scoops. I contend that it is hard to divert a small amount of air across a large stream of air travelling at an almost 90 degree angle to it. The large stream just picks up the diverted air and carries it along with it.
If there was a low pressure at the air inlet in front of the filter then some means of getting more air to the inlet would be beneficial but there is no low pressure here.
There is a pressure drop behind the filter as the filter restricts air along with the pressure drop caused by the induction strokes.
That's why the systems employing two air intakes with the filters in front of or even behind the radiator are better than one, there is more air available behind two intake filters than one air intake. This enables the engine to ingest all that it needs.
Functionally the na engine probably does not need two of these large intakes.
I like your intake system and will eventually have it, without the horns of course.
I rest my case.
PS
I will soon have my PHD, at my age I have not got time to study so I just purchased it. It should come some time this week. I would have got two or or three but I am saving up for a Nobel prize.

 

I hear what you're sayin'. I just happen to have all of the time in the world to putz around. I live in Auburn AL. "The Prettiest little Village on the Plains". And the most boring!

You just have to realize that those "Devil Horns" are just saw-cut 45 degree elbows.

Max-Redline.com - 3" 45 Degree Bend Aluminum Pipe, 2.0mm Thick Bend, 18" Length

Max-Redline.com - 2.75" 45 Degree Bend Aluminum Pipe, 2.0mm Thick Tube, 18" Length

Of course there is the coupler and clamps too.

And I'm no boob snob either!

 

I hear what you're sayin'. I just happen to have all of the time in the world to putz around. I live in Auburn AL. "The Prettiest little Village on the Plains". And the most boring!

You just have to realize that those "Devil Horns" are just saw-cut 45 degree elbows.

Max-Redline.com - 3" 45 Degree Bend Aluminum Pipe, 2.0mm Thick Bend, 18" Length
Of course there is the coupler and clamps too.