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Intake air temps?


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I think tom is on to something with the IAT sensor. Over the past few days I decided to try a few things to reduce IAT's by wrapping the intake in all kinds of fun stuff. I went to my local speed shop and I picked up some engine bay heat shield material. Aluminum and open fiberglass, this did noting but get heat soaked and retain the heat lol. The next was some of the shinny aluminum foil type tape. This was a marginal improvement as best. My last stop was steam pipe insulation, with a reflective outer layer! I thought this has to work. Although it looked like hell but I wanted to see if this was possible. Again gains were marginal, what the hell? IAT's were a bit cooler but after being parked for a bit IAT's begun to climb pretty bad. Then on the way back to my house I noticed something weird, the temperature would drop under higher RPMs. Ok that's weird. If the air being sucked into the intake was hot from the engine bay then more hot air wouldn't amount to any difference (I also noticed this with the stock air box). When I got I did some checking under the hood, The intake filter was cool the plastic pipe immediately after the CAI was cool and the exterior of the insulated CAI was warm WTF?? Why are the temps still warm. At this point I was really frustrated and I started to cut off the insulation around the CAI and guess what it was also cool. However when I grabbed the end of the IAT sensor to unplug it to remove the remaining insulation it was (wait for it) WARM! It's proximity to the engine I am guessing was causing it to be really warm, this would explain how the IAT would drop when the engine speed was faster. The additional air was needed to cool the freaking IAT sensor. See pic for illustration on the IAT sensor location for the K&N (similar for the OEM air box). I am wondering if the Airaid suffers the same issue? I am going to see if I can sheild the sensor from the engine heat to see if does the trick. I am really interested in the U build it kit from Airaid, if the sensor can be relocated to a spot further away from the engine. Let me know when you guys think.

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You can put the IATs anywhere. Im going make another tube and put it closer on top a inch from the intake pipe reducer and make a Iat shield like the oem box has.That aluminum iat housing on the K&N is... BAD!! Plus The K&N filter sucks in more heat too..Its almost running without a filter imo..hold it up to a light and see all the pin holes,,and that's another resean why these K&N kits are louder/sucking in dirt/dust ect. When I put the S&B on It's not as loud but still sounds great and knowing I will have a cleaner breathing engine..

 

 

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I did some testing with my airaid this weekend. I first insulated the box with sticky foam sheets backed with a reflective aluminum layer. I had a 3" hole that I plugged for this test. Drove the car and then parked and started timing every 60 seconds. Ambient was 66 degrees and after a minute the reading was 76...after two minutes 86 degrees. Went shopping and when I came out the car was heat soaked at 100+ degrees. I started driving and noted that temps seemed to drop off quickly back to ambient once I was moving at highway speeds. Next up was cutting out the 3" hole and repeating the test. I basically saw IAT's about 10 degrees higher at lower speeds and idle then I had with the completely closed box. Getting back up to speed cooled it back down to ambient but it took longer to get back down to that level. After that I added a 3" snorkel (unfortunately non-insulated aluminum flex tube) to the 3" hole and pointed it down to the fenderwell. It still ran a little warmer but it did cool back down much quicker when accelerating. I agree that the problem may very well be the IAT sensor location itself. It can't be good to have that thing sitting in tube (even the plastic airaid one). May try insulating that and see if it helps...

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You can put the IATs anywhere. Im going make another tube and put it closer on top a inch from the intake pipe reducer and make a Iat shield like the oem box has.That aluminum iat housing on the K&N is... BAD!! Plus The K&N filter sucks in more heat too..Its almost running without a filter imo..hold it up to a light and see all the pin holes,,and that's another resean why these K&N kits are louder/sucking in dirt/dust ect. When I put the S&B on It's not as loud but still sounds great and knowing I will have a cleaner breathing engine..

 

 

Hey Tom, how did you mount the IAT sensor?
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http://www.streetperformance.com/par...8730-8711.html

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/sp...s/?prefilter=1

http://www.autozone.com/autozone/acc...questid=648969

Just cut pipe to size and pop in IATs very carefully..screw in slowly.I used a lillte bit of dish soap/water.and don't force it in..take your time...All I really did was upgrade the K&N kit with UBI tube/S&B filter. im Goin to make another tube by putting IATs further away from engine heat/fan wash.

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Thanks Tom, I have ordered that filter. So after spending a few days messing around with insulating my intake in an attempt to lower IAT's I can tell you that in most cases it makes things worse. Foil tape, no effect, header wrap works great if once you get a bit of heat soak you want to keep it warm lol. Foam pipe wrap same as the header wrap. It seems that most of the items we can use to insulate the CAI works ok until you get heat soak. Then it takes 3 times as long for the IAT to return to normal. Sucks eh? This is for the stock air box also. I have one more thing up my sleeve that I am going to try tomorrow. I have some high temp duct insulation that just may work. This is my last attempt at stabilizing the IAT's.

I did some data logging with FORScan (awesome btw). I can tell you that it seems that IAT effects the air charge temp in proportion. I have attached a screen shot of the data. Let me know what you guys think.

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You can put the IATs anywhere. Im going make another tube and put it closer on top a inch from the intake pipe reducer and make a Iat shield like the oem box has.That aluminum iat housing on the K&N is... BAD!! Plus The K&N filter sucks in more heat too..Its almost running without a filter imo..hold it up to a light and see all the pin holes,,and that's another resean why these K&N kits are louder/sucking in dirt/dust ect. When I put the S&B on It's not as loud but still sounds great and knowing I will have a cleaner breathing engine..

 

 

Is the whole aluminum setup bad or just the housing?
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