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I've been reading several threads mentioning providing more fresh air to the Airaid CAI. That idea interests me a great deal. I can't help but worry about water in rainy driving. How much of a problem is moisture in the air stream? Any ideas for minimizing or is it a non issue in the real world of a DD?

 

 

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You don't want to get water past filter. While our engines have turbos and there is a very long path from CAI to cylinders, if water gets injested and into the engine, you get hydrolock conditions... IE... bent rods, damaged pistons etc. Guy with a G8 added an OTR (Over the Radiator) intake and the filter was loose. He drove in rain for a couple hundred miles and then parked car. When he started it the next day it made some really funny sounds and started missing... water had gotten by air filter and when he started the car, it got into one or more cylinders and bent lots of parts. And that was just from starting the car. Never left PARK. New engine was $$$$... NO WARRANTY...even though car only had a few thousand miles on it at the time.

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Many guys have ran open cold air kits for years in all conditions without issue (including me). That said I remember a post on one of the Mustang boards a few years ago where a guy had hit a puddle under boost and sucked a bunch of water in.... Dont want that!

 

I cut a part out of my drivers side Airaid housing. I can hear the thing suck when I hit the gas, but not when I baby it. I believe it will be fine even in wet conditions. I am not going to push it though... If it is wet out with puddles I will baby it to stay on the safe side.

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So does the filter material resist penetration by water? I'm using the oiled filter.

I noticed that the OE air box had a U shaped path from high intake to the bottom of the box and then back up through the filter. I can theorize that with that path, gravity would tend to separate water from the air flow. I wonder if it's worth trying to come up with something like that.

 

 

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So does the filter material resist penetration by water? I'm using the oiled filter.

I noticed that the OE air box had a U shaped path from high intake to the bottom of the box and then back up through the filter. I can theorize that with that path, gravity would tend to separate water from the air flow. I wonder if it's worth trying to come up with something like that.

 

 

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I believe you can get a waterproof pre-filter to go over the filter...

 

Speaking of the stock air box... Not only does it separate the water, look at all the other crap in the bottom of ours! This is after 20,000 miles and we do NOT live on a dirt road!

 

airbox.jpg

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That was my paranoid alter ego discussing water issues...in above post. On both my G8's my RotoFab box has a funnel like protrusion that goes downward towards the drivers side fog light. There is a slot in the front under-pan that is designed by Holden to let air in. Many of us, have opened this up, and modified that flap downward to help scoop air upwards towards the air box inlet. I also have sealed the area off from the radiator to keep unnecessary heat away. Since the funnel opening stops at least 10 inches from this hole, it would be very hard for massive amounts of water to go upward, but I suppose if I were driving thru standing water, it might be possible. But since the "J'Tube" at the filter is lower than the intake, the engine would have to suck water upwards 18", and about 3 ft horizontally. Possible??? but not likely....

 

On my Flex.. I have no filter box. Round filter points to fender. I do have a curved plastic panel that keeps some engine heat away from filter. Filter has several inches or more of clearance in all directions. Lots of ways for relatively cool air to get to it. My Dashhawk IAT temp readings show this system to be about 10 deg cooler in normal driving conditions, than the AirAid (oiled filter) I also have. I have not tested with stock airbox and filter, so that combo may be even hotter. However, since I haven't done any comparison testing at the strip, I have no idea on performance differences, if any.

 

The instance my paranoid other personality talked about, occurred because the water, once past the filter ran downhill to the Throttle Body and into the engine.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Now that I finally have the MYCAL up and running I notice that with the Airaid at highway speeds IAT is almost the same as ambient. At a stop or in city stop and go, the temp can easily get much warmer than ambient. I'm thinking of setting up a calculator to display the increase/difference between ambient and IAT,and monitor that instead of the IAT. Then it should be easy to tell if I'm helping or hurting when I alter the CAI.

 

 

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The big advantage with the design of the "cold air" inlet on the OE front support is the fact that there's the weather stripping right in front of that opening. It's on the hood. That just draws the cooler air that is right in front and is in no way a "ram air". Also, the underbody tray that we have helps drastically with keeping water/dirt out of the engine bay. Vehicles that have problems with water ingestion are cars with either a true ram air or the intake setups that locate the filter low in the engine bay without any sort of protection. The box I am making is open to the front and driver's side. I'll get a picture today as I have to rip it apart again to measure a couple things I forgot about yesterday.

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Yesterday I pulled off the black "filler" panel that provides the contact area for the hood gasket and I was surprised and kind of pleased to see that there is a slightly more generous pathway to the area behind the grill. I think that might explain why my manifold air temp has been right at ambient as long as I have at least modest road speed. Whole other story at idle. Intake air starts to climb right away and gets to 35 to 40 degrees above ambient. Im thinking this is due to air box drawing a high % from engine compartment air at idle. I wonder if sealing the air box top would help prevent that. Of course how important cool air is at idle is an interesting question on it's own. So far my observations have been limited to an ambient of 50 to 60 degrees. I imagine that a change in ambient would have an impact on heat soak but I have no idea as yet what it might be.

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

I did some testing on my truck, and had the same issue regarding the heat soak during idle conditions. I noticed cooler temps at speed. But I can see having the air raid heat soaking waiting in the staging lanes. I am not familiar with the way the SHO ECM works but I kno that on the LS based ECMs it will pull timing from 95*F and higher. I ended up going back to the stock airbox with K&N and the MIT.

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I don't seem to acquire so much heat soak anymore now that I have my functional 2013 Mustang GT engine hood vents cut in (retro-fitted) & installed into my SHO hood.

 

Plus I love the whooshing noise it now makes too!

 

Super cool stuff :thumb:

 

Mike :yo:

 

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