Rotaryman13b

Man, I just got the craziest but maybe valid idea. I was wondering, you know all those front mount Air intakes that you see ricers putting on their civics to make it look as if they have an intercooler? Sure its pretty gay but I just had a thought. With all the plathora of threads we have been having about cone filters and intakes and such and so on. I come to the conclusion that it don't make much of a diff about air flow. that it isn't a question about shape but surface area, right? So technically wouldn't one of those intakes work as well as a cone filter if not better?

So in my some what non soberous state of mind I ask you all this. When you convert your car to use a FMIC, what do you do with the space where the TMIC was? I'm thinking take one of those Front mount air filters and slap it right up there so it can catch the air that the TMIC once drew from the scoop on the hood!

you'd be getting ram air so you'd be guaranteed cold air.



If youre not sure what air filter I am talking about here's a url for one

http://www.ppsonline.net/underhoodFrontMount.htm



What do you think? Is it a valid Idea or just drunken babble.



El Gregorio (aka Greg)

Baldy

from what I've read, more airflow comes in the engine bay through the front than the "scoop"

JerryLH3

I assume you're talking about an N/A with a TII hood? How are you going to plumb it to meet back up with the throttle body? It's just going to have to hit a dead wall, and the engine just ends up sucking the air in anyway. If you're talking turbo, they already have "ram air." It's called a turbocharger.



True "Ram-Air" systems are seen moslty in use on V type engines with RWD. Air comes in and has a pretty straight shot to the combustion chamber. A rotary's intake just has way to many bends.

rmaiersg

He's talking about a TII when he said "When you convert your car to use a FMIC." I had the exact same idea a while back. I would have sealed it off so it just got the air from scoop. People said it will not work or not well at least b/c the air exits the scoop. But I have been thinking about it again lately.



If you had the intake sealed off wouldn't it suck air through the scoop anyways? Since it's turbo you don't really need every bit of good flow. The turbo and a good IC can make up for that, correct? Would that different flow have any effect on the aerodynamics of the vehicle?

Nemesis

The scoop doesn't ram air, it's an exit on our cars. You would be better off trying to place the filter up near the cowl and lifting the back of the hood slightly, for a cowl induction effect. I doubt the work is worth the reward.

Rotaryman13b

rmaiersq, that is what I was thinking, if one were to have an airbox that sealed off wit hthe hood, much like how the TMIC does, the vaccuum created from the turbo would be sufficient enough to suck air through the scoop. I am sure this is a great deal of airflow rummaging around in the engine bay, but my concern is that most of that air has been saturated by the radiant heat of the motor and turbo. So what do we do to defend agains that heat? put a heat shield around the intake, blocking off airflow from most of the engine bay. Besides that look what the air has to go through before it enters the engine bay, (in the case u have an FMIC) the FMIC, Oil Cooler, Radiator. Or it snakes its way around headlight assembly. It could creep up through from under the car, but like I said earlier, it would get saturated with heat. Basically I am just trying to figure a way that the intake can have it's own source of fresh cool air, uninterrupted by obsticles or shared with other components. It may or may not work, hell I don't even know if there is gonna be enough room for the piping involved when you have all that piping for the FMIC. I'd do it to test the Idea, but it would require me to buy the intake, a FMIC kit, and a Aftermarket EFI comp to rid us of the AFM. Unfortunately I do not make that kind of money to spen so frivorously.



another moment of thoughtless blabber, brought to you by:



Greg

Rotaryman13b

So your saying it pulls air from the engine bay through the intercooler and out the scoop?? Not that I am questioning you or anything like that, what do I know. But it just doesn't seem to make sense to pull air that is already from a heated source through the intercooler and out to a cool source of air. Hmm I am gonna have to do some digging on this one, where was it you read or heard about this, I'd kinda like to find out more!



Greg

Baldy

if you can't put the intake up front, pipe it down by the brake cooling duct...I've seen it done somewhere on here, and it seemed like it would work well

Rotaryman13b

this was another option I was thinking about, and after reading my book on race car aerodynamics, its probably a better solution than the bringing air from where the TMIC is. Now according to this book, the scoop design used by mazda does infact bring air in, not as an exit, if it was an exit, it should be facing the other way. The two problems with the with the scoop are, its in a low pressure zone in the rx-7's aerodynamic flow profile, and second its too close to the surface so at Highspeeds (speeds higher than what the normal person would put on a car) the boundry layer gets so thick around the surface of the car that most air will bypass the scoop. only way to make it work is to bring the scoop higher than the boundry layer, like you see on Funny car dragsters, not the aesthetically pleasing ordiment we want on our car.



But rmaiersq was right about placing an intake by the cowling where the hood meets the windshield, cause that is a place of high pressure, But like he said the work ain't worth the reward. Since the other two spots of high pressure of the second gen rx-7's aerodynamic profile is the lower nose region and the other is the tail where your spoiler is. The only obvious choice is the nose. My only concern is how dependant is the brake system to those vents. I've seen a lot of pics where people place fog lights and so forth that block the air flow, I was just wondering how it will effect brake efficiency should one reroute the duct to bring air to the intake.



Damn that boundry layer and low pressure zones for ruining my drunken Idea.



Oh well



Greg

MazdaEnthused

thats funny i was just thinking that my self.. if i ran a FMIC then that would rid the scoop of anything to do so i thought itd be cool if could make some kinda box just like the inter cooler that could draw air from the scoop and even if it didn't work any better then the stock filter it would still be a cool idea