warm/cold air intake, something thant made me think a bit. Options

[4-eyed-freek]

hey everyone! im a current student at UTI in chicago and last week my brakes teacher was lecturing on how stupid cold air intakes we and he kept calling them a warm air intakes, and he is right in a way..... BUT this week i started my basic engines class and my new teacher couldnt stress the inportance of a cai on a car because...(THIS IS WHAT HE SAID) if you think about it, your engine is running at somewhere around 212 in most cars. so the 100+ degree temp in your enigine bay that your cold air intake is taking in is actually colder than your internal engine thus meaning that the really warm air in you engine bay is actually cold air for your car.. so who is right?!?!?! i thought about this to myself and talked it over with other kids in the class and i got so many diff. answers. lets here what you guys think.

[Hanyo]

The discussion of what kind of intake system is best is like splitting hairs.

The maximum horse power increase would be 1-5 horse power.

There are two major disadvantages to a cold air intake 1) the cold air intake requires more piping therefore increase weight of the car. 2) A cold air intake routes the air through a longer path so the air must move a greater distance before entering the cylinders.


The short ram intake in the other had does in fact take in warm air. But it has several advantages 1) it shortens the path the air must travel, 2) its much lighter then the stock intake system.

With all these advantages and disadvantages which answer is right?

Well this get complicated. The final deciding factor is the cars design and the difference in engine bay temperature vs the air outside. If your car had the GT4 front end with tons of ventilation, and your car is moving around 45 mph; the air temperature under the hood is only going to be 50 degrees hotter then the air outside. It this example it just might be worth while to use a short ram intake.

Another example where a cold air intake is best would be in a ford windstar or similar set up. Where the engine bay is stuffed with engine and there is little to no ventilation. A warm air intake will be sucking in super hot air.

To add more fuel to this fire, we can then talk about engine tuning, turbos, scavenging, ram air, individual throttle bodies. Once you look into those engine set up there is no right or wrong answer about which intake system to use.