Just a heads up I scored some reflective blanket like stuff at advanced auto to wrap my alta intakes metal box. The brand was DEI and was i nthe isle where they have the header wrap, oil gauges, and crome 710 caps. It cost $32 dollars but was a perfect fit in length and width I only had to cut a slit for where the battery cable clips the side and a hole for where the intake tube goes. Its not like header wrap so it cant be placed directly on anything over 300 deg but its ment to reflect heat so who knows if it helped. I do try to keep that area sealed. I even removed the snorkle before this and sealed the hole cause i get enuff air from the rear vent and dont need another tube thats getting heated to draw air from. As a bonus this creates a nice path for air to hit the horn so mabye that helps a bit too. Oh and a spraypaint cap and insulating foam works perfect to plug the hole.

 

Maybe a credited engineer can chime in here, but I don't think that you want to do that.

By using that stuff, you'd be effectively trapping the heat INSIDE the intake. You want the stainless steel to have some room for heat transfer.

This is the same reasoning why you dont use exhaust wrap on your intake pipes.

 

Well, this has been gone over quite a bit. With the Alta SS box, the heat transfer will be from hotter to colder, which means into the airbox. The air inside the airbox is NEVER warmer than the air in the engine bay (well, except for sometimes I see it warmer after sitting overnight and the sealed air in the airbox is a couple of degrees warmer than that in the engine bay).
The reflective heat shield will repulse heat transfer, but it's not a big effect. Under normal operating conditions, which means moving down the road, the amount of air being ingested by the engine is quite massive (Dr Obnxs reports 400cfm at redline). Even at 3000 rpm, there's a lot of air being sucked into the SC, and little of it is being warmed up by the sides of the airbox. That said, I have a double-walled airbox and reflective insulation on the outside of the outer wall. Still, it's more effective in stop start traffic and for recovery rather than pure cooling of the air intake.
btw, any check of just about any intake thread will reveal my qualifications for making these comments.

cheers,

 

I notice no diffrence either way. The reflective material is one sided with a rough cloth material on the inside. Its kinda like the fabric on a header wrap without that fiberglas like stuff in it. I the packaging sugests its made to protect things like a starter from heat. Also like Dr. P suggests and since im almost sealed except for that rear vent area at speed fresh air will always be comming in.

I guess my point was to try and assist in maintaining the lowest temp possible during a light.

 

I too have wrapped the outside of my air box - best case scenario in my opinion is heat absorption delay. If there is an advantage it would be for daily street.

I question eliminating the stock air feed to the CAI box. The reason to open access to the back is to increase air access, thereby eliminating the sucking thru straw effect. I cannot image any gain or advantage for doing so. Once the car is at speed, I would think that the air from the stock feed is as cold as air coming from the back.

 

I just visualized the width of my alta tube and looked at that rear vent kinda eyballing and realizing that it wasnt a bottleneck and dumped the snorkel and plugged it. I could see how it would act as a creator of high pressure if i had a panel filter in there. but i see no benifiet to it staying nor do i feel a diff. Just another intake part close to the horn to heat up at a light.