Functional Hood scoop affordable solution concept
 

I have considered the $1500 intake till I slept on it lol. I would be more interested in a system that replaces the scoop(I have a spare stock scoop laying around) and part that runs over radiator support to the stock airbox. Now the big question $$$. depends on the materials, $250-$400

While carbon fiber is sexy, it is also expensive. I would go as high as $500 for a decent closed CAI utilizing the hood scoop. I paid $800 for my ArmaSpeed because it was the best option available at the time. I refuse to take a loss on selling that and then blowing $1500 on the Eventuri. Until something reasonable and is a true CAI similar to the AEM for the 2nd Gen MCS comes along, I'll stick with what I have.

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Plastic :thumbsup: If damage occurs, it won't be costly to replace or repair.

Although not part of an intake, Mini Works in the UK offers a functional carbon fiber hood scoop for $250. Check it out

What about removing the plastic insert (mesh feature) in the hood scoop itself, it's easy, free and should let more air/water in/out of the engine bay. Any thoughts?
Looks like some plastic feature would have to be made to route the water/air away from the hood and sound cloth tho. Might not be worth the hassle.

So while I own and enjoy the expensive CF one, the functional hood scoop bit would not be hard to DIY with the stock intake. Just remove the black fake grill bit in the stock scoop. Cut 2 holes in the top of the stock plastic air snorkel that line up with the existing holes in the hood.

The CF one does change the shape a bit of the stock scoop so that it has more overhang to prevent rain from going straight in etc. and it t won't be anywhere near as pretty but most of the "cold air" part of the intake would not be hard to do with just removing/cutting stock parts.

The way everything lines up, I'd not be surprised to learn that at one point in the design phase, the scoop was actually intended to be functional from the factory.

Which raises the question of why it never made it to the final design. Ive been hearing that some people with the Eventuri intake reported subpar performance, but when covering the hood scoop, improved performance over stock. Im starting to think that BMW designed these engines to operate at a very specific temperature range. Im somewhat stumped as to why increased air flow and lower intake temps with the Eventuri intake would lead to decreased performance.

Regardless, i absolutely refuse to spend $1,500 on an intake. Been doing some testing to try and decrease intake temperatures and it seems like wrapping the down-pipe and making sure to put the heat-shield back on has helped a lot. Next thing i was going to try was buying the Forge Hard Pipe intake runner and wrapping that with some gold/silver heat reflective tape. Ive found that the stock plastic intake runner gets EXTREMELY hot and seems to be a big source of heat-soak. I can also imagine with the turbo being in the back, it doesn't get as much air flow to keep it cool. I wonder if anyone has Macgyvered one of the brake ducts to blow cool air on the turbo housing. It almost seems like you would want a functional hood scoop to be blowing cool air across the engine, instead of going into the intake. :confused:

"Cold Air" is kind or deceiving. I'm in Vegas so in the summer when it's 120F outside "Cold Air" from the scoop is still going to be much hotter then what people are seeing in other places. My car is heat soaked before I even get in it. The turbo is then going to suck in this air, compress it and thus heat it up even more. Lowering temps a bit here and there can help, but things like intercooler effiecncy will show the biggest gains I would think.

I've not done any real testing, but the one vid I did see testing the scoop taped off going slower I think had more to do with whatever aerodynamic gains were made from taping the scoop. Both the stock intake and functional scoop still draw outside air, the scoop just makes it easier to draw more outside air. Some of the more open aftermarket intakes seem to breath in more underhood air, so while a less restrictive filter is good, hotter air going into it is not.

I might also be trying to justify that I have a $1500 air filter on my car that I'm otherwise pleased with.

As for the factory scoop, if I had to guess, it was mandated to be on the car to match the look of earlier models, some attempts were made to make it functional and then it was easier/cheaper to just pull air from the front grill. The holes in the hood under the scoop are just left overs. While I don't ever really have to deal with things like rain or snow, not sure how a DIY remove grill/cut 2 holes set up would.

The $110 shipping makes it not such a good deal.