Great minds....

That's how I initially found this:
from Heatshield Products.
It's only 6x14" and not cheap but with a ceramic core you won't find much better insulation.

My take on the vented lower tray would be to seal it to the IC and side draft it.

 

Little bit-o-teaser:

No numbers yet. Too dark outside to read my ghetto-o-thermo-meter.









It's not quite the ceramic core stuff, but I'm still really curious if it will prevent as much heat soak from the sheet metal.

Insulated both sides of the CAI wall.

Hopefully will get numbers tomorrow with similiar conditions as the first test.

 

Tease

I've got some more supplies to acquire in the morning, but if I remember I'll put the stock back on for a little while.

 

Whatever works
Looking forward to the results.

 

As Motor on says, 1 thing at a time. Today is template time to isolate the IC.
When it it is finished I'll post the plans & how to..if it works like I want it to.
In the mean time as long as the local S & S will give me dry ice...

 

Keep this in mind when isolating the intercooler, the intake manifold, injectors, and vacuum lines, and fuel rail also benefits from the flow of air passing over it after exiting the intercooler (at least in a stock style design). Granted most of the heat within the intake manifold is taken away by the incoming charge air but every little bit helps. At idle there may be a benefit to the intercooler by slowing heat exposure from the engine but there will be a trade off from the increased retention of heat by those components under the isolation medium. I can envision work a around but the complexity will increase and the isolation medium would be compromised.

 

Simple is good. The tray will exit air to the rail. How much? Don't know, but it looks like I could include a fan on the IC. Just need to wait & see what shakes out.

 

I started a new thread on the IC

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ad.php?t=71261

 

Ok, I guess a lot of us were busy last night... Here's my approach...

Here are the pic descriptions...

1) My Alta CAI with the stock rear partition in place, but cut with a ~5"x~5" window to allow the CAI to breathe.

2) Beginning installation, smaller cut piece in against front wall, paper clip bent into shape and mounted over the back partition and held in place by the rubber seal material

3) Finished product. I guess the best name for it would be a CAI thermal blanket.

It looks a bit crude, but it does make a couple of noticable differences...

The material I'm using is a black corrugated closed cell padding product intended as a sleeping mat for backpackers, 2 pieces cut LARGER than proper fit so it holds itself in place and leaves plenty of room inside. One small piece to fit against the inside front metal wall, the other very large piece to fit against the inside right and left sides and the top of the Alta airbox. The closed-cell padding could be non-corrugated, too, this is just what I happened to have handy. Also needed, 1 large paper clip.

First, to be fair, I have no digital meters to use here. I should probably get one for measuring inside and outsdie temps for real comparisions...

But short of that I can say that the car pulls harder now. It really feels faster, pulls harder, feels more reponsive to the throttle... And not just a little bit. It does this when it is hot outside, and when it is cold outside, as well as when the engine is cold and when the engine is hot. It's like it's letting the pulley do its work now, like the CAI is really working for the first time.

Second, the SC is quieter now. Significantly, perhaps back in line with pre-CAI days for me. I was immediately struck at how nice my 1-ball exaust sounds, something I hadn't really noticed before because I got the CAI, 15% pulley and 1-ball exaust all at the same time. I can still hear the SC, but it is not overpowering at high RPM anymore.

Anyway, that's what's up. I think I'm out of the market for an Alta CAI top now. This is very nice.

-- VBG

 

Good thinking on the thermal sleeping mat stuff!

From looking at your pictures, I think you will probably have to clean your filter more often as it looks almost like parts of the left side and top side of the filter are pressed up against the mat. I would assume that means more air will have to be drawn in from the bottom, tip, and right sides making them dirtier faster.

 

Looks good, thik I'll go drop my stock box back in now get those #S while I gather supplies. Yeay stock box!!!!!




No that isn't going to make it anymore fun, all in the name of improve ments right?

 

HERE HERE!!!!

 

Any chance you could enlarge the hole to the cowl in the bottom of the stock box to 2.5 inches before you get your numbers? That's the way I currently have mine. Stock filter for now.

 

Thanks, Shank...

You're right, there is some contact, just against the left side of the filter, however it is minimized by the corrugated texture of the pad and the fact that the filter is round. Cleaning will be something I'll be watching for though...

My observations in using this for a few drives now are that my Alta CAI really wasn't very functional before. Your tests here and my butt-dyno observations indicate that there probably has to be at least a 20 to 40 degree (f) differential between the air and the SC for the SC to do its compression work well...

My hand temp tests against the Alta airbox and against the filter after heating the engine compartment up seem to indicate that that is really happening now.

Since temps are so important, it makes me wonder about the true effectiveness of the HAIs, as well as for that matter, the "stock" Alta CAI installations. Is everyone seeing as little effectiveness with their "stock" Alta CAI installation as I was?

I'm guessing for me to feel such a marked butt-dyno difference the new ponies must be at least 5, maybe even the estimated 7-9 that Randy indicates. It think it's letting my pully and SC do their jobs now. I accidentally chirped going into 3rd at about 55 yesterday with this mod on the CAI, I've never done that before.

-- VBG

 

Here's a thought.
Quite a while back I was playing with measuring pressure inside the Alta CAI. Had to do with the cowl pressure. There was/is a debate as to whether is was positive or negative.

While I was playing around with this I built a sleeve for my Alta filter
I also capped off the end. This was one of the old filters so it was easy.
I could restrict inlet flow easily. If I restricted it down to about 40% of the exposed surface I would notice an increase in the crispness of the throttle response along with a noticeable trail off in high end WOT response.

This was before I had any decent logging tools so it was all seat of the pants.

As I look at what you have constructed I can't help but think you may be feeling the same effect I did due to possible restriction of flow through the filter.
A simple check would be to place this foam around the outside of the box and see what happens.

 

So what you saw was that the more you covered the filter, the stronger the response?

I'm confused on that. I thought that having more filter exposed = less restriction of air to the SC = faster response.

Am I wrong?

 

why I gave up on my own subjective judgements, and just bought some logging equipement. Every time I made a change before, I was sure it was going to make a difference, or at least hoped so, and guess what? I sure felt one! Each and every time.

The smaller opening thing is wierd. May have to do with air velocity but I really have no clue.

Matt

 

I did read that thread and have wondered that myself, however there is still huge airspace inside the airbox even with the thermal blanket there and the ~5"x~5" square is still open in the rear partition.

Matt, I agree about subjective judgements. I need numbers too...

Actually I'd love to have a G-Tech Pro RR... But my account executive (wife) says it's not in this year's budget. I drool.

Is that the G-Tech you have, Matt?

Best,

-- VBG

 

but I've been eying the one that MiniCindy is pushing. One of my neighbors has it, and was showing me the software at the last Big Mini Day. It rocks!

And there's another performance meter out there (don't remember the name) that's about $100 or so less expensive than the G-Tech.

But if I do upgrade my data system, my G-Tech will end up in the Marketplace.....

Matt

 

Escort entry in the marketplace? I don't remember the model, but it didn't come with the software of the G-tech or the nice display...

G-tech Pro-RR has my eye, I still drool. Of course that could be my advanced age, too.



-- VBG

 

$100 for the cable (OBDII to USB) and any one of the numerous software programs out there (several are free), just need to sell my scanner so I can replace it with the cable.

Oh and the sock box is on, so I need to get my thermo out there and get some #s; I did realize how loud my exhaust was until I quieted the intake.

 

Just got back from a nice little test session with my insulated Helix CAI walls and my ghetto-o-thermo-meter.

Time to spew some more numbers out into the air and let them land where they will.

SETUP:
Same setup as before. Same equipment and same placement of the thermocoupler.
Only difference this time was in the outside climate. Outside temperature was 80F and mid-high humidity.

That means this test session was almost 9-11F degrees hotter. To counter for this change in the testing conditions, all of my numbers in the charts are based on the difference of the temperature inside the housing, and the temperature outside.

DATA:
First of all... the data: (side by side with the data already collected)


WHOA!
More then HALF the standard deviation AND mean in the differences of internal to external temperature on the wall!

Here's a chart to further show the wall findings, which are lookin'-a-pretty-nice.


From looking at this chart it is easy to see how the insulation prevents the side of the chamber from heating up as fast and as much when the car is at rest. But, as I expected, the difference in the two didn't matter as much at freeway speeds.


As expected, you don't really see a whole TON of change on the end of the filter, but that isn't really effected much by the wall of the CAI. Still nice to see a few degrees difference between the two tests.




Nice to know that insulating the walls makes a nice difference. Almost a 20 degree difference in the temp of air that the SC is getting when the air is drawn in from the side of the filter near the wall.

This of course leads to the question, "Can you feel the difference?"

My answer: I don't know. My butt dyno is broken since I ODed on butt-dyno-placebos. I never know anymore.

 

I guess the first conclusions is that if you drag, insulation is a must. If you road race, I guess we'll have to wait until someone with IAT data posts.... But insulation can't hurt....

For city driving, with a lot of start stop, insulation will help, if you really push it when you accelerate.

Matt

 

My thoughts exactly.

What got me started was something I found when I moved from the BMP intake to the Alta. With the larger filter surface and larger tube I felt I had lost some of the off throttle crispness.

This lead me to experimenting with limiting flow.
I was at work earlier and forgot to post a few things.
I installed the OEM intake to TB hose and felt a difference as well. SLightly crisper off throttle response but loss of top end poerformance.

I thought and still do think just like the Dr that this is a charge velocity related effect.
The same thing used to happen back in ye ancient times when we would flip the top of our air filter canisters over. Sounded cool, mid and top end improved and off throttle response wasn't as good.
This is also true of a lean condition. Although our nice computers do a good job of balancing things back when you had to jet carbs you could feel jet changes, even very small changes. Over lean and you had a nice crisp throttle until you fell flat at about 2500RPMs
Over rich and off throttle sucked and top end was improved.
And reading spark plugs actually meant something

 

Ahh... now it is starting to make sense.

Initial take off, less air needed so the restricted surface area of the filter allows for a fast velocity of air to be sucked in, but when lots of air is needed, the restricted surface area can't provide as well.