Today I was wondering what temperature the air
was that was actually going into the throttle body (ram
air-vs-Open element) since this does have an effect on
performance (everybody can relate to your trucks getting
faster as the air cools at night). Well I got another
bright idea (usually dangerous). I decided to take the wife's
indoor/ outdoor thermometer (outdoor part has a 5 foot
wire with a cylindrical sensor at the end for temp readings)
and insert this inside the open air element just above the
throttle body bores in the wind stream. I did the same thing
for the ram air set up. I also took one measurement under the
hood just to see temp under hood. Well I hung the thermometer
dangling from the top of the driver side window so I could
see both current outside temp and engine compartment. Took
my first reading in the engine compartment driving around
town this was probably a mistake since within 1 mile I was at
a high traffic intersection staring at a long red light.
The guy next to me probably saw the panic on my face as we both
watched my hanging thermometer climb rapidly toward the 120 mark.
Did I mention that my wife thermometer only goes to 120? Well
within about 2 minutes the thermometer had shot past 120 and was
filling the small bubble at the top probably about 150 if it had
lines that high. As luck would have it the light turned green
and I nailed it bringing the temp back down to a comfortable
140 (Guess since no marks that high). The next was the open
air followed by the ram air. I drove around quite a while
with each so The numbers should be fairly accurate. The
outside temp was 81 degrees when I did this. here are
the results:
Engine compartment near
firewall above valve cover-------------140 degrees
open air element 13" ------------------110 degrees
Ram air --------------------------------89 degrees
the air cleaner & ram air measurements were taken in the
wind stream just above the throttle body bores. As you
can see the ram air was 21 degrees cooler. This doesn't
take in consideration volume so you can see why I'm curious
to get back to the track to see which one is better.
When I finally finished up I re-hung the wife's thermometer
and she none the wiser although weatherman said lows tonight
about 60 and her outdoor reading is calling for frost :~0.
Mike Catlin
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:08:55 EDT