On Sun, 7 Mar 1999, Vladimir Ryall wrote:
> By the time the air goes through that long tube, it's hot anyway. You have
> not really accomplished anything. I will say it again, if you want ram-air,
> get a functional hood. DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME AND MONEY on this dryer hose
> nonsense. Geeeeeezzzzz........
IMHO, it depends on how much money you're willing to spend to
get that nice cold air. I've got a ram-air hood and will never
go back :-) but the dryer vent route is a viable option. I
wouldn't spend the money on a commercial one (save your money for
a ram-air hood), but if you want to cobble something together,
you can probably do it for under $20. Bill Tierney had a
home-made setup like this that drew air from under the air-dam,
and I believe it decreased his 1/4 mile ETs by 2 tenths. (He
sped up even more with a true ram-air hood, but the point is that
the dryer vent method does help, even though its not exactly
the optimal solution.)
Also, people don't like the look of a non-stock hood, so for
those folks, this method is just about their only option...
If you want to get really serious about ram-air without a
ram-air hood, my reccomendations would be to use the biggest
tube you can fit, big air ducts at the front of the vehicle to
scoop in the air, shield the tubes from heat as much as
possible (maybe even coat them with ceramics), try to avoid
sharp bends (mandrel bend the stuff if possible), and try to
use something smooth on the inside. (Dryer vent has a bunch of
ridges which will disturb air flow; the best solution might be
aluminum pipe (similar to exhaust pipe, though you wouldn't need
to use stuff as thick as exhaust pipe). By the time you do the
"hose" method "right", you probably spent enough for a ram-air
hood... :-)
Another option for those of you who don't like non-stock hoods
might be to cut up the duct work under the air intakes on your
cowl and use a custom airbox to draw your cold air from there.
That'd probably be only slightly less effective than a cowl
induction hood, and it'd be invisible from the outside.
-Jon-
.--- stei0302@cs.fredonia.edu ----------------------------------------.
| Jon Steiger * AOPA, DoD, EAA, MP Race Team, NMA, SPA, USUA * RP-SEL |
| '96 Dodge Dakota v8 SLT CC (14.58@93.55), '96 Kolb FireFly 447 |
`--------------------------- http://www.cs.fredonia.edu/~stei0302/ ---'
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