I have to mention another, wacky, idea. How about putting some flextube straight from the TB over the rad support panel to a pod located in front of the radiator?

Yeahp. Sounds feasible to some extent... Although --- You'd be better off with the top off a standard filter box standing vertically with a K&N panel filter in it! That way you'd get about a foot square of air forced through the filter. By the way - The high flow panel filters are about the same as POD's for air uptake - it's just you'll have a bigger area of high pressure being forced into the damn pipe through it.... Don't like the idea of too much rain tho mate!

That's creative fiend, a large collecter using an off the shelf part.

I've had another big idea. Water pump suction hose. It is flexible but doesn't kink or even form tight corners, is vacuum resistant, very tough, has a smooth internal surface, has only light internal ribbing (more like undulations), and is available in 3". I reckon it will be okay for heat. You could simply hose clamp it to the TB and airbox, and maybe cable tie it along the way or maybe not even bother. The only question is whether it will be flexible enough to be turned around from the TB towards the guard, if not, maybe it could be massaged, maybe even some heat, or maybe it could be routed differently.

what exactly is the question here?

RELAXED DUDE --- Bloody good thinking actually.... A helluva lot cheaper than the $40NZ they ask for a 3" silicon jointer that is only about 60mm long!

That is a good solution, and one that I wish I'd have thought of earlier myself. With that in place (like you say, it is re-inforced against expansion etc and will handle heat etc etc etc) you could put a big panel intake anywhere you damn well like. Get rid of the air-con and you've got a stock looking car with an air ram in the front.

FordFairmont - No question, just general theorizing.

This is my plan for my stealth supercharger install..

Up behind the front bar I will build a fibreglass airbox with the biggest filter I can find in it... it's intakes will be two 3 inch pipes ducted from the front air pickup in the bar... set to use gravity and pressure to push water out tiny holes in the lowest point (in a U bend) before it becomes an issue. essentially a water trap.

That airbox will be piped to where the current air filter is. but it will only look like the current air filter.. in it is the subaru RS water to air intercooler,, hidden for that stealth effect that I'm so keen on.

The outlet of the intercooler will be plumbed back into steel 2.5 inch pipe inside the factory 3 inch EL pipe (surrounded by as much sound deadener as I can jam in there. ) I'll probably have to use the silicon joiners in the main intake feed pipe as it will (hopefully) have 10ish PSI running though it..

Should flow well, and look and sound stealth.

Mate, where are you going to hide your blow off valve and waste gate? Heheheehe

And my guess is that large water hose would handle 10psi (as per relaxed brothers idea on previous page). Mate - I lost my Subaru intercooler. Never mind, I have my work cut out for me in so many other ways....

Is interesting that everyone on here seems to like POD filters but they are only actually 1% better than a high flow flat panel in the standard air box according to people with better testing kit than me. The snorkel and the box suck tho - The box adds heat, the snorkel prevents air getting to the filter and adds 33% to the effort of moving air into the engine at medium to high revs.

Getting rid of the snorkel and the air box means cooler air, and more of it - unless (like most people I've seen) you leave your pod floating around in the space vacated by the airbox without blocking it off from the radiator output and ambient created by engine. Don't understand that thinking at all.

Like, honestly, WTF?

Similar to the guys I've seen put mushroom filters straight onto a turbo sitting --- you guessed it --- right on extractors 3 & 4 from engine. You feel like saying "You know how hot the bloody air is you're sucking in through that filter right there? You silly bugger... " but you don't. You just admire the effort they've gone to and go "oohhh, aaaahhhh" at the shiny turbo and loverly blue silicon jointers and the oh-so-important stainless steel piping. You make appropriate comments like "I bet that things a rocket ship" before finding a way to extract yourself from the area before the words "dumb a***" get out through your gritted teeth.

At least, that's how I feel about it.

Putting a supercharger down near the air con pump means cold air doesn't require a huge visible pipe running around like an overly fed python on crystal methamphetamine playing twister.

If by chance you can't bend the 3" suction hose around the back of the motor (bbm), you could run it around the front, and maybe connect it to the lower part of the airbox, and use an EA/EB/ED airbox upper. Maybe then run twin 2" suction hoses from the airbox upper, over the rad support panel or some other way, to twin bellmouths in front of the radiator or either side of the number plate.

But it stands a reasonable chance of going around the back way.

I agree with focusing efforts on improving on the snorkel arrangement. Focusing on accessing cold pressurised air, and getting it to the motor without undue friction.

Fiend.. it has a bypass valve.. don't believe I need a blow off valve at this point...

I want my beast to look as factory as standard mechanically... but to have a really effectively intercooled supercharged engine...

I picked the lower position because it didnt' require that I modify the car.... because it looks stealth.. and because it's down low under the hood where the air is cooler and has more flow. As for the air filter.. a custom box for a pod will be smaller than one for the flat filter... easier to fit behind the front bar somewhere...

I have no preference otherwise.

I have to put an insulator between the charger and the intake manifold yet as the charger will get hot.. and thinking of one of those insulating intake gaskets too.

so much to do.. ... so little time.

I reckon it would do it, maybe easy peasy. It could be simple to check, but they might only give specs for suction.

some suction hose specs:

http://www.millandmine.com/data/hose11.htm
http://www.everygenerator.com/OTS-C356-90-OTS1124.html
http://www.kingindustrial.co.uk/sucfwr.htm

Was kidding. Didn't you spot the ?!

I came up with the idea of putting a supercharger in place of the air con pump too remember --- Just because my ideas aren't all the first off the rank, doesn't mean I'm not trying to be original! Like the time I invented OVAL PISTONS... Pity someone else had done that before too...

With a blower / turbo you really dont need to worry so much about where you get air from as it will suck air in from anywhere. The idea of a flat panel filter positioned like a common air-air intercooler at the front of the car is purely to provide a large surface area for pretty much uninterrupted air to "push" it's way through. It is also pretty cold air as an added extra.

Yeahp, insulators. Let me know your thoughts on that one. I have issues myself with that - just as I am trying to achieve ambient air temperature at fuel injection point (hahahahhaha - that's what I am aiming for - I know it's impossible, but that's the theory behind all my headaches...)

Anyways... I've chopped massive holes in my bonnet and the bloody BBM still gets awful hot. Reasons for this are partly the lack of phelonic spacer (which I have the material for and all that, just need money to get some more made.......)

I have not had a serious temperature taken of the various BBM spots, but will do so. I can hold my little finger on the top of the BBM for ages now (thanks to bonnet holes) but I tell you what - sticking ya little finger on a bit of the BBM near the injectors will sizzle them! The heat of the underside of the BBM appears to be slightly warmer than the top, but not as hot as at the injection point. This means my phelonic spacer things should actually work quite damn well - contrary to all the naysayers, there is a LOT of heat soak from the head to the BBM according to my little finger.

I have my eye on an infrared non contact thermal measuring device (commonly known as thermometer, I guess) and don't want to put the Fiends Fabulous Fiery Fabrication onto the engine until tested accurately.

My little finger is pretty good, but not that good.


DAMN - What was the topic of this thread again?


Ah, what the hell. Frankieh and Relaxed aren't going to get too upset with another general kick around discussion regarding air intakes...

Forgive me, but I have been spending ages on getting all this as good as possible --- unfortunately I now have huge holes in my bonnet with nothing underneath to protect coils and alternators from the weather.


Silly bastard Fiend.


RELAXED BROTHER - Good info on the hose idea. I still like it a lot. Yay easier, cheaper, more flexible with position and mounting etc etc etc than anything... Also - You could use a 2" or 2.5" inside a 3.5" with a cooling water jacket running between the two....!!! That way you don't need to worry about a lot of heat getting into the hose (and therefore into the airflow) ....

frankieh with your pipe work , are you draw through the t/b (like mine )or are you going for blow through from the blower , because if your draw through make sure you line the inside of any silcone joiners with your pipe work or youll end up sucking them flat (been there allready)

Hi Xfpaul..

Do you mean the joiners in the intake part of the piping??? (from airbox to blower)

my system looks like follows:

airbox----blower----w2a intercooler----TB so that would be blow though yes?

Yeah dude - That's blow through.

If you went FILTER, TB, BLOWER or even TB, FILTER, BLOWER or even TB BLOWER FILTER (!!!!!!!!!!!!) you'd be having troubles of the type XFPaul has. There's various reasons for doing it XFP's way, but no one has really been doing it that way for ages (as far as I am aware). It may work well at lower RPM and with water injection if you're worried about it. The other thing there is that the TB may stand a chance of freezing...

I say "may", but could have said "MAY" or even "*may*"

Am very interested in why XFP has done it this way actually....

I have left a 3" silicon jointer connecting some parts of a jet propulsion experiment and they have become thin (stretched by being sucked in). Guess the relaxed dude might be onto something using a big fat water coolant hose as they're re-inforced against this bellowing effect to an extent.