I would rather keep a flat hood on my GenI instead of using a cowl or scoop, I want to someday make a fiberglass mold/copy of the stock hood.

I want hood louvers (got the idea from our 98' Grand Chereokee 5.9) but to keep the flat look I want them flush, the closest I can find are these on a Shelby GT500.



I have two layouts for where I would want the flush louvers, the first choice is were the rectangle boxes are.



The second location would be the far outer sides of the hood in that channel but I would want them thinner and much longer if over there.



This person has used the same tubing setup I am describing but I am being told these tubes have to be very straight with no bends etc. I am not sure if the dual cold air cones and aluminum tubes will even do anything, if not stick with the doughnut filter and housing? Even with the stock filter assembly it can be linked over to boxes beneath the louver pods, or they could be used as engine bay vents and the outside air can be pulled using a different method....



Installing the louvers regardless here is the other method I had in mind for outside air similar to the factory setup, pull from the red spots on both sides with again dual cold air cone filters. The red truck with the custom intake tubing would just have to have the last bends cut and dual boxes built on the sides of the radiator.

 

I've been interested in a similar set up but I'm not sure that I'll actually gain much if anything over the stock box other than some sound.

And what is this piece called and can you buy these anywhere so that you can make your own single or dual intake?

 

Spectre makes alot of stuff for exactly what your wanting to do

http://www.jegs.com/images/photos/800/865/865-9859K.jpg

http://paceperformance.com/images/F58220738.jpg

http://www.jegs.com/images/photos/80...865-900182.jpg

this is just a few of them, they have shorter y-pipe type deals that you can just make you own tube style for out of other pipes and clamps.

 

The cone filters must cool the air better then a doughnut ring though? Not sure about the piece name.

Yes those three links look like exactly what I am trying to do, only I would save a lot of money building them myself. Looks like one of them is even front pointed to the sides of the radiator! I would rather piece my own system together but am unsure of math or geometry involved in having bends in the tubing if there is much involved at all?

 

What are you trying to accomplish? Have your engine make more power, or is this just for looks?

And how does a filter "cool" the air? A cone filter is just as incapable of cooling air as a donut ring is. The coldest you could hope the air to be going into your engine is ambient outside temperature. Most cold air intakes probably suck in hotter air than stock intakes, as stock intakes typically draw from the front of the grill somewhere, whereas alot of products marketed as cold air intakes draw from inside the engine bay.

You want to keep your bends and restrictions to a minimum as much as possible. Every time the air has to turn a 90° corner, it just hurts your airflow.

 

Performance, cooler air. My design kept bends to almost nothing, I thought cold air intakes were just the "tube" there are cold air and short air intakes. Longer means the air had to pass over more aluminum which would stay cooler (not sure how a piece of aluminum over a hot engine stays cool lol but...)

I need to start drawing air from outside like the factory but if you don't think a cone filter has any advantage then having the filter further back in the system like the factory setup would be better for rain. I wonder if you replaced the stock plastic snorkel hose with an aluminum tube if the intake air temp would be lower...maybe aluminum does not spread it's temp directly to the air as well as plastic (but it's more expensive).

 

You're overthinking something that will most likely have a negligible effect on performance. I added a 'Cold Air Intake" to my 06 300C, and besides the sound, I can't say I noticed a difference in performance. I've seen dyno test results showing minimal, if any, HP gains from doing intakes.

Aluminum will only cool the air if the aluminum is colder than the air you are trying to cool. Since it will be in what is most likely a heat soaked engine bay, the aluminum is going to be hotter than your ambient air temperature, therefor aluminum will heat the air going through it, it may be negligible, but it won't make it colder.

About the only thing you can do to get cold air into the engine is to draw air from a cold source, and keep the path from the inlet to the throttle body as short as possible. Therefor something like a Shaker Hood would probably give you the coldest air possible.

If the inlet to the intake is located inside your engine bay, you'll be drawing in hot air. Most of the air in the engine bay will have already passed through your A/C condenser and your RAD, both of which make the air hotter, if you are pulling air in from that hotter area, you can't cool it using aluminum tubing, as the aluminum tubing will be the same temperatre as the air in the engine bay.

Also, doing a double intake will probably only make the air hotter yet, as you will be pulling the same amount of air with twice the volume, making it move slower through the tubes and pick up more heat, as well as twice the surface area to transfer heat through.

 

I'm with the man from Manitoba on this. CAI, where it draws air from inside the engine compartment, is a stupid idea. And a waste of time and money. The idea is to bring in cool air to the intake, and the stock air intake system does that. It sucks outside air in through a plastic duct--plastic is a better insulator than aluminum. And through an inexpensive, easy to change, effective air filter. Google and read the online criticisms of K&N style filters versus paper filters. But also, the stock intake is engineered to provide a limited amount of turbulance in the air flow--CAI is not.

If the idea is to improve your engine's breathing (and performance) you'd be better to get a bigger throttle body (bored out,) a set of headers, and a more performance oriented exhaust system.

CAI looks cool, but makes a lot of racket. And does nothing good for performance.

 

They are correct. The aftermarket CAI don't do much on a stock engine, stock intake.
Stock air filter setup is already a cold air intake. It takes in colder air (more like fresher air, since it is not always cold ouside) from outside then the engine compartment. Some Dakotas have the small metal plate removed to make the stock setup a CAI with a Ram Air setup.

Overall stock is great, upgrade the air filter and you will be at MAX air intake performance.

 

What about this style CAI on a Grand Cherokee with the 5.9L it has a box in the front corner which I guess is where positive pressure is built under the hood. The only other option I was told about was sucking air from the HVAC box under the cowl since all cars have a cowl in front of the windshield for positive pressure reasons, basically the hose would be shorter then stock and reversed through a hole in the firewall.