ive been looking for a little more power out of my truck and i would like a cold air intake or a better air intake in general. but cash is tight with the new baby here so i was wondering if anyone had ever tried taking the air tube that goes to the fender off and seeing what it does?? any cons to this? i figure it would be the sameconcept as the old school air hats that guys are using here. i havent done this nor do i plan to make it an everyday thing but just when i tow.

 

you will just probly suck in hot air. wouldnt hurt anything tho. i bought some slinky hose and ran it from next to the radiator to the air intake, before i bought my CAI

 

you think ill gain anything from it. people say they got great gains from the old air hat style so i cant imagine this being much different

 

Run some drier hose to right next to your fog lights, that would be the most noticable gain.

 

I tried my '95 Ram 5.2 1500 with and without the snorkle to the fender, before and after I put in a badly needed air filter element.The only reason the snorkle off was to clean it. Anyway, Ididn't notice any real-world difference with any of it, except that the engine induction noise seemed very slightly less with the snorkle on.

Back in the day, we used to flip over the air cleaner lids on our cars. The lids would still provide sealing to the now open cleaner element. It made even a 2bbl sound like a tunnel ram with 2-4 bbls. Judging from the sound, we picked up about 100 hp. In the real world, about the only thing that we noticeably accomplished was entertaining ourselves.

Once your intake system can easily flowcool air at or abovethe maximum CFM requirement of your carb or throttle body, which doesn't take all that much, there won't be anyfurther gains except possibly noise. If your unrestricted air cleaner is as big as your house you still won't get more flow than what the carb/TBcan draw. Muscle cars have been dyno'd with the shrouded OEM air cleaner and the best open element aftermarket air cleaners and only pick up 2-3 hp at WOT, an improvement which is very hard to detect on the street, despite the "powerful" sound.

 

The problem with the stock air assembly is the restrictions to air flow due to its design. The main problem is that once the air has entered the tube from the fender, it travels along to the main box. Then it has to turn 90 degrees to travel up through the filter, and then 180 degree turn back down to get into the TB. This is the main restrictive point. The air velocity by this point it very slow. Removing the tube that goes to the fender isn't going to change this at all. You can get a round filter assembly for about $30-$40 for everyhting you need. It doesn't flow more air then you need, it just increases the velocity of the air into the TB so that air flow is unrestricted.

 

I installed a 14" round K&N Filter on my 01 ram w/5.9 and am very happy with it. I pulled a trailer last night and noticed a big improvement with accelaeration and general preformance. The best mod for the buck I have found. And it sounds really cool when you get on it.

 

Silver, I am aware of your excellent thread on open element air cleaners, and I read the first few zillion posts.When I said, "Once your intake can easily flow..." I wasn't intending to specifically refer to the stock system, but any system.I'd like to see a dyno graph of the two systems sometime, just out of curiosity. I tried a 4bbl arrangement on my truck and thought it was more noise than anything, although I'm sure it's potentially capable of flowing much more air than the OEM. It might be more effective or noticeable with a Fastman or Holley TB though. I don't run my truck hard very ofteneither, and thatfactors in as well.

 

i tried it for today and i didnt notice anything on my way to work but i had to go drop my truck off at the tranny guy because its acting up for the 4th time in 3 months. thank god he gave me a 3 yr 36k. but i did notice it to be a little more responsive on hills but the temp was only 50 degrees so it could have just been the temp. but i would love a cai but i just cant spend $230 on a kit. i could do the same as you silver for $50 but the gas mileage loss is the killer for me. did you notice big gains from your setup???

 

No air cleaner setup is going to give you big gains for the reasons that 95Ram stated. But I did feel that the throttle response was a little better with this setup versus some of the CAI setups I have tried. No change in mpg that I noticed with it.