With the mass amounts of intakes for these trucks out there I was wondering if anyone is aware of models that will free up all the area of the old airbox? So far it looks like the Vararam might but its hard to tell. I'm not really looking for a performance or "looks" modification here, I'm looking to free up a 15"x10.5" area where the airbox is to mount some auxillary batteries.

I had considered making a frame mount box for a pair of batteries under the truck but I wouldn't want to have to deal with flooded cell batteries down there so agm would be needed. However the cost savings in going with a pair of golf car batteries in the engine bay (so they could readily be maintained) would cover a majority of something like a vararam setup so I figured I'd investigate it as a "win-win" option.

Edit: Forgot to mention this is a 03 1500 w/ 5.7.

 

put a blower on it or relocate the aux batteries to the bed with a mount. fab somethin up

 

Haha, that might be a bit over the budget. Should have mentioned in the first post, no room in the bed in this case due to a camper being in there and there is not enough room in the gaps between the camper and bed walls to cram something in (also trying to avoid the batteries in the camper).

 

hmm...perhaps you could fab something up like a rack underneath the bed? I just dont know of anything you could take out in the engine bay that would make that amount of room. You've got somethin goin there with the CAI idea though. On account of the fender well being pretty deep, perhaps you could put the battery way down low and still have room for the CAI filter?

 

Yeah a frame mounted box under the bed/cab was my original plan, biggest issue with that is I'd need to go with AGM batteries as I wouldn't want to have to deal with pulling down flooded cell batteries for a box located like that for checking the fluid levels on a regular basis.

I hadn't considered trying to put an intake over the top of the batteries (with some conductive protection on the terminals), I'll have to look at the dimensional possibilities of that.

 

Also is anyone familiar with the design considerations it ducting a new intake? Such as minimum cross sectional area, filter element area required, losses for directional changes, etc?

Is there any reason the keep the portion on top of the engine or can you connect right to the throttle body if you make provisions for the vacuum lines/air sensor in your new setup?