mental horsepower...this make sense?

[twitchy]

I removed the extra intake plumbing to get that thoaty intake sound.

The airbox is still in its place but the pipe coming off it was removed. It sounded growly and I swore it went faster. I had it off 8 months.

tonight I raced my buddies car and lost, barely. I went back to tim hortons (the coffee shop) and had a crazy idea...to put it back on, so I did.

On the drive back to the "race strip" I noticed immediately that the throttle response to be more pronounced and sharp.

When we raced, I kicked his *** by more than a car length

Did I think the car went faster cause it sounded louder? And I never remembered the motor being so quiet! (ie 70 mph with cruise on)


********************************
Interestingly I tried something else... The intake tube has 2 inlets, one behind the light and one going into the body underneath.

I taped off the opening going to the headlight, airtight, and went for a rip. The engine wouldnt get over 4000 rpm and accelerated worse than a K car, literally. What gives with that??

[mvaters]

i took the intake system off my civic one time. i noticed more kick to it, not much, but i noticed

[AKADriver]

First thing: The results of a street race are meaningless. Completely meaningless. There was probably zero difference in your engine output between the two.

Second thing: When you close off the air inlet, of course it's not going to accelerate. What did you expect?

[sykikchimp]

yeah.. you could have had a bit more horsepower from the car simply cooling down for a bit. I would not attest it to the intake change.

There are a gazillion variables here..

[twitchy]

Our street race was 5 races, although not precise I was leading all 5 times afterwards, and the previous 3 times had lost


I only covered one inlet of the two, not both so it would have still been getting air.. (that end that leads into the body gets air into it, right?)

[Red]

Originally posted by twitchy
I only covered one inlet of the two, not both so it would have still been getting air.. (that end that leads into the body gets air into it, right?)

LMAO…. Well if you drive a 95-96 I know where that intake goes…

The intake hole that is right under your hood is the only intake spot… The air comes in there and then it routs it down to your fender well… It just goes in the top of a large plastic box. Then comes back out… then it goes to your intake manifold… I took every bit of my intake system out and put it together outside the car… It looks like a totally retarded design but it has its use… If you take out that plastic box in your fender-well I dumped a bunch of crap out of mine… I think that’s what its for… Catching crap.

I’m at work right now or I would take a pic and post it… maybe later tonight if I grab some batteries. You’ll see what I mean.

EDIT: Now that I think about this a little more.... When you removed the intake pipe inside the engine bay... Was your car then pulling the HOT air from the engine... The only way I can think that your car made more power at all would be is if the hot air was robbing you and you put the pipe on and got cold air. (I think its like 1hp for 10f) Lets say normal air is 70f and your engine air is at 100f you just lost 3hp. I'm not sure if this is true. But I someone told me this once. (Just an idea!) Thats why they make (Cold Air Intakes)I'll make one once I get off my lazy azz.

[adey]

No.

just... No.

You're wasting your time (and ours) just talking about it.

No, seriously.

[mrmephistopheles]

:hammer: :axe:
LESS TALK, MORE STAB.

You want power? Boost, squeeze, or build a carb'd race motor. Don't waste your time with silly stuff like taking off your Y-pipe or whatever.
For our cars, you need to spend money to make power. That's just the way it is.

[240 2NR]

Originally posted by twitchy
Interestingly I tried something else... The intake tube has 2 inlets, one behind the light and one going into the body underneath.

I taped off the opening going to the headlight, airtight, and went for a rip. The engine wouldnt get over 4000 rpm and accelerated worse than a K car, literally. What gives with that??

Did you ever remove the resonator box under the second tube? If not then it was trying to suck air out of a nearly sealed box (save for the 1/8" round drain holes). If you removed the resonator box then I have no idea. The y-pipe does seem pretty restricive, but the opening behind the headlight is much smaller than the one into the resonator box, and stock, only one of those was open anyway and hitting redline was never and issue then. I actually had first only removed the resonator box on my S13 and basically used the y-pipe like a free cold air extension since it sucks air from two fresh places instead of the engine bay. Removeal of the y-pipe made it louder, but I can't say it made it faster (I added a drop in K&N filter at the same time).

One possibility is if you never reset your ECU it never really "learned" how to adjust to the increased air flow, but was back to normal with the y-pipe replaced. I pulled my resonator and y-pipe, added an exhuast, and advanced my timing (over the course of a year) without resetting the ECU and lately my idle was getting pretty low (around 600rpm when warm). Reset it last night and it seems to be more stable and back around 700-750 instead of 600 like it has been the last few weeks. I'd swear it pulls smoother too, not nessasrily harder, just like it feels more comfortable doing it, though it could all be in my head and probably is (drove my girlfriend's altima while the ecu was resetting yesterday and it always makes my car feel faster).

[240silvia]

just like the previous guy said, if you didn't reset your ECU, for 8 months, your car should of ran like sh*t. try resetting it, or buy an intake. Post then and let us know the difference.

[Red]

Well (In your seat) power is a worthless nebulas number… You will never know how much it is giving or taking from you unless you hit a Dyno Meter ß And as far as I am concerned that’s the only way to tell power.

When I put on my intake I thought I felt it make power to… But it could just be in my head. I also have this thing where it feels like it pulls better when cold. But it is probably just because before the O2’s are warm the computer ignores the signal and the ECU will dump a pre set volume of gas into the engine.

Anyways toss on an intake.. More air can't hurt... But I would get a cold air intake... My intake is burning hot after I drive a while (thats not good for performance).