Have been looking at putting a CAI on but I play alot in the water and with all the horror stories on here about hydolocking that idea is a no go! As i understand it ONE of the main problems with the stock air intake set up is the tubing that goes from the air box to the throttle body has all the folds where the bends are and that causes turbulance which is bad.
So with all that said Im thinking of removing that plasctic tubing and putting in some type of metal tubing with smooth bends to cut down on turbulence and keeping the stock air box and just drop a K&N filter in it to help.

Question is .... Has anyone tried this , would it give any performance gains, is it even worth the trouble . any suggestions would be GREAT!

P.S. sorry my spelling sucks so bad

 

i think rusty's offroad makes some sort of tubing like that http://rustysoffroad.com/mm5/merchan...y_Code=PER_AIR...i dont know if that is what ur looking for

 

Sort of but looking to go metal as much as possable to avoid as much of that plastic crap as possable

 

The one good thing about plastic is it has less heat soak, the cooler the air, the more power.

 

Thats true but would the smooth pipe offset that

 

a smooth pipe would only slightly affect the heat transfer. basically metal heats up and gets hotter faster than plastic does and stays hotter longer. so if you were to get a smooth plastic tube then you would be good to go.

 

I'd check to see if that tube is smooth on the inside, if it is, that's a pretty good system for the price. If it has the baffles, etc on the inside, then it's a waste of money.

 

The thermal properties of the material used for an intake tube are debatable at best considering the velocity of the air traveling through the intake tube and the time a specified volume of air spends in contact with the tube.
There are various manufacturers out there that all make their claims but as most will show, the tube material is not a significant factor in the heating of intake air.

Back on topic: I too was thinking about possibly changing out the stock intake tube, keeping the box and "snorkle", and dropping in a K&N or something like it...
Something that came to mind was going down to a local Diesel Performance Shop or Custom Muffler Shop and having them fab up a custom intake tube out of some 4" or 5" stainless exhaust tubing.

Thoughts?


Rob

 

I did exactly what you're talking about last year.
It's actually easier than you think.
All you have to do is cut off the first 3"s or so of the stock tubing.
Throw away the initial section but keep the elbow part of it.
Then insert a piece of 3" exhaust tubing into the elbow and connect it to the airbox.

If you take the stock one off and look at it....it starts at 3" Then hits a wall (like a huge step) where it narrows down to about 2.5" or less. Right before the elbow it enlarges back to 3".

So like I said above, I cut out the 2.5" section and installed a 3" section of tubing.

 

i wouldn't worry so much about water and a CAI unless you get one that is just hanging there in mid air. all the CAI come with some sort of splash shield or a new air box. and you can still get into deep water with no worry. plus, a little water is fine, otherwise it wouldn't run in the rain. its when that intake hose dips into a large supply of water and starts drinking like a straw, thats when you got a problem.

dunno if you will ever be deeper then this:

but he didn't have any problems and had the K&N open air kit, not the drop in filter.


you must be dealing with some rather deep water if a CAI causes that much worry.