Ram air intake just finished

[fowljesse]

I love RAI, and have been thinking about the best way to do it to my car, but didn't want to ruin the lines, and stock look.
It came to me by the way of Mooneggs giving me his oooold Civic projectors. When I put them in, and plugged my turn signals into them, I saw the turn signal hole, and Eureka!
I've always had really good luck at thrift stores, so I went shopping, and found a piece metal the EXACT shape I needed. It was a long oval tin, the shape of the signal hole. So, I went nutso with the Sawzall, grinders, tinsnips, etc... I cut the turn signal mounting stuff off the backside of the bumper, so it's flush.I had to cut through the bumper reinforcement (this was the hardest part), and had to cut off the lower tab that the bumper mounts on. Then I cut the sheet metal to the wheel well. I make it sound easy
Long story short - I have true ram air, and it will look good when I'm done.
Here she is:





In the 2nd pic., it looks like the hole decreases in diameter, but it doesn't.
I don't have it completely hooked up, because I didn't have my metal tape with me, but she's gulping lots of cold air! For now, I have a 6" drier duct clamped onto my K&N that goes down and almost attatches to the Ram air tube.
I'll finish it soon. I was just excited to show you guys.

[mx3boyze]

How is it gonna look from the engine bay when done? And I take it you have an inline air filter right?

[tehbrookzorz]

I picked up one of those carbon fiber ram air ports from ebay (for 300ZX) with plans to fabricate it into my stock bumper. I think it would look neat if it works, but I might swap the bumper, so I'm holding off for now.

Looks good!

[fowljesse]

It's going to look alot like the OEM box when done, because I want there to be plenty of room around the filter. Also, it'll look better from the front when I paint it. I have a cone filter with the extra iverted cone in the front of it.
I'm going to look for the carbon fiber port on Ebay now. I didn't know about it. That would be really cool! This one cost me a total of $2.

[wytbishop]

I think that is one of your better crazy ideas. I would cover the inlet with some mesh to avoid sucking up leaves and things, and make sure there is a drain at the low point so that moisture can drop out of the system.

This is something I might try.

[fowljesse]

. .
You may be glad to know that I took off the rear fender skirts. I hit the left side one on the curb 2x, parallel parking, breaking each, and making new ones. I kind of miss them but the car looks alot better... that's worth 1-2 mpg ($2 per fill-up?).