[57Chevyman]

Had a cavalier a while back and it had a drain in the air filter.

[4 Jaw Chuck]

I will relate a little story of how I made a poor mans cowl induction for my RX7 GT3 car. I was having trouble with the Hondas that race in our series, it seemed they had at least 20km/hr on me at the end a long 1/4 mile straight away. Being the resourceful type I figured that the rules against rotary engines were so restrictive that there was no way to beat them unless I cheated and I was not about to do that.

So I bent the rules a little, the fresh air pickup for the interior heating system draws air right in front of the windshield through a grille--a nice high pressure area at speed. I cut a hole in the firewall and put a real cheesy looking aluminum dryer duct and a plastic adapter with flap right from the hardware store. The rules said no ram air systems but nothing about cowl induction and stated that as long as the system was not sealed it would be acceptable.

So here I was in tech inspection and the inspector has a look at my contraption and says "what the hell is that!". I explain that according to the rule book it is not a sealed system and proceeded to dump a pail of water down the grille, it ran out all over the ground with no restriction. He was happy but wasn't sure if the competition would be, so he called them all over to have a look. Needless to say there was lots of laughter and giggles because it looked so cheesy. It passed.

Now rotary engines are restricted severely by intake and exhaust. Any muffler will cost you 20HP and even Holley carbs are a restriction as changing to Dellorto carbs generally get you 15 free HP. I was running a Holley 750 DP. Out on the track it was immediately obvious there was more power especially at high speed, I sand bagged a bit so it wasn't too obvious. But during practice my speeds went up 30Km/hr on the straight and I could grab the next gear before braking for the hairpin-Yahoooo! Made a hell of a nice sound inside the car too!

During the next race I not only could keep them bastards from passing me on the straight but now it was a race to see who could get the inside line before the hairpin at 130 MPH. As the race progressed my fuel load lightened and it gave me even more of an advantage (rotary's are gas pigs!). I won that first 10 lap race. Ha Ha Ha!

I often thought about doing the same to a street car but with a nice carb bonnet and some nice 6" silicone hose, sure worked like a charm for me and is completely invisible from the outside. Filtering can be done with round K@N cone filters pointing into the hoses so it is possible.

[vernw]

I put the RAMAIRBOX unit on my GMPP 454HO fuel injected Suburban, and like it a lot. My suburban had the cutouts already in the front on either side of the radiator and behind the grill, so it was very easy to do the 4 inch dryer ducts back to the twin snorkels on the air cleaner housing. One hint here - don't use the silver metallic type if ducts, you'll cut your hands to pieces every time you have to mess with them (think how often you have to remove the air cleaner). It took some digging, but I found some that had a metal spring type core that used plastic for the coating. They're called fresh air ducts and come in varying lengths and diameters. I got my four inchers from Pep Boys. Get plenty of length on these, if you stretch them too far they start to get brittle withng the first 4-6 months.

That's what worked for me, but Your Mileage May Vary <grin>

One other thing, from what I understand you're not going to get going fast enough for the "Ram Air" effect most folks think about. Consider this type of stuff as being the way to get cooler air to the engine for better performance and you'll be a lot happier.

--- Vern