Cold air intake, Circuit Style!

[circuitsmith]

I re-routed the air intake on my 1zz to draw in cooler air.I wanted to disturb the stock intake (which is well designed, IMHO) as little as possible.I didn't want to spend much $$ (ended up costing And it's a 10 minute job to go back to stock.Whatever restriction the stock system has is only significant at wide open throttle and high rpm, a condition I basically never reach.What I want is more mid-range torque, especially on a hot day with the AC cranking.The stock system ended in front of the battery with some cool air coming in through the gap around the headlight housing.I removed the end piece, bent the cloth hose down and loosely fitted a length of 3" aluminum flex hose.This hose is routed through a gap behind the fog lamp mounting point and ends near the lower grill.Now the air is taken from a point before the radiator can heat it.The loose fitting at the cloth hose plus the end point out of the incoming air stream should prevent any danger of hydrolock. Here's an OBDII chart with the original intake showing coolant temp, speed and intake temp on a 35 minute drive. This was a cold start, ambient temp 50F, foggy using AC & defroster, mostly stop and go 35mph and below.Intake stays cool until ~10.5 minutes when I'm waiting in line at the recycling/trash dump.The radiator gets fully warmed up and the intake rises to 15-20 deg. above ambient andstays there even after I get going again.With the warm weather on the East Coast I've been unable to do a similar drive with the modified intake: The above is a warm start, ambient 81F, again mostly stop and go under 35mph.The intake is heat soaked but cools off to within a few degrees of ambient in ~5 minutes.With no AC use the radiator fan doesn't kick on until the coolant gets hotter: 205F vs 188F.The intake stays pretty cool, rising to 10-12 deg. above ambient, until I get into some bogged down Once I get going the intake starts cooling down. In the meantime the radiator fan is cycling.By the seat of the pants the throttle response didn't get sluggish in the heat like it has in the past.

[star_deceiver]

I did that quite a while ago, minus the dryer hose. Mine is just rerouted under the drivers headlight using the existing semi-cloth hose.If I ever bother to get some hose like yours, I could route it to pull ram-air style through the grille.

[circuitsmith]

WOW! I didn't know there was a path under there!I was going to run it to the grill but I was concerned about forcing in too much water in heavy rain.

[star_deceiver]

That cloth type hose is porous... and there are holes in the bottom of the air filter housing so I'm not too concerned about hydrolock.I had to take the hose off and reroute it through but it's just a little short to make it to the grille. There may or may not be a path for it to follow in your Matrix.

[circuitsmith]

Here's 30 minutes of another run.Driving through town then on to the highway.Warm start, ambient 61F.The intake falls to within 1 deg. of ambient after ~ 6 minutes on the highway.I was surprised I got 37mpg on this 41 mile 52 minute drive.

[Old Tele man]

Hey, curious, what are you using to capture and graph that information?What are you plugging into the OBDII port?

[circuitsmith]

OBD to USB cord with OBD Wiz software:http://www.amazon.com/OBDLink-...r=8-1