Air Inducton

[Jod T5]

i know this topic has been done to death but i am after some advise re air induction..during the recent warm weather i have realised how important a good air supply is, on cold mornings (where there is more air per volume that warm ones) my car really flies.
i have made the mistake of dilling holes in my air box which whilst great in the winter is really causing me a real headache now the heat is here....
so i have a dilemma, either to stick with what i have and raise the back of the bonnet slightly to assist airflow, replace my box and get on with it or buy a indution kit...i know sw does a bsr kit and having seen it mounted it does look good...but does it do any good......
basically i want as much cold air as i can....
anyone with any opinions good or bad please let me know......
cheers
jod

[don kalmar union]

I have experimented with both the older 850, S/V/C70's and S60/newV70 over the years and found that Volvo's original design cannot be bettered.

That is certainly not the case with Stuart's 850 or any of the other seriously modded cars arround which certainly need larger lumps of clean, cold air.

Any good aftermarket 'performance' paper or foam filter will improve very slightly on a standard Volvo panel.

The only restriction of any note before the turbo is the narrowing of the rigid black pipe just before it attaches to the turbo. You can cut this away and fit a 90 degree Samco or similar silicone bend, but you still have to keep all the pipes etc. that attach to it: you can remove the pipe to the sump if, and only if you fit a proper recirculating system, removing the black pot that fits on the block just under the inlet manifold.

Regards, Don.Norchi.

www.kalmar-union.com

UK distributor of MTE Swedish Engineered software.

[RollingThunder]

Generally what you want is a supply of air from the front of the vehicle (ie cool), but which is not turbulent and cannot pick up water/splashes/bow-waves!

Volvo spends many £100,000s designing the airbox taking into account accoustic resonance and airflow, so the standard airbox is pretty damn good anyway. I've seen dyno charts of aftermarket 'induction kits' whereby the engine has actually lost 10bhp!

The airbox mod mentioned is good - but consider carefully heatshielding the airbox and pipework, and perhaps fit additional pipework to feed it from cooler air at the front - bearing in mind the imperative need to avoid scooping up water!

Hope this helps,

[Jod T5]

Originally Posted by don kalmar union

The only restriction of any note before the turbo is the narrowing of the rigid black pipe just before it attaches to the turbo. You can cut this away and fit a 90 degree Samco or similar silicone bend, but you still have to keep all the pipes etc. that attach to it:

cheers don, is this really going to assist my flow that greatly??, i know the part your on about but i will have to cut the samco to fit the pcv or are you saying do away with that and design a route for the breather system.....
thanks for your time
cheers
jod

[Jod T5]

Originally Posted by RollingThunder

Generally what you want is a supply of air from the front of the vehicle (ie cool), but which is not turbulent and cannot pick up water/splashes/bow-waves!

Volvo spends many £100,000s designing the airbox taking into account accoustic resonance and airflow, so the standard airbox is pretty damn good anyway. I've seen dyno charts of aftermarket 'induction kits' whereby the engine has actually lost 10bhp!

The airbox mod mentioned is good - but consider carefully heatshielding the airbox and pipework, and perhaps fit additional pipework to feed it from cooler air at the front - bearing in mind the imperative need to avoid scooping up water!

Hope this helps,

cheers rt, seems both you and don are up for the standard box, with a little extra air intake to help.....i currently have a itg panel filter which i beleive to be the best i can get......im still concerned about the drilled box taking in too much warm engine bay air although as the box is located above the clutch it is less hot than it could be....
i think im after a new bottom box and some ducting down to the front spoiler.....
thanks for your time
cheers
jod

[Dan F]

Hi.
I too would recommend you stick to the original airbox.
Unless you buy an induction kit and then fully enclose it to keep the heat out, they will not benefit you much, if at all.
Funnily enough if you do do that, then you will have merely created your own enclosed airbox..... D'OH!
A better flowing filter in the standard box will give you all you will ever really need for a road going car.
NA cars are a better bet for induction kits as they benefit more from the 'larger hole', but turbo engines are resricted not by the airbox, but by the actual entrance to the turbo itself, which will only get larger if you swap out the turbo for a larger one and then it will be able to suck in more air due to its bigger intake aperture anyway.
Basically, the restriction in the intake is the turbo, not the airbox.
Buy a non holed airbox and stick a high flow filter in it.
Cheers,
Dan.

[Grizlyadams]

The only reason i will be going with a big ass cone filter and my own home made airbox with cold air feeds, is that the stock airbox will simply not fit when i put my truck intercooler in (its a very big thing)
Griz

[pyaap]

Hi Jod T5,

As has already been pointed out, the stock airbox is more than sufficient for most applications, unless you're going for a huge power hike. On my car, I know that the stock airbox is good for 360bhp at least, but I've now re-fitted my cone filter because the intake pipe into the airbox was becoming a little too much of a restriction.

Some tuners will tell you that you should avoid cone filters at all cost because they have seen cars lose power on their dynos, on account of them. Little do they realise that they've inadvertantly answered their own question because after repeated power runs, nothing this side of a wind tunnel is going to remotely simulate the same level of cooling, that you will get on the road. I've done repeated tests, both on mine and another forum member's car, which have shown that intake air temperatures (as the ECUs see them) are hardly any different when driving on the road, whether you've got the stock airbox or cone filter, and they both closely correlate to prevailing ambient temps.

I think with the current heatwave, it really doesn't matter what your intake setup is because IATs are naturally higher and cars will be doing their best to compensate and hence be down on power anyway.

[Jod T5]

thanks for all your replies, it is much appreciated.....so it going to be a stock box with some sort of extra intake thrown in and maybe some different pipework just before the turbo to even out some of the 90 (wtf is degree on this ketboard) bend...
thanks for your time
cheers
jod

[Grizlyadams]

on my current stock intake box on my 940, i drilled a 4" hole in the front of it, and routed hose from it, to the grill. best of both worlds, just mod your current box so its got one big hole, and route some hose from it, to some cooler air.
Griz