Questions and Answers
Hood Scoops And Ram Air
Q. Hey there, Was just searching around on the internet like I do every night about my car and came across your page. Its very nice, so much content! I also had a question for you, I don't know if you receive this email directly or someone gets it. I saw you had the phone in hot key but its super late and I work 13 hour shifts for technical support for computers.
I was wondering if you knew anything about Cold Air Induction for cars, like for example a MAC Cold Air Induction kit, and a 2001 V-6 Ford Mustang? If cold air induction is on an engine, will that shorten the life span of the engine? I understand NOS, Superchargers and racing chips will kill your engine a lot quicker and can be dangerous. How about Cold Air, or RAM air hoods/kits for example, mainly MAC Cold Air?
Well thanks a lot for your time whoever reads this email.
Bill :)A. Well first off Bill, I am the only one who reads my mail. other than the Federal Government who thinks they are doing us a favor by intercepting all our e-mails. Remember the three greatest lies, "The check is in the mail", We're from the government and we're here to help you" and "I read Playboy for the articles".
With that aside, one thing to keep in mind that any modification to an engine to increase power and performance will shorten the life of an engine to some extent. Some modifications more than others.
Ram Air is probably one of the more benign ways to go. It does increase horsepower and performance. It was very popular in the 50's, 60's and 70's because it acted like a turbocharger. The speed of the car "rammed" the air into the carburetor. The faster the car went, the more air that was rammed in. The more rammed in, the faster the car went.
On carburetted cars this was easy to do. The Ram Scoop was installed in the hood over the carburetor and positioned so when the hood was closed, the scoop sealed itself around the mouth of the carburetor, or in most cases, carburetors.
With the advent of Fuel Injection, the effectiveness of hood ram air was wiped out. There is no way to directly ram air into the air intake system of a fuel injected engine. The ram scoops you see on modern cars are usually just decoration.
Now I have never seen or used the MAC system but from what I see on their web page it is not a ram air system. It merely draws cooler air from outside the engine compartment, which the stock air intake does also. The theory is that the Air Intake Temperature sensor will see the cooler air and raise the fuel mixture accordingly. Cold air is denser that warm air and thus needs more fuel for a proper air/fuel mixture.
Is it worth almost $200.00? On the surface my opinion would be no. Air is already being drawn in from the outside and is as cool as it's going to get. If you want to get a boost out of your engine, a Turbocharger kit will give you the most bang for your buck.
Additional Information provided courtesy of ALLDATA
