Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Duratec Performance Heatsheild Prototype 1

I don't think so. If you look at the stock airbox for both the SVT and non-SVT, the air inlet is rather small compared to the rest of the box. IIRC the hole is only a couple inches in diameter at the most. Its almost literaly the definition of a bottleneck. I would think that having the K&N or similar filter surrounded by a box is still allowing more CFMs than that small inlet. Plus, I would think that having temps closer to ambient would negate any CFM restriction created by the box. Call it a compromise.

If you're worried about enough air getting to the filter, do what Demon did and run some kind or hose from the fender up to the filter.

As it stands right now, I don't think I am getting enough air to my filter. I am using an aluminum enclosement much like Unisys is making; it is rough though. I have been seriously considering the hose idea.

Monk, put a hose in there for sure. Not only will you get a little more air, but you will also insure a nice supply of cooler air being brought into the air box.

As for the prototypes i have built so far here's a few pictures of the one I made today and the one I made last week. I haven't cut out the inlet for the MAF yet, so I don't have pictures of it installed yet. I plan to do that in a little while.







Of course these are held together with screws, which just makes it easy for me to take the different pieces apart to make adjustments to them as needed. They will be replaced with rivets of course, but for right now the screws are working ok.

Got installed today and can you believe I screwed up on the width and was tad off on the length, so it is too freaking big!!?? Anyway, here's some shots of it in the car...




You can see here how the sides are bowing in... It was a real pain getting it in as well. You may also notice that the filter is off center. Yeah! Yeah! Funny thing is that I placed the box inside the engine bay and got it seated, then I just traced around the outter edge of the MAF to find its location and that is where it ended up. Oh well, I will cut another back piece and move it over about an inch, if I can. I am going to take about a half inch off on the right side, to start, and refit it.



It's not pretty, but it is a work in progress.

Looking good, I didn't mate mine up to the wires on the fender like you did, I'm not sure how the 'tours are, but are you blocking the factory air inlet?(its tough to see from the pictures)
I recommend a second air feed from the bottom,
I will be making some sort of change to mine,
one being a screen at the incoming end of the hose,
and an air deflector inside the box.

They are looking good. I got the bigger K&N filter, so it is more of a pain to work with. I did notice that, much like mine, you have a gap on the back piece (under the filter where the bottom piece meets the back piece). I also don't have to worry about those cables/wires on the side of the car like you do...come to think of it, I'm gonna have to go see where mine are! What kind of aluminum is that? It's thicker than the flashing that I got...have you tested to see how well it is blocking heat flow?


Keep up the good work!

Well, I have pretty much worked on this for the better part of this morning. Only taking a few breaks now and again to check the boards. I think I have made a lot of progress, in the right direction, so here's where i am right now.

Recut length and I cut off what seems to be too much for mine, but it might just work out great for someone with an intake pipe such as from CTA or BAT. That way I can see how I need to adjust the overall length for these. As for mine, it measures out to about 11.25 - 11.5 inches from the back of the TB to the gasket between the MAF and MAF Adaptor. As for how to measure it, this is how I did mine...



I got everything measure out for bolt, located in the fender well, to secure the front part of the sheild. I do have problem with the ground wire running from the tranny case to the fender not being long enough, so I'm thinking i could go in two directions to correct this...

1) Cut a hole just large enough for the terminal to fit through and fill the hole with a rubber grommet thick enough seal the gap around the wire.
2) Relocate the ground wire.

#2 might be the most logical, but I'm just worried to if someone was to install this thing and not relocate this ground wire, they will blame me for their tranny going south on them within a year.

Here's, the area I am talking about...

That small black wire you see in there right now is not the wire I am talking about. That is the ground wire I have run for the LED's I have in my headlights.

Oh yeah, someone asked about covering up the intake hole located in the fender...



*Note* I don't know how long these images will stay up because I am linking to them from my free ripway account, which only allows 5 MB of transfer a day. The others are linked to my Cardomain site, but since last night I have not been able to given go to the Cardomain homepage without picking up some crazy Adware crap to total takes over my PC, so.... I wont be going back there anytime soon. I guess that's what I get for taking advantage of a good thing.

Well, I took a test drive this afternoon and I must say that I am very happy with how the car performed. Very happy to be honest.

Notice the name change of the thread, this is because of the adjustments that I made to the size of the sheild and the addition of some foam (more on that in a second).

Ok, well I still had the sheild fitted from this morning and since I had to go make a run to the store soon, I might as well find something that would work well as an insulator around the edges. Since being laid off from my job, I had several none-working SCSI harddrives laying around and I noticed the foam inside the box. Believe it or not, it fit perfectly around the sheild with only a few minor altercations. Once fitted, it worked perfectly. Well, as good as I would hope anyway. I really did not expect much, I just wanted to see what would happen.

Well, after a nice 32 mile (round trip) ride to the store, I got out and checked the filter. by touching it, and it was COLD!! The sheild was hot as hell, but the filter was cold or at least very close to ambient temp. I didn't get it though, because I left the car running while I was in the store, so there was some serious heat built up in that sheild! Leaving the town I was in, there's 5 four way stops and my high speed fans were on the whole time. so I know there was some serious heat floating around it, at least.

Well, all this is not very scientific, but I could actually feel a difference in how the car responded after after driving in the slower areas, where heat can build up. I am going to ask around to some of the neighbors and see if they have a digital cooking themomator. That way I will have a pretty accurate reading of where everything is, temp wise.

I want everyone to know that I'm not trying to pump this sheild up or anything, because it is far from being a finished product. I still have some pretty serious changes to make. I'm just so stoked at the fact that I actually made something like this and it actually works! Remember, at the beignning of this thread I said that I have never done anything like this, so... I'm pretty happy right now. Thanks to everyone that has contributed to this project.

So the next steps is to get some material and get a few of these out to a few folks and see what they think. Order some of the ceramic coating and apply it to one and take some readings after that. Make whatever adjustments are needed based on the feedback I get from the test mules and I guess it's on from there.