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Advice for fellow TR owners from Tom Shea Racing
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Component Matching #3
Page 2
After the alcohol injection which would be #9. That puts at #10. Because of the cost, I choose the less expensive upgrade to the intake air system first. The issues of exhaust and traction are still to be addressed but because it is more expensive to supply yourself with these, I’ll go with the intake air first.
10, Intake Air. This is an undervalued upgrade. I have heard people state that you can’t force or ram air to a turbo engine. While this may be technically correct, there is a value to providing the higher pressure air to the inlet as well as the lower temp.
Remember that the turbo is an air pump. It is powered by the flow of exhaust gasses. By providing a higher pressure air to the inlet, we are actually asking the turbo to load the exhaust flow less and making it’s job easier. By compressing the intake air less it is heated less and that is also a bonus.
When compressing air, which is what is happening with the turbo, we are also creating heat in the intake charge. If we start with colder air, we will end up with colder air. We will also end up with a denser air charge since air density is cross-referenced to heat.
We will end up with a cleaner charge in the cylinder since there will be less back pressure from the turbo being driven by the exhaust to reach the same boost level. Less back pressure = more complete evacuation of exhaust gasses. This means cleaner cylinder fill with unspent fuel and air.
I say there is considerable value to a “RAM AIR” set-up in our cars!
Supply yourself with a Rubber Maid wastepaper basket. The 10 x 14 inch ones are less than $5 at Home Depot. By cutting one of these in half and nesting the two shells together you can make a strong and attractive scoop that fits nicely into the intercooler gap in the front air dam. There are various ways of fastening it there. If you have the stock intercooler in place you will want to cut out the bottom of the basket to direct flow to the IC scoop.
The top of this scoop made from the basket will be open. You will want to remove the stock air dam separator from above & behind the bumper that is made from a sheet of dark rubber. This piece was originally intended to box in the radiator to grill enclosure to increase the pressure and therefore flow through the radiator. This would prevent the increased flow and pressure benefit from the fabricated scoop. This increased flow and pressure will supply to the radiator as well as the large K&N filter that you will hide behind the front bumper in this same area just above your fabricated scoop.
Use the largest K&N filter you can get. This will be the 14 in long by 4 inch wide outlet. The 4 inch outlet is key to avoiding a possible slight hesitation on throttle tip in that may be present if using 3 inch diameter tubing. The volume difference between the 4 in and the 3 in is enough to address this. We are talking about a 4 to 5 foot run with two 90 degree turns. This column of air will take a few milliseconds to accelerate to the required speed therefore the slight pressure drop and reason for the extra volume to compensate.
Use 4 inch diameter tubing to duct the flow from the filter secured above the fabricated scoop. The tubing will run across the front behind the bumper. Then up behind the headlight and through the hole in the bulkhead there. This hole is just barely big enough and should be lined with a piece of small diameter vacuum tubing ( slit lengthwise ) to cover the raw edge to protect the inlet air tube from chafing. When you reach the area of the MAF you will have to use a reducer to get to the proper size. The stock MAF is 3 inches.
The reducers and fittings for the couplings between the filter and tubing are readily available at many home improvement stores as PCV or lighter duty drainage couplers. Worm gear radiator hose type clamps are available in many different sizes and do well for clamping connections.
There is a variety of sizes of zip ties available at home improvement stores. They work well for fastening scoops, tubing and other misc. things. GM uses these extensively in many applications.
I call this set-up the TSR Ram Air since I install it on most of my customer’s cars. It is easy to configure for front mount IC cars as Well. You can see pictures of my car with this system and a front mount IC on the M.G.N.T.A. website, MGNTA.com.
In following segments of the Component matching and sequence of upgrades, we will look at exhaust, traction , suspension, torque converters and turbos.
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