ram air vs cold air

[99WhItEGaGt]

yeah i was thinking of buying a doctorspeed.com Stage 3 cold air intake but i am not sure how that will work with the ram air is it even worth it to buy a cold air when i have ram air? what i was thinking of doing is taking off the stock air intake put the Stage 3 on but leaveing the ram air just blowing air under the hood idk am i just stupid or will that work??
thanx.

[99GrandAMSE]

Originally posted by 99WhItEGaGt
... what i was thinking of doing is taking off the stock air intake put the Stage 3 on but leaveing the ram air just blowing air under the hood idk and i just stupid or will that work thanx.

That is what most people do ... I'd also look at http://www.rsmracing.com and http://www.geocities.com/nbodyintakes as they both have good equipment and help support this site ... no worries either way as you're still welcome no matter what you end up buying, but, I thought you might be interested :D

[SCGA1]

Ram Air is just a marketing gimmick used by GM. It just looks pretty and doesn't really do much. A CAI is the way to go.;)

[Pte Socks]

read my post in the racing section about me racing a chick who thought she had me in a GAGT with ram air. That will tell you the difference.

[pre_16365]

ramair is mainly for looks....when it comes to preformance gains get a CAI

[Artic]

I agree with the most ram air is a marketing thing get the cai :)

[JoeyK]

Yes, the Grand Am ram air is a gimmik. But don't let it ruin the perception of REAL ram air in your head. A real ram air set up will also give good hp/torque gains. But it'd take alot of inginuinty to pull it off in a GA. It's easier n' cheaper to go the pipe route.

[commie21]

i will tell you this, since after the CAI install, I can feel the difference between the 2

[tjsoulsby]

well, i guess i am alone on this one again. i highly doubt that GM would put time and money into RAM AIR because they thought they could 'trick' people into buying GAGTs'. now YES, a CAI will increase you power from take off, when i put my stage III CAI on, i fell in love with it. but once i got onto the highway, i noticed a HUGE difference in highway acceleration, and not a good one. now for me, and i mean for me, i prefer my RAM AIR becasue i do much of my driving on the highways, but if i did more city driving... i would say go for the CAI. now i really dont want anyone to come back and tell me im wrong and stuff like that. iam saying what i have expierenced and my OPINION. please feel freee to have your own.

[RazorDX]

http://www.gaownersclub.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=74374

Read here for the whole argument. The end verdict: CAI is more effective until around 120-140mph, and then the "ram air" setup is more effective. Case closed.

EDIT: That is theoretically, using physics. Your butt dynos may vary.

[sunrunner_pei]

Originally posted by tjsoulsby
well, i guess i am alone on this one again. i highly doubt that GM would put time and money into RAM AIR because they thought they could 'trick' people into buying GAGTs'. now YES, a CAI will increase you power from take off, when i put my stage III CAI on, i fell in love with it. but once i got onto the highway, i noticed a HUGE difference in highway acceleration, and not a good one. now for me, and i mean for me, i prefer my RAM AIR becasue i do much of my driving on the highways, but if i did more city driving... i would say go for the CAI. now i really dont want anyone to come back and tell me im wrong and stuff like that. iam saying what i have expierenced and my OPINION. please feel freee to have your own.

The numbers don't lie. Run what you want, just know it's all in your head. :)

[RazorDX]

Originally posted by tjsoulsby
well, i guess i am alone on this one again. i highly doubt that GM would put time and money into RAM AIR because they thought they could 'trick' people into buying GAGTs'. now YES, a CAI will increase you power from take off, when i put my stage III CAI on, i fell in love with it. but once i got onto the highway, i noticed a HUGE difference in highway acceleration, and not a good one. now for me, and i mean for me, i prefer my RAM AIR becasue i do much of my driving on the highways, but if i did more city driving... i would say go for the CAI. now i really dont want anyone to come back and tell me im wrong and stuff like that. iam saying what i have expierenced and my OPINION. please feel freee to have your own.

Who knows, you may have a problem with your CAI if you feel that it suffers so much on the highway. You may have a crap or clogged filter, or restriction in the piping.

[coupe]

Originally posted by tjsoulsby
well, i guess i am alone on this one again. i highly doubt that GM would put time and money into RAM AIR because they thought they could 'trick' people into buying GAGTs'. now YES, a CAI will increase you power from take off, when i put my stage III CAI on, i fell in love with it. but once i got onto the highway, i noticed a HUGE difference in highway acceleration, and not a good one. now for me, and i mean for me, i prefer my RAM AIR becasue i do much of my driving on the highways, but if i did more city driving... i would say go for the CAI. now i really dont want anyone to come back and tell me im wrong and stuff like that. iam saying what i have expierenced and my OPINION. please feel freee to have your own.


It has nothing to do with your opinion, numbers dont lie. Your ass dyno must need to be recalibrated or something.

[tjsoulsby]

my ass dyno? anyway... look i told you people that it was my opinion and not to come back with the same old crap. and why is it that RAM AIR is all in MY head? but whatever. now whoever keeps thinking that RAM AIR is usless until 100+ mph is making thoes numbers up in their head, seriously. to say that is just stupid. now if you all would stop getting so defensive about the damn CAI and listen... CAI WILL GET YOU BETTER TRACK TIMES!!! again... CAI WILL GET YOU BETTER TRACK TIMES!!!, i said, i run highways, all highways, so when i am already going 70+ mph and want to speed up, the RAM AIR was more effective over my CAI. it is different when you are trink to speed up from a stop then trying to speed up while cruising. you people SHOULD know that. besides, CAI sounds stupid if you are trying to keep a deep, not annoying, sound from your car. now i am going to have people say, omg no way, cai saounds so much better but yea, if you like that annoying screaming from your engine bay. all your sound should be from your exhaust. you know so when you are going down the highway you can comfortably talk to the person beside you w/o yelling at them. also, who the hell wants to be heard a mile down the street anyway? i hate thoes people who thinks that they are cool cause their car is loud.

[bballr4567]

Whoa whoa whoa.

I drive highways a ton aslo (have put almost 20k miles on the car in 7 months) and I love my CAI over the restrictive set up the GAs come with.

I think you need to step back from the roids a bit and try to be a little more calm. Also you should of read a little more about CAIs. They tend to give a little more on the low down but nothing really at full speed except cooler air into the engine which any car guy will tell you is a great thing.

[tjsoulsby]

oooook, i will try to cut back on the juice, thanks for the input. but again, back to cars; i would rather be running my motor on air that does comes from plastic(hard to heat up) over a metal(heats up) tube anyday, including summer. and also, with the cai, you are taking in are, thats it, TAKING in air around the filter. which is not as much as you think. and dont even get me started on the flaws on a cai that is in the engine bay. the one and only reason that was created was for people who were either too cheap or too stupid to notice that taking in air from the engine bay was a good idea. dee dee dee. why do you thing that every automaker had the intake sourse out of the engine bay? hmmm, but we all know that the engineers who design and built cars are idiots. yea, im sure you(stageI/II cai users) are smarter than them and back to stage III cai users, you have the filter in your wheelwell, how much air do you think is down there? if you dont know this... car makers design their cars to NOT have air flow down there. how about this, have a buddy drive your car at 70+mph, or hell, even 45mhp hand stand on the hood and see how well you can stand up. if you have tried this, you will know it is impossible to so this, why??? casue thats alot of air being FORCED against you. now imagine that force being put into your intake. now yea yea you do lose some due to bunds in piping ans such, but thats still a whole lotta air. and for thoes of you who argue well a cai has a 3 inch diameter and RAM AIR is restrictive, do the math. on a RAM AIR you have 2 sources of intake. the front where the RAM AIR connects and the side like the SE models. now i want you to take the two, combine their area and tell me it is not more than 3 inchs its bigger than you think, huh?. see, this is what cai peole want you to think, they said 'hey, we sold this crap to civic owners... why not GA's?' now, if you DO NOT have the GT intake, than i say go for getting a cai, as long as it is stageIII.

[eric99gt]

So if this were all true....why do ga's go faster on the track with a CAI over the ram air???? Where does one see the benefit of keeping the stock system if not through the 0-80 mph range seen at the track? So you're saying at speeds higher than 80 mph it is more effective. Well that's pretty worthless unless you plan on getting a ticket all the time.

[tjsoulsby]

well, if i lived on a 1/4 track, i would have a cai, but i live in the real world with the rest of normal people and your car accel differently from a stop than from cruising... like i said before. and like i have said many times before, from a stop, cai is faster accel to a point. now if you want to mod your car to run its best at the track, then get a cai.

[eric99gt]

Who's talking about living at the track. 0-80 mph is the norm for everyday driving which is nearly the same conditions you would go through at the track. So where exactly does ram air help you?

[tjsoulsby]

well, i know i dont do 0-80mph then stop, then 0-80 again. that would be track. now being western md, all we got is highway so i am not in a constant stop and go like city driving. and again, i have said so many times before, for ME, in my OPINION, the RAM AIR is better for highway use.

[eric99gt]

So you're traveling in excess of 80 mph all the time????

[tjsoulsby]

i drive at about 70-105mhp usually on the belt way

[RazorDX]

Thanks bud, that explains why my insurance rates are going to cause anal bleeding until I'm 25.

[tjsoulsby]

umm, yea.... do you think i would be speeding like that if i was always getting caught or if EVERYONE in I-495 beltway want doing it? it is like the damn autobauhn. so no, i am not why your insurance it going up. you can blame the ricers who think it is cool to spin tires at every redlight they come to and try to show off in their wal-mart parking lot 'club'

[RazorDX]

Oh, I see. Everyone else was doing it. That justifies it.

:roll2:

It has been proven that the "ram air" setup that GM put on the Grand Am is marketing, not performance. Your car will pull all of the air it needs, nothing more. Pushing more air into the intake doesn't actually cause more to go into the cylinders.

It's direct injection snake oil. :lol:

[tjsoulsby]

what the hell is snake oil? anyway, you totally just screwed yourself cause you just said 'Your car will pull all of the air it needs, nothing more' smooth move, dip. and i want you to produce ONE piece of truth that it has been 'proven' that RAM AIR doesnt add power. and i dont mean some guy saying 'omg, cai's are so cool' i am sick of you people getting your panties up in a bunch casue i said RAAM AIR has its advantages. have you not seen that i said cai's have their own pros? seriously this whole damn post was a guy asking for our opinions on intakes. i gave HIM mine, so while you are at your at your nightly wal-mart car club, stop inside and get some anti-bunching panties. now drop it

[sunrunner_pei]

tjsoulsby: Drop it. Don't ruin yet another good discussion with your nonsense. If you like your Ram Air setup better, fine. But stop trying to convince the rest of us. We already heard you.

:banghead:

Back on topic, everyone.

[tjsoulsby]

ok, how about this... how about we all just leave this alone. some people think cai's are better and some(me) others think ram air is better. here is the truth, if i had almost any vehicle other than grand am in 4 or 6 cyl, i would put a cai on it. they are good because they take out the many 'turbulance' areas and they have better flow than a stock system. now if it was a choice between R/A or C/A, i will choose ram air. big thing is i dont like the loud noise from the motor, i like my cars sounds to be from the exhaust. this is how i feel and if can can all agree to disagree, i can finally stop arguing with you people who i really would like to learn from and teach if i can because this is a great forum with alot of smart people. so if you agree to disagree, please post it

[oldassz]

well, sorry to bud in...But wouldnt your factory style airbox and a K&N net you better off the line acceleration and a CAI is more useful at or around highway speed? In my old lancer ralliart this happened every time. I would take my buddies car off the line and he would make it up after 40mph. I had K&N drop in, ground wires, axel back exhaust. He had AEM CAI, cat back magnaflow exhaust. If someone has some 60' times to compare it may be helpful.

[tjsoulsby]

i noticed a bigger difference when i put my k&n drop in filter in my car, but the r/a is more effective at highway speeds because the faster you are going, the more air is being put into the air box

[bballr4567]

Have you seen how many bends and tight areas are on the stock setup?? There is no way its "putting" more air in the car. Want to see a funtional ram air?? Look at a WS6 or an Indy car.

Sorry but you are one and maybe the only person that thinks this.

[tjsoulsby]

i am probably the only person on this forum that thinks so but thats fine.

[bballr4567]

I mean its common aerodynamics. The easier it is for the air to get to a certain place the better it is.

[tjsoulsby]

true, the air will eith come into the tb with a cai, ir it can be 'rammed' with the ram air. thats all i am saying

[bballr4567]

There is no ramming at all. Take a water hose and make a carbon copy of the "ram air" setup. Then make a copy of a CAI.

Now see which flows better. Regardless of how much air is forced into the ram air it is slowed and still drawn into the TB due to the restrictive setup.

[bballr4567]

no no no, thats not how it works, what you said has no logic to it, now i have said that all this needs to stop. we must all agree to disagree now drop it. i dont care if you think your ricer intake is better, just shut up about the whole damn thing and this will end

Regardless of what he says this is a forum and it is used for discussion. I still feel like you need a ton of discussion to show you why the stock "ram air" is just a gimmick that GM used.

Care to post some dyno numbers that show the opposite of what all the numerous CAI dynos show against the stock?? Dynos dont lie. Go hit up a dyno with the stock setup and then with the CAI. See which one has the better numbers.

Its been proven that less restrictive intakes and exhaust improve HP not the other way around.

[JCGT01]

I think everyone should not make a big deal out of it. Ram Air adds at the most 5-7 hp, CAIs (depending on the stage) add 2-15 hp. so if u want to spend $150-$200 to get at the most 7 or 8hp then do it. I think everyone should argue about something that is bigger and has a much larger effect on performance than a metal tube with a filter on the end of it.

[tjsoulsby]

good call.

[bballr4567]

Not a good call.

Name the one of the major things the engine needs to preform good?? Air. Thats right air. Thats a good call.

[Dano13]

Originally posted by RazorDX
Oh, I see. Everyone else was doing it. That justifies it.

:roll2:

It has been proven that the "ram air" setup that GM put on the Grand Am is marketing, not performance. Your car will pull all of the air it needs, nothing more. Pushing more air into the intake doesn't actually cause more to go into the cylinders.

It's direct injection snake oil. :lol:

I feel I should add a little bit of science to this argument. While the statement above is true for stagnant air in a naturally aspirated engine, it is not for most other scenarios.

In the sense of a turbocharged engine, the air is forced into the engine, beyond what the vacuum of the engine draws. Although to a much lesser degree, this is also the effect of a ram air set up. By increasing the pressure in the intake, the ram air set up makes it easier for the engine to get its required air.

Granted, there are more bends and turns in the setup, but fluid mechanics tells us that the difference in those will eventually be overcome.

Therefore, since the CAI has less minor losses, it will undoubtedly allow air to be drawn into the engine from the engine vaccuum easier at lower speeds. Once the air speed is increased, it will be less effective, as it is relatively sheltered behind the fender.

Also, just because better 1/4 mile times can be acheived using the CAI setup, and the 1/4 mile final speed is 85mph, this does not mean that the CAI setup makes more power up to 85mph, it only means it makes more average power between 0 and 85.

[RazorDX]

True Ram Air, yes. The setup that was sold and badged as "Ram Air" by Pontiac for the Grand Ams, not really. As was mentioned, it is so restrictive and bendy that the intake itself becomes a limiting factor in the effectiveness of the setup. They are eventually overcome, but from what I've read that point at which the system can overcome its flaws is after the speed at which the governor kills the fuel. In theory, Ram Air is a great setup. I just don't see it being more effective than a CAI unless you can somehow make it less restrictive and drive a lot faster than the speed limit at all times.

[Dano13]

From what I can see, there are few bends in the ram air setup on the grand am, and I doubt that they would cause too much pressure drop. I'm not sure at what speed the losses would be overcome, that would take some calculations and a fair few assumptions.

However, I can see there is a secondary air intake from the air box to the fender. While useful for helping the demands for more air at lower speeds, I feel that it would actually reduce the pressure in the air box. Of course, that would mean a reduction in the potential power, which would defeat the purpose of the ram air.

[RazorDX]

IIRC that isn't actually an intake, just a sound deadening method... but that was for my car. A different generation with a different motor could be completely different.

[tjsoulsby]

uh, no. the other pipe for the intake is bent like that so it does not get dirt and water kicked up into the air box, thus clogging the air filter. pontiac was smart, they didnt think that putting the intake pipe straight down(like a stage III) so not to pick up debris.

[bballr4567]

Originally posted by tjsoulsby
uh, no. the other pipe for the intake is bent like that so it does not get dirt and water kicked up into the air box, thus clogging the air filter. pontiac was smart, they didnt think that putting the intake pipe straight down(like a stage III) so not to pick up debris. That is what an air filter is for.

Also the reason that all companies dont put a CAI intake on from the factory is to pass emissions regulations. Same reason they put a small exhaust on. Plus it limits the amount of power an engine will make and therefor it will make better MPG.

[tjsoulsby]

ok, lets all but the air box down in the wheel well, so all the crap will clog up the filter after a mile of driving. they want to preserve the life of the air filter and keep it clean of dirt b/c if you are driving with a clogged up filter, what good will that do? and people dont want to change the filter after 100 miles of driving.

[bballr4567]

If you are really thinking about it then the ram air is the worst of all. It allows full size bugs to be sucked into the intake and then filtered by the filter. Wouldnt the bumper protect the CAI from that???

Oh and guys with a CAI how often do you have to clean the filter?? Every 100 miles?? You constantly having to take debris off the filter? Damn that would so suck. :roll:

Also try finding another performance part that gives your car around a 10 HP jump for around $60.

[tjsoulsby]

ok, yea, you stick a cai on a 3.4, it will give you a few more hp, but do you think that the ram air only produces 5 more hp than the 3.4se? no, the extra hp mostly comes from the exhaust, you cant really tell how much hp you gain with the ram air cause on the dyno, you are not making the same air pressure you would on the highway, so shut up about the ram air. we settled this awhile ago, DROP IT!!! now out of all the miles i have on my car, over 130,000 miles, i have had ONE bee in my filter. i promise you collect more debris than a stock system.

[bballr4567]

Well the one thing that annoys me more then anything on a FORUM is when someone tells someone else to drop it when they are having a nice discussion. Its not settled and never will be.

Did you find a car that had a CAI on for 130k miles driving in the same conditions that you drive in?? There you go, cant compare that. Also considering that your car is a 2000 and you being 19 that makes you the owner of that car when you were 12. Yea Im sure you didnt put all 130k miles on it.

Ohh good you talk about exhaust now. Considering I have 2.5" cat back, which is where the difference exhaust size starts, (as do plenty of other GAOCers) and you stick a CAI on there is it better then the stock air intake system now??

[tjsoulsby]

please dont tell me that you are assuming. everyone knows what happens when you assume. but anyway, dont tell me how many miles are put on my car every year, just dont. you have NO clue how much i drive or how i drive. oh, and if you dont think that 100k+ miles cant be put on a car in a few years, how about my buddies 2002 ZX2(built in '03) has about 150,000 miles. so dont tell me when i got my car. that is all i will say. and the reason i brought up the R/A is due to YOUR post where you said "If you are really thinking about it then the ram air is the worst of all. It allows full size bugs to be sucked into the intake and then filtered by the filter. Wouldnt the bumper protect the CAI from that??? " so seeing as how you never even has a r/a, you really cant comment on its daily highway use. now we have talked about this in PM, i thought WE agreed to stop comparing the r/a to the cai?!?!

[bballr4567]

stop comparing the r/a to the cai?!?!

:looks at thread title: LMAO!!!


Good job on commenting on what I just posted though. Just dont! Just dont!!!

I dont remember agreeing to any crap you said.

[tjsoulsby]

ok, looks to me like it says r/a vs cai

[sunrunner_pei]

OK guys, since you are being childish about this, this thread is now closed. And no, you MAY NOT continue this is another thread.