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Cold air intake box

I know plenty of people with turbo'd or supercharged cars that also use the K&N or Green filter system and they have no issues. Hell I ran a SC car with a K&N for over 80K miles with NO issues and and no sand/dirt nast in my oil pan either.

but you know I didn't just sand dunes either.

Did you ever have your oil analyzed to see what the silica levels were?
 



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Did you ever have your oil analyzed to see what the silica levels were?

no - I live in the south east US - we don't have much sand till you get near a beach - I'm not near a beach.

let me put it another way. I did a UOA twice on that car after the supercharger - mostly to see how hard I was pushing it when I raced it - and I raced it, road course.

never had warning about other stuff in the oil - and I used cheap Mobil 1 back then - before moving to something better. UOA told me to go 6K on the oil even after a race event in Sebring FL (so yeah some sand I guess, but more hot and humid). I never had an issue but I washed my K&N every year regardless of the miles. I didn't over oil it and I checked it occasionally. you know like the manual recommends.

but whatever some test with no supporting documentation on a Diesel site talks about how horrible they are . . . and it must be true. I'd love to see their flow bench and see video of it. our flow bench showed they do indeed increase air flow - and do clean better than most filters. I say most - the modern poly synthetic dry stuff works rather well too. Under sevier vacuum they can deform - that's a turbo at say 20+psi of boost. There you need to have the conical filter with the metal caps or you can indeed suck in the filter and flex the mesh - causing tears. there you either need a bigger intake tube and filter for the demand or some other design changes.
 






it's like every other argument on the web though. you're using the wrong oil, or the wrong oil filter, or the wrong tire etc etc.

I wouldn't say you can't make a paper element filter work well - you can. but the issues with crap in the oil due to just the airfilter are absurd to me. when you could have had a crap oil filter, or you developed a hole in your intake tube etc etc.
 






Ford is VERY well known to have great air filters that trap the smallest of dirt and still allow air flow. I am big into the tuning world on diesels and my current one is tuned far more then any Explorer can run and I still maintain the stock filter. I've had several tuners tell me to keep the stock filter when stock. You will net very little gain if any. Even tuned, yes there is room for improvement but we are talking 30-40hp on a diesel which is significant compared to gas motors.

There may be other applications where K&N are going to net you gains but over the Ford intake system, it's just not going to happen staying with a stock tune.

Just my $0.02
 






Intake air temperature is monitored by the pcm. In my 2nd generation truck I use a scanguage II which reads IAT's

My 2nd Gen. stock air box is well insulated and pulls air from around the headlight, therefore the IAT's displayed on my scanguage match the outside temperature indicator in my factory installed display. Now, if I was to park the truck after a long drive, the airbox will warm up a bit and display higher temperatures, but they soon drop once we get rolling at speed.


I have no doubt an aftermarket intake can flow more air, but I do assume it is just more hotter air. More air =more required fuel. Keep that in mind.


Has anyone attempted to monitor the IAT's both before and after installing a so called "cold air intake"?

I am not sure if the scangaugeII will work on the 5th gen, surely the market has something similar available?
 






Intake air temperature is monitored by the pcm. In my 2nd generation truck I use a scanguage II which reads IAT's

My 2nd Gen. stock air box is well insulated and pulls air from around the headlight, therefore the IAT's displayed on my scanguage match the outside temperature indicator in my factory installed display. Now, if I was to park the truck after a long drive, the airbox will warm up a bit and display higher temperatures, but they soon drop once we get rolling at speed.


I have no doubt an aftermarket intake can flow more air, but I do assume it is just more hotter air. More air =more required fuel. Keep that in mind.


Has anyone attempted to monitor the IAT's both before and after installing a so called "cold air intake"?

I am not sure if the scangaugeII will work on the 5th gen, surely the market has something similar available?

Monitoring the Temp at the cold box and at the TB intake is something I'd like to do but, I'm not sure how I'm going to go about it. I can see using actual, separate gauges mounted in the cab connected with sensors located at the locations mentioned but, I haven't pursued this idea yet. Already having an outside temp reading available, placing the other sensors as mentioned are the logical locations if this set up is possible. If I find some other idea on this, I'll look into that as well.
 






Ok, bringing this thread back to life again. As I mentioned in my last post, I wanted some way to monitor the temperature in the cold air box and at the throttle body inlet. I ordered a couple of ordinary digital temp gauges from Amazon to do this. These gauges are simple, standalone, temp read outs with sensor probes. This means I can accomplish my quest by not having to attach the temp gauges directly to the Ex.

Today, I set them up in the Ex. One in the cold air box and the other just inside the engine compartment. At this point, setting a probe up to read the temp at the throttle body would mean some modification and I don't want to do that until I can figure out a way to do it without punching holes in things.

I have a series of pictures that shows the variations of temperatures between the cold air box and the engine compartment at different intervals. Pic #1 is the temp at idle just after starting. Cold air temp on the left, engine compartment temp on the right. This will be the configuration throughout this post. Pic # 2 is after arriving at the destination I drove to, about 4 miles. Pic # 3 is the temp reading after the car sat for about 25 minutes while I did my business and before I started the Ex back up to return home. Pic # 4 is the temp after I parked at home, engine still running. Pic #5 is the temp after sitting for about 10 minutes, engine off. I also include a picture of the outside temp as seen in the info screen of the Ex.

The conditions for this 'test' were under normal driving, stop and go in traffic on surface streets. At some point, I'll get a reading for driving on the freeway/highway under extended driving but, for now, just wanted to give you an idea of the difference in temps recorded in the cold air box and the engine compartment along with the outside air temp. The differences in temp readings are quite clear and shows the benefit of adding a cold air box versus just having the K&N setup which is open to the engine compartment.

Temp reading 1.jpg


Temp reading 2.jpg


Temp reading 3.jpg


Temp reading 4.jpg


Temp reading 5.jpg


Air Temp.jpg
 






For those interested, just an update since my last post on the subject of temp differential, cold air box versus engine compartment. I have been averaging about a 25 degree temp difference between the two over the last couple of months. Pretty much what I expected. However, I still want to get a reading right at the throttle body intake and for that, I will need a 3rd temp gauge. Will do this soon hopefully and get back. :thumbsup:
 






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