Experiences with shorty intake on bottom mount turbo setups

[wgknestrick]

Installing a Steedspeed manifold with a EFR 8474 turbo and trying to keep a 4inch intake with AC. The best solution at the moment to achieve this is to put a straight silicone coupler and then a stubby filter that sits right behind the AC compressor. Does anyone have any first or 2nd hand experiences with this type of intake? Obviously main concern is water ingestion, but is that a "true concern" or just internet chair jockey wive's tails? This isn't my DD.

[Def]

I'd be more worried about IATs if you're rarely driving it in the rain. If you do drain it in a lot of rain, it is pretty easy to get a huge splash of water on the filter if you hit a puddle.

I'd build a shield/box for the filter if I was going to put it right in front of the compressor, and still try to feed it cooler air from up front.

[Robocop]

i don't have any experience but just wondering.
you can't bring it up like this?

sucking up water is not a wives tale i've sucked up allot of water
going through puddles even with intake at headlight level
the car bogs hard i think what saves me is
the giant intercooler holding most the water getting sucked in.
intake basically at the oil pan is going to be a true concern.

pic is example this is not my car.

[pbonsalb]

I think E36Myelo is doing the filter on the turbo inlet with a SPA manifold. He is running high 10s, low 11s at 130+ and street drives his car. I have a Steed2 and used oval tubing and made it over to the front bumper behind the fog light hole. I did have to clearance the AC tensioner. Chikinhed has a Steed2 and made it up past the manifold to a filter behind the headlight. I am not sure whether he used round or oval tubing.

I would prefer more protection for daily driving than a direct mount filter. I drive in all weather. I had an issue only once, on a badly flooded road — literally driving through a river. I got some water drops into the HFM. I do have a filter sock on my filter and that may have helped. Motor survived but I was not sure at the time. Would not take much to mess up an impeller even if it did not hydrolock the motor. For those who drive only in dry weather and would never be caught in rain, this is not a concern.!

[wgknestrick]

I think E36Myelo is doing the filter on the turbo inlet with a SPA manifold. He is running high 10s, low 11s at 130+ and street drives his car. I have a Steed2 and used oval tubing and made it over to the front bumper behind the fog light hole. I did have to clearance the AC tensioner. Chikinhed has a Steed2 and made it up past the manifold to a filter behind the headlight. I am not sure whether he used round or oval tubing.

I would prefer more protection for daily driving than a direct mount filter. I drive in all weather. I had an issue only once, on a badly flooded road — literally driving through a river. I got some water drops into the HFM. I do have a filter sock on my filter and that may have helped. Motor survived but I was not sure at the time. Would not take much to mess up an impeller even if it did not hydrolock the motor. For those who drive only in dry weather and would never be caught in rain, this is not a concern.!

I have several 4inch 45deg silicone elbows to try to make the treacherous path up to the headlight area, but don't see a great long term solution that isn't resting on the manifold insulation. As far as I can tell, all top filter intakes (I've found) are generally 3 inch DIA pipes and usually don't have AC on top of that. I'll try to see if there is any space to the front fog light area or not. 4inch silicone elbow couplers are not small, but highly conformable.

I just have a feeling that we may be overthinking the dangers of this. While remote mounted turbos may be the stupidest thing I can ever imagine doing, they are still "a thing" and people aren't hydro locking their engines left and right with them. Every remote mounted turbo has a filter on turbo inlet sitting right behind the rear wheels.

[pbonsalb]

I think for clearance purposes you would need a welded pipe not silicon clamped in the manifold/frame rail area. I tried years ago with 3.5 to 4.0 round pipe and could not do it, but that was with a Boostlogic manifold. I may try again one day with oval 3.5 or 4.0. Whatever Chikinhed has done would be good. He builds well.

[Robocop]

na, not even an alum pipe. there is super thin pipe you can get that would be sweet
but check this out.

not that one spacificaly there is an orange one for high heat that you can try.
i run the lower heat black one for my top mount. makes it super ez to route.

very flexible just run it long and bend it all crazy.
Flexy hoze by jet jones, on Flickr

[et89]

na, not even an alum pipe. there is super thin pipe you can get that would be sweet
but check this out.

not that one spacificaly there is an orange one for high heat that you can try.
i run the lower heat black one for my top mount. makes it super ez to route.

very flexible just run it long and bend it all crazy.
Flexy hoze by jet jones, on Flickr

I have been looking into this, but people say that this solution creates a lot of turbulence in the intake air which hurts performance.
what do you think?

my current bottom mount intake doesn't give me that much problems in a rainy country.

I am planning for a scottish road trip with it though and the roads can be a bit flooded there. so I want to solve this before I go there.
this can be a nice solution.

[wgknestrick]

Spiral corded hose sucks to work with in general. I tried to use it (1.75" DIA though) on my STI where I relocated the radiator to the FMIC location to fit a V-mount IC. The min bend radius is huge on that stuff and you can't get a clean edge due to the metal cord. I think you'd have a tough time forming it without the cord tearing through the layers. It is ridiculously heavy too. The thinner stuff (think dryer vent) just looks too ghetto for my tastes, but I wouldn't be worried about flow as long as it doesn't collapse. Getting the largest cross section is way more important than surface conditions. Give me some time to keep working at it and I'll post something once I figure it out.

[pbonsalb]

Can you weld? Chikinhed has a 4” inlet pipe to behind the headlight with AC and a Steedspeed twinscroll. I think he had 3.5” with the Steedspeed single scroll. He is using a custom motor mount arm and custom AC lines.

There is no pressure in the inlet line but wire reinforcement if using soft lines could help prevent the suction of a fast spooling high flow turbo from squeezing the inlet tube closed. Short silicone couplers between sections of pipe won’t have this issue since they are not long enough to collapse.

[Def]

Why not do something like a lost foam composite intake if you have a tight space? Basically carve foam into a shape that fits, then put fiberglass or carbon fiber over it, then dissolve/mechanically remove the foam. Complex 3d intake pipe done!

[JuCo]

Installing a Steedspeed manifold with a EFR 8474 turbo and trying to keep a 4inch intake with AC. The best solution at the moment to achieve this is to put a straight silicone coupler and then a stubby filter that sits right behind the AC compressor. Does anyone have any first or 2nd hand experiences with this type of intake? Obviously main concern is water ingestion, but is that a "true concern" or just internet chair jockey wive's tails? This isn't my DD.

I planned on doing the same thing, mine is a weekend joy ride car and not a daily by any means. I plan to drive only on Sunny days and clear nights.

I'd be more worried about IATs if you're rarely driving it in the rain. If you do drain it in a lot of rain, it is pretty easy to get a huge splash of water on the filter if you hit a puddle.

I'd build a shield/box for the filter if I was going to put it right in front of the compressor, and still try to feed it cooler air from up front.

Any data on IATs with a short intake not relocated? Common sense tells me it would be hotter but I'm just wondering if we have examples and its real world application. At the end of the day I'm not trying to be optimal all the time, but if i'm losing 40whp all the time then it might be worth relocating.

[wgknestrick]

I planned on doing the same thing, mine is a weekend joy ride car and not a daily by any means. I plan to drive only on Sunny days and clear nights.



Any data on IATs with a short intake not relocated? Common sense tells me it would be hotter but I'm just wondering if we have examples and its real world application. At the end of the day I'm not trying to be optimal all the time, but if i'm losing 40whp all the time then it might be worth relocating.

It's negligible from all comparisons (on other turbo platforms) I've seen. Remember that you are intercooling everything before it is used anyways, and a turbo ingests so much air that it can't really be sitting in the engine bay for long. CAI matters more on NA cars though. At worst, the turbo is running in a slightly less efficient part of the map from 5-10deg warmer air. Once the car is at WOT, I'd imagine the delta drops as the fresher/cooler air replaces everything. A short ram on a bottom mount E36 is basically a CAI anyway IMO.

[Def]

Cold air absolutely matters a HUGE amount on a turbo car. Keep in mind that the temperature increase from compression and inefficiencies multiply on top of the air temp going into the compressor. Raise the compressor inlet temp 40 deg F, and you could easily see an extra 100+F coming out of the turbo.

Now if you're just doing a few 3 sec pulls in Mexico, 1. why have a big power turbo car, and 2. your IC thermal mass might just mask that.

But you'll heatsoak your IC much easier/faster, and have a hard time keeping temps once in boost.