advans

hey guys, ive been going nuts about building a "cold air" intake for our V6s.
I used to own a Maxima with a Stillen Intake that I had, and I miss that kinda, throaty growl that comes out of the intake.

IF IF IF I have built a cold air, using the stock airboxes, say, the 2 cone filters with heat shields sit where the current intake tubes are. technically, that could be called a "cold air intake".

My theory is that, IF the 2 cones sit there, the air would suck in, STILL go thru the stock airbox. so it would technically be the same as the 2 sheet filters sitting in the air box. am i right? I mean, its still the same air going thru the same box.

well I've been WANTING to have that throaty growl, anyone know of anything? I know this thing "B&B PERFORMANCE COLD AIR INTAKE" they have it for our V6, and the guys at the chrysler crossfire forums said that theres no gain in hp, but def a throatier sound. suggestions?

thanks in advan-ced

gaiex

I managed to change my intake tube, that makes a S turn from rigth to left, for a C270CDI one, that goes straigth from the air box, just plug & play in my case.

And I feel a lot quicker trottle responses at low revs and at higher revs from my CDI and a litle more puch, and a cool sound from the turbo and the KN sucking the air

With your petrol cars you will have also some better trottle responses.

advans

well, im guessing I should either go ahead and make one, or buy one. I hope its worth its money, I just want the sound, lol


this guy over at the CLK forums, he has a custom intake. looks pretty good.

this is what I want to get...



I think I;m gonna go ahead and order this

TruTaing

Thats for a v6? not for the m112, right? :x

-j0hn

advans

they said its for C240/320 but thats not the one in the pic, its just something similar

Justinius7

another option you may want to try first...

on my c320 i took off the air box and dremmelled out all the silencer baffels. It did give me a bit more throaty sound, although nothing to the point of a cold air intake. its mostly noticable from a dead stop, or from outside the car. I typically never drive with the windows open so i have yet to hear it in a tunnel or anything while WOT at higher speeds.

As for performance gains... I would say that there is ZERO gains in the city, possibly even a slight loss of power... BUT at high speeds, DEFINATE INCREASE... plus my fuel mileage went up considerably. its not uncommon for me to get over 28 mpg on the freeway, whereas before i would rarely break 25.

ALSO i imagine the sounds would be much better as well as the milage if i got off my lazy **** and ordered my green filters!

advans

yeah I think im gonna go ahead and order the "COLD AIR INTAKE" I do not mind a little decrease in power, I sorta just like the sound, well...I miss it lol

YoYiTo

advans i understand your idea but isnt the our intake system considered as cold air? because there's 2 tubes that goes to the grill of the car.

i also was experimenting once with the intake. i took out my airbox and then used the air compressor throwing little bit of air. as i got to the second setting which is a little bit more of air the car shuts off. so my thought of making eliminating the airbox and making a custom tubing will be useless due to my thought it will shut off once the ecu detecs extra air going to the car.

correct me if im wrong. its just a thought.

rlee02135

i replaced my cloth intake pipe with a ss pipe and there is a big difference in sound.

Justinius7

or is there a way to possibly make the tubes LARGER?
If the tubes were larger, probably get more noise out of them.

Just out of curiosity... i remember that my ML320 had a totally different engine cover set up on it... i dont recall it being one huge peice of plastic, but i do remember the tubing...

both engines are exactly identical, same torque, hp, etc... unfortunatly i dont have time to do a search cause i am at work.... but one could probably mimic that set up, only thing is... you'd loose the fancy cover the 320's have.


as for forcing too much air in, hmmm.... that is a good point, BUT i would imagine that speeds of excess 50 mph of wind, the engine would require more cfi's to run then what is being forced in. Also i would also imagine if you force too much air into any engine its going to overly lean out and stall. example a turbo charger boosts around 7psi... an aircompressor is around 90psi. okay cfi's are totally different between a turbo and a garage aircompressor... but neverthe less... your pushing too much air into the engine. As i sit here thinking about it... i think that would totally work!!! just need the part connects the air duct tubing to the intake then you can put your cold air on.

Justinius7

just went to ebay... looked at a pic of a ML320 engine air intake system... ITS ONE LARGE HOSE going to a AIR BOX up by the headlight, same as a jap car would have, where you would put the cold air filter on at.

now looking at the 2 engine bays... i see why benz has 2 different designs... There is no room for the air filter except ontop of the engine. which means you would have to have your filter behind the bumper not in the engine bay... WHICH IS ABSOLUTLY IDEAL... there is your sound and your added power!

advans

I have a ML500, and I bought this "intake" that has a cone filter. the ML500 airbox is set up the same as the ML320. At first the ML did give it a bit of the throaty sound. but the filter got clogged from the dirt and I threw it away, replaced it with a Green Filter sheet, the throaty went away.


I DO believe so that the C320/240/280/350, w/e u know lol the V6s AIRBOX is a cold air, I mean, the filter sits inside this air box, but the fact is that, the airbox DOES get really hot. SO...in theory, even if its a supposed cold air intake where the cones sit outside, the same air, travels thru the same path, then wouldnt it be the same exact thing!?

ONE THING I NOTICED... in winter/fall cold days, after the car's RPM goes stable, and I drive out, the car HAS that throaty sound. I'm not sure If I want to spit up the money for the project, but advice from you guys can change what I think.

any other suggestions, (BTW thanks for the info guys)

Justinius7

how much time do you have laying around? you should see if you can play around with your ML's piping and see if you can get it onto the c320 and take it out for a spin... then let us all know... if it really works... I AM GAME for that MOD! I honestly would think it would make a difference.

As for the temps inside the air box, i imagine they do go up... BUT not compared to the old mbenz's... like the 190e witht he 2.6... that air box would be extremely hot to the touch on any given day. (as in JUST DONT TOUCH)

if you did your custom tubing, you would not use the existing air boxes, BUT instead you would tap into the circle airport in the middle of the intake with some type of 90 degree tube, then pipe it towards the wheel well... then through the front somehow into under the bumper.

go to a rice rocket shop... they prob have all the peices to make it work, including the 90degree elbow that would be clamped on.

advans

that was what I was thinking, just dont know If I want to do it, I was thinking of REMOVING the mercedes airbox and a Y-pipe into the airport, then use the exisiting "clamp areas" (where the airbox sits) to make my tubes stable, then from there, have another pipe run closer to the front of the car. then 2 big enough cone filters and a heat shield. ofcourse, have the tubes wrapped.

Justinius7

I think that is an AWESOME idea! and i would definatly imagine it would work... NOW hopefully we can get someone to "chime in"... would 2 air ducts be more efficient than one large one?

I am thinking that you will get more of that "WHAP" sound if you have one overly large tube. your aiming for that hollow sound of the intake *gasping* for air. and for some reason i am thinking that one large hollow tube will allow the sounda and air to be more prevelant.

Not sure about air, but i know that electricty flows better through one large wire rather than 2 smaller wires. I would think that air flow would be the same.

advans

well one thing we have to keep clear is that, MB used dual intakes for a purpose. lol and besides, the cone filters have to be the same area (if not a little bigger) than the original sheet filters. I think the dual pipes with the dual cones with heatshield would do good. this coming weekend ima go ahead and order the cold air intake shown above. then use the stock box, see how that works. then when I get free time, I'm gonna stop by a rice shop and see what they can do.

Justinius7

where are you going to put the cones? surely there is not nearly enough room under there... are you putting them in the bumpers? That engine bay gets pretty warm. There is a plastic cover on the underside of the engine... and notice all the vents in the hood are SEALED to the windscreen side of the firewall... i dont assume there is much airflow under there, so i fear that you may be worsening the power by sucking in massive amounts of hot air.

advans

that is what i am scared of, I have to do some measurements.

pop the hood, have the car warm up, and see which places are the "warmest"

I was thinking of sticking the cones somewhere where the existing plastic intake tubes are at. (which im gonna remove)

Justinius7

So i've been pondering this for the past while... And unfortuanatly due to some drugged out chick, shoving her saturn up the rear of my 'anabel' the other night... i wont be able to take a look under the hood and see what ideas i can come up with.

But after modding an RX7... I know the best option was to take a 4" hole saw to the front crossmember and run a pipe through it to the filter which was between the bumper and frame. BEFORE the heat of the radiator. (hence cold air intake)

Im not sure if there are many hotspots in the engine bay or not... BUT there is not much room underthere, nor is there much ventilation. AND your fighting a very large radiator.

What cones are you intending on using? what are the sizes? are you still going to run the "DUAL CONE" idea? I wonder if there is a way to just use the stock SQUARE filters, drill out the baffels (like i did) and run bigger pipping from the front to the air box.

Justinius7

ALSO was thinking... i remember carlos a/k/a SAPARISSA did a post (now a sticky) on air box removal. So i went to look at his awesome write up on the 320 airbox. AND i noticed there was a series of wire mesh over the intake manifold on both the airbox and MAF openings. I imagine that is to keep LARGE particles (such as mechanics rags, etc.) from somehow getting "sucked" into the engine. BUT are these necessary? Are you going to attempt to remove? With these removed do you think you can free up the motion of air to increase the "WHAP" sound?

Also was searching the forum on this... and there is a thread floating out there where someone replaced the cloth filter on the 4cyl with PVC pipe... and capNEMO had a great idea... get marine exaust piping and attach to intake and wind scoop this larger diameter (of your choice) should definatly allow more noise and freeflowing air possibly because you dont have the accordian piping in the middle which probably does baffel out some sound.

hmm... making me itch for some tinkering on the ol car when i get it back.

advans

the guy with the replacement PVC pipe, stillkickin, he took that off and wrapped his cloth intake. I was wondering today, is it even POSSIBLE to fit a C32 amg airbox? if i can, then it would be fun.

I took a look at the hood today, theres seriously not much room to work with, and the underhood DOES get pretty hot. I was thinking, of right now, enlarging the current dual plastic pipes with some from autozone or soething, then heatwrap it. wonder if that makes a diff. I'll do that once I get my oil changed tomorrow! keep you guys updated!

but still, I'm ehh about buying the dual cone thing shown above. Im leaning towards a yes as of now, but again. not sure if it works, As you guys have said, the whole intake system is sealed off from under the hood. and If I have just 2 filters sitting here, then it would take in more hot air, then I dont know wahts going on.

but, yeah tomorow, getting those tubes. and heat wraping it!

Justinius7

Advans....

i believe SAPARISSA a/k/a CARLOS put the C32 AMG airbox on his coupe. He has a thread that is about 20+ pages long, and i think he ordered his airbox. If you ever met carlos, he is defianlty a perfectionist... and researches everything before making his mod... So for that reason, i am sure it was/is a plug and play set up. Unfortunatly I quit surfing the forums before he got it in.. so i am not sure if he did a write up or if the project stopped..

also from my understanding, you can pull a few horseys out of the AMG box because of its additional size. And if your in the mood to spend some money, i think Renntech sells an airbox for us for like 900 bucks or something.

Take PICS as your doing your mod. What did you decide to use for tubing?
i definatly suggest taking out your air baffels too, as you will get a tad bit more noise out of it. Can you take video? or do a timed test run of 0-100 in a before and after?

advans

I dont remember seeing carlos use a C32 amg airbox, but its very possible that he did I'm gonna head out to autozone and pep boys later seeing if theres such tubes. if there is, i'm gonna see if I can get one to replace the plastic ones. if not, im gonna get 1 universal one, and a old cone filter I have, and put ONE on. and see if theres that WHAP noise, or any diff noise at all. if there is. then the project continues.

Justinius7, Is is seriously "safe" to remove the baffels? When I clean my filter I see small small twigs and leaves, so im not sure if thats a GOOD idea

Justinius7

it is quite possible that carlos never did do the AMG airbox retrofit. I know he was planning it, cause i was going to drill out my baffles and if it was a negitive thing... he was going to give me his old air box. But shortly there after he ended up having to go overseas for a bit.

As for drilling out the baffles... I dont think it is a negitive thing. I too noticed alot of dirt and twigs and misc. crap in there, but I honestly dont think the baffles are to stop that stuff... from what i figured, the baffles are there to help reduce noise AS WELL AS EQUALLY DISTRIBUTING THE AIR FLOW ACROSS THE ENTIRE FILTER RATHER THAN THE FAR POINT OF THE FILTER NEAR THE FIREWALL.

also what is the difference between the AMG air box and the normal airbox? is it taller or wider? I know it holds more air, but not sure how much more.

When i cut out my baffles, I only cut the baffles in around the air filters,... not in the center section. I am thinking about going back and cutting those out as well.. i just did not have time to before, also need to figure out how to crack open the case... is it glued?

advans

hmmm im not sure if it IS glued. seems to have no way to open it.

heres a pic of the green twister intake on a crossfire/SRT-6



i'm pretty sure the engine bay set-up is quite the same. and I think the chrysler has a little more space up front. I went to autozone today, they have this intake tube but its HUGE like 14" long. I also wonder, If I just REMOVE the plastic tube, would there be any damage? lemme go ahead and try that, and take the car out for a spin