355 Air intake Modification!

The point is to make modifications that they will not cost you more than the car!

l have tried it but it didnt work that good

 

Right on the STi system, but it's not water injection...as you said, it's just an intercooler sprayer to cool off the intercooler. I used to fill the reservoir with ice cubes prior to an autox run Injection systems actually spray into the intake air stream, works like a charm on forced induction cars to cool things off and prevent detonation at crazy boost levels.

 

That's what I did, covered the bottom and sides of the airboxes with reflective insulation...in addition to adding a short ram intake to the C-pillar like early 355's and all 348's have (non-spyders of course).

Race850i - very nice work! I think your solution would provide cooler air than what I did...but like Ernie said watch out for water. I have the same water concern with the C-pillar intake. If I see a potentially rainy drive I just pop the silicone hoses off the airbox

 

lf for less than 10 bucks you could get power that we can feel at the flip of a switch everybody with more than 10 bucks would be able to drive from A to B with Spaceships
Even if the pipes are long the air is not getting stopped in those engine bays to find time to get worm.
Try to imagine what is happening in the engine and how fast the air is in those engine bays, when you drive with over 120 miles and putting your hand outside of the window

 

There is heat transfer. Its like the first law of thermodynamics or something. The transfer may be little but water injection at anything over STP increases air density for better intake charge.

 

Yes l know, in Germany its raining like hell,but l have tested over 30000km so it passed the test.
What you did is also good but on a rainy day you need to open your hood as well.
Something else that you sould isolate is the MAF -if you have a 5.2- cause it suffers too from big heat!

 

I'm adding a reflective hose cover to the air intake tubes. Looks like I'll have to remove the tubes first to straighten them to get the covers on all the way as the curvature makes it difficult.

Of course, as mentioned, the airboxes are what really suffer from heat exposure but the air intake tubes are a start. Eventually want to get the bottom halves of the airboxes ceramic coated.
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I use this tin-foil hat. It keeps my head cool in the summer. Sorry could not resist...
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Stay off the golf course in the late afternoon!

 

So is it unusual that my air boxes stay cool?

I have from time to time checked the air boxes with my hands and while they are above my hand temperature I would not call them "hot" by any means..

How much heat are you guys talking about?

 

I've never measured mine properly but I considered them to be VERY hot along with all the "plumbing" that feeds the plenums (and this is with reduced heat as a result of no upper or lower cats. being installed).

It's really all the wrong color and the worst possible color. Should be reflective silver but that might look wrong on a Ferrari or would not be traditional.

 

I dont think this will help the car very much.The Tubes have nothing to do with the heat and any cheap insulation will also not help.
In my country we have a saying that says:You searching the tree and you loosing in front of you the whole Forest!!!

The point is everything to get out of there,what i did. All the other stuff like reflective tubes,strange insulations,different airbox cups in the same position as the OEM its pointless half work my opinion

See all this picture, its an F50 engine(my inspiration mostly). Its an amazine machine and it has all the power that promices,look where Ferrari put the airboxes, right and left away from the Exhaust and hidden in the body facing the body holes of the air intake
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Everything that carries air to the engine and gets heated has SOME effect. The air tubes also get heated in the engine compartment but not to the degree the airboxes do. Cheap or not, insulation will help, to a degree. Adding to that, some heat rejection qualities to the airboxes will do even more.

The saying about trees and the forest is common throughout the world. No "breaking news" there.

We all know the F50 is an amazing machine. It's basically a race car that is permitted on the streets. They did not have the design limitations or practicality limitations that are imposed on a "normal" Ferrari. It's no secret that it is best to move airboxes as far away from the exhaust as possible. They used a completely different layout on the F50 -- because they could.

Keep in mind that not all people would want to make a change in their engine compartment on the scale you did. I admire your design idea and think it provides the best air temperature reduction I've seen on a 355. Still, no need for you to "poo-poo" on other peoples more subtle ideas for intake air temp. reduction.

 

I've also been thinking about getting my airboxes ceramic coated. Some of the coatings that are available have excellent thermal properties and I wouldn't be surprised if a large decrease in average air inlet temperatures was to be gained. Of course the only scientific way of proving this is to install a thermocouple into the airbox with a thin wire out to a digital readout (obviously only do this pre-filter just in case something works its way loose!). Comparing "before" and "after" temperatures would then prove whether it is beneficial and to what degree! Time permitting I may look into this. I also agree about potential advantages of insulating the air delivery pipes.

 

I like your posting and thank you for answering, I want to thank too everybody who get busy with my Project
About the saying... I didnt know that ist worldwide thing!
I didnt want to criticise you -or anybody else- for doing something in your car,its just that my English are good but not perfect to put in words what i feel and want to say
Anyways back to Topic
Unfortunately Pininfarina designed the 355 like that,the Engineears needed to install everything based on this design.As I was bying my 355 next to it was parked an F50 with the Hood open,compering them I realised that the 355 would have an issue with the airboxes so after a while I deside to work on it.
I spend hundreds of hours during the 2 years i own the car I spend a lot of money and I throw in the trush more than 7 pairs of airfilters many meters of very expensive Silicon tubes a lots of square meters of stainless steel having my wife almost devorsing me keep saying -or your stupid car or me!-
After all that i made it allthough it needs to be perfect on the design to look also nice.

ps. that *poo-poo* was totally cool,i have read it almost 10 times to got what you mean

 

Hi Themis,

In the U.S, for example, you would say "You can't (cannot) see the forest for (because of) the trees."

Well... your English is much better than my German.

I think any normal road car has a lot of compromises. I really can't imagine a worse place to put the 355 air boxes and especially with an engine that is "famous" for the heat output (and then there is a big hole in the heat shield for the bypass valve to stick out). Okay, the whole car is a pretty small package so it was difficult.

Keep experimenting! Maybe it is something that can go into production some time. A guy I know in Bayern keeps promising to produce a light weight clutch/flywheel for the 308/328. I'm still waiting (he already successfully converted his 308QV engine to chain drive!).

Erich

 

From memory, I think there are already a couple of drain holes in the bottoms of the airboxes where you could insert a thermocouple.

 

Take a look at the F40. What intellegent engineer thought of placing the intercoolers over the exhast? To my eyes, they seem more like inter"HEATERS". These gagdets are supposed to cool the turbos air charge, so I would think that they would need cool fresh air to work effeciently. The sure "look" pretty sitting in the open but..........
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They are interheaters if they don't have sealed ducts feeding fresh air to the bottom of them.

(not sure if they do, but they could only logically be placed there with sealed ducting)

 

Well my German are allmost in the same level with my English cause i am not german,
I am coming from Greece I am living in Germany though since 8 years.This is Europe,too many Countries with so many languages.

I am thinking a lot latelly to put the system onto Production allthough its only a Hobby to me but its not very easy here in Germany,it could be very expensive and the worst thing its the German TÜV-state control-they dont have a Humor at all!

Themis

 

You are absolutely right.I must say that its not very easy to design a middle engine but Ferrari should have done a better work in some cars, the Lamborghini Diablo engine for example seems much better design of the air intake and it produces also all the power that promices.
We love our Ferraris anyways dont we
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Michelotto......

 

It would be most interesting to log the inlet air temp from the ECU...I can see it on my OBDII scanner, but are there any laptop based programs to log data?

 

I'm surprised goth didn't pipe up here. He designed and built an extended heat shield for his engine bay to further insulate the airbox. Improvements will route the heat directly to the challenge grill. I have not seen the new iteration yet.

 

ElmScan