Cold air intake

[Grit dog]

Fram Air Hog

Maybe 15 years ago. Fram ain’t made them things in a coons age.

 

[Ricko1966]

Maybe 15 years ago. Fram ain’t made them things in a coons age.

How old do Racoons get???? I think @bucket is our raccoon expert.

 

[Grit dog]

I basically detest CAIs. And not only because the one my kid bought for his Mustang, the factory left a paper towel inside the air filter that he didn’t see!! He/we diagnosed the hell out of that car couldn’t figure out the problem after installing the cai. Then after multiple attempts at everything, Maf sensor etc, I told him to take that phucking thing off and return it. That’s when he found a paper towel 80% ingested into the engine!

 

[Grit dog]

How old do Racoons get???? I think @bucket is our raccoon expert.

Idk but they don’t make those filters now. Haven’t for a long time.
As far as a big capacity air cleaner retrofit, (not that the OP needs it) I’d be thinking real hard about fitting up something from a newer diesel pickup truck or hot rod newer car like a Hellcat. If you can make the air box fit and plumb it up, either would filter more air than you’d ever need for any application short of 800hp or so.

 

[Ricko1966]

Idk but they don’t make those filters now. Haven’t for a long time.
As far as a big capacity air cleaner retrofit, (not that the OP needs it) I’d be thinking real hard about fitting up something from a newer diesel pickup truck or hot rod newer car like a Hellcat. If you can make the air box fit and plumb it up, either would filter more air than you’d ever need for any application short of 800hp or so.

I said the same things in post 10 and 13. I'm right there with you.

 

[Grit dog]

I said the same things in post 10 and 13. I'm right there with you.

Apparently I need to read your posts first….lol. It’s becoming a pattern w me to repeat your words! Lol cheers!

 

[Sad Sack]

Maybe 15 years ago. Fram ain’t made them things in a coons age.

That's too bad, don't quote me, but I believe they were highly rated for a paper element. Use to recommend them when I was at Oreilly's, but most wanted K&N, oh well.

 

[TotalyHucked]

Oil impregnated filters are not good for hot wire MAF they coat the hot wire with oil and dirt create a blanket so the hot wire can no longer sense airflow accurately.I do not know if you have hot wire MAF and didn't look. I' would look for a factory airbox from a truck with a 8.1 or similiar it will flow more than enough for your 5.3 and have all the advantages of the money spent engineering it. True cold air,water intrusion etc,etc. Look at everything in the junkyard with big engines and use your brain power.

Actually all the 4.8/5.3/6.0/8.1 trucks use the same intake. Keith posted a while back that he was heading up the team designing the intake and they had to account for the largest engine, so it's actually way more than enough for any of the smaller engines

 

[Keith Seymore]

stock boxes on 5.3 in the gen iii are sufficient for stock engines, you have to be making engine mods to outflow it

I designed the stock GMT800 box to handle the L18 engine (1" Hg restriction from ambient air inlet to throttle body at 272 g/s flow).

It overachieves for all the smaller engines.

It was a very aggressive requirement.

K

 

[Keith Seymore]

Ha! Simul-post!

K

 

[Keith Seymore]

For the '99 model year we had very stringent restriction requirements: no more than 1"Hg at maximum flow, from ambient air inlet to throttle body (original requirement from GM Powertrain: 1"Hg from ambient air to the intake valve - which is ridiculous and which we on the platform side could not control. We managed to renegotiate that). The new system was sourced to Delphi (formerly AC or AC Spark Plug in Flint) and we knew we needed a flat panel to meet the flow, as well as moving to the right front corner in order to minimize any bends and/or the overall length of the run.

The only problem: that's where the primary battery was.

After much deliberation the Vehicle Chief Engineer drug me and the battery guy into a meeting and we hashed it out. The beauty of air induction design is that you can create rapid prototype parts and actually flow test them - so - I had data; battery guy didn't. The Chief Engineer ruled: "Seymore - you get the RF corner. Schaule - find another spot for your battery".

So we ended up with a very good flowing system which also did a good job getting cool air in and keeping water out. The system was sized for the largest gas engine (L18 = 272 g/s flow) and the diesel, so it is more than adequate (oversized) for the small block engines.

The engine air induction has been in the RF corner since that time, for GMT800, GMT900, K2 and now T1 generations of full size truck.

K

 

[Keith Seymore]

One more:

I've mentioned before that water is the bane of any engine induction system engineer's existence.

The problem with the GMT800 was that not only was the truck new but the engines were a new design, too. That meant there weren't many around and you sure as heck didn't want to damage one.

Water ingestion testing is, by definition, a destructive test. If you put enough water in the cylinder you will break it, the rod, the piston or whatever is weakest. If you don't break it you don't know how far you can push it.

We debated for a couple months about how (and if) we were going to test our design. Finally we hit upon an idea: we found an "old" prototype GMT800 radiator support and fender in the trash, so we added those to a carryover GMT400 pickup, and then installed our new induction system to emulate the new front corner. We remote mounted the engine air cleaner in the existing truck and then plumbed our new system to a shop vac (and generator) in the pickup bed. That allowed us to (a) drive the truck in the water trough, (b) not damage a current production engine (c) flow air through our new system in a somewhat representative environment and (d) collect and measure any water that was drawn in. Pretty clever, I think.

I still remember the first time we hit the 1000 ft trough at 25 mph with 12" of water: water was spraying over the top of truck and flowing big time into the cab through the heater box. I felt like I was on the Titanic, pulling my feet up on top of the instrumentation and screaming like a little girl. But - our basic idea worked and we were able to continue the development process.

I was still pretty nervous, though, the first few times we had rain once we started driving the new GMT800 trucks on the road.

K

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[Keith Seymore]

Last one:

The next hurdle was that the engine coolant overflow bottle was on the front of dash. That allowed the assembly plants to evacuate and fill the coolant system prior to fender install.

With the battery now on the front of dash that meant the coolant bottle had to move somewhere else, the only other place being top of the wheelhouse on the RH fender. Unfortuately that meant you couldn't fill the sytem until after the fender was on - or - you had to move the filling station. That wouldn't work because it was one brazillion dollars to move a "monument" per plant times 7 truck assembly plants = 7+ brazillion dollars.

So here is what we did: we developed a way to "stage" the coolant bottle on the radiator support temporarily by adding two "buttons" on the rad support and a tab on the bottle. The bottle could be hung in this temporary location, evac and filled, and then moved to its permanent location on top of the wheel house after the fender was installed. Problem solved, with no tooling change and pennies in piece cost.

We briefly discussed if we should remove those buttons or if it made more sense for them to remain on the truck for the life of the vehicle. In the end it was cheaper and didn't hurt anything, so they stayed. If you look at any GMT800 fullsize truck you should see those two buttons on the back of the rad support, just going along for the ride.

K

 

[CalSgt]

The best setup is a box that is sealed from the engine heat but has an air inlet from outside somehow. This is how my truck is set up currently, just some 4" tubing with some silicone connectors and T-clamps, resting on the secondary battery tray from SloshTubz (ignore the blue tube, I'm going to paint it black). I plan to either build a box from sheet metal or aluminum to go around that or cut up an OBS storage box I have. It will have 3 sides and a lid, but stay open toward the front and pick up the hole in the radiator support that the original intake tube attached to.

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Unfortunately, there's not an off the shelf, bolt in cold air kit for these swapped trucks. I've also seen guys use the stock airbox from a 99-07 truck with some tubing and couplers. For the filter itself, I stay away from K&N, the oil can foul out the MAF sensor. I like dry filters. I've used many different brands, as long as it's dry.

There is…. They were like $900 when I found them a few years back.

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[CalSgt]

I designed the stock GMT800 box to handle the L18 engine (1" Hg restriction from ambient air inlet to throttle body at 272 g/s flow).

It overachieves for all the smaller engines.

It was a very aggressive requirement.

K

Did you design the GMT800 LLY/LBZ intake?

I’ve been impressed with mine… sucker seems to breathe even with 2 Lbs of dirt in the element.