As other's have said, I think you misunderstand the purpose of the hole in the airbox. It's not for brake cooling but to satisfy the engine's need for more air at higher RPM's. Once you install the scoops, this extra intake path is actually counter productive to the RAM air effect. Your brakes are sufficiently cooled by the main duct from the bumper straight back to the wheel well.
spot on.
With RPI scoop installed, the block-off plate just a supplement in term of pressurizing/seal the airbox since all the air is coming from the scoop. I think in OEM design, the intake came from two sources: 1) from the front grill and 2) from the lower inlet on the front bumper(this also went to cooling the brake).
__________________ The Good Die Young R.I.P. BALL...11/15/88-06/22/06
As other's have said, I think you misunderstand the purpose of the hole in the airbox. It's not for brake cooling but to satisfy the engine's need for more air at higher RPM's. Once you install the scoops, this extra intake path is actually counter productive to the RAM air effect. Your brakes are sufficiently cooled by the main duct from the bumper straight back to the wheel well.
That's correct.
Take a look at the duct. The opening is rather large, directly in front of the brakes, and the black plastic is shaped to create a funnel for the air:
That squeezes the air from a large area (entire opening) to a smaller space, increasing the air pressure and air speed in that ducting. That high pressure means the air is going to look for a lower pressure area to escape to.
Stock, there are two places the air can go. It can go up (green arrow) towards the airbox, and back (red arrow) towards the brakes). The majority is going to go back towards the brakes, however a smaller portion of it will be diverted up towards the airbox.
The airbox tends to be a low pressure zone, since the engine is sucking air in.
Let's take a look at what needs to happen for the air to go the opposite direction; for that vertical tube to be for brake cooling:
Air must be sucked in from the perpendicular opening up in the grill, turn 90 degrees and go into the airbox. This happens because the airbox is a low pressure zone, as the engine pulls in air.
Air must then turn 90 degrees and go down, away from this low pressure zone in the airbox and force its way down that vertical tube into a higher pressure zone.
Air must make another 90 degree turn and then flow out back towards the brakes
Realistically, this is not going to happen.
What happens is this vertical tube feeds some air towards the airbox, at the expense of some (though very little) of the brake cooling.
With the scoops, the airbox gets so much more air that air is forced out (downwards) of the vertical tube.
The blockoff plates keep this from happening.
In other words, with the scoops and blockoff plates, your airbox gets more air (a lot), AND the brakes get more air (though very little difference).
As a side note, the blockoff plates do not seal the bottom of the airbox completely, to let any water that may get in there to drain out properly.
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Hey Gabe, what about blocking off that portion from the bottom as well? that way, no air is lost going up into the airbox from that inlet and more air can go to the brakes?
Hey Gabe, what about blocking off that portion from the bottom as well? that way, no air is lost going up into the airbox from that inlet and more air can go to the brakes?
Blocking off the bottom will create a smoother path for the air through this section, however, I believe the benefit will be pretty minimal since the air isn't ducted directly to the brake rotors/caliper, but rather merely dumped into the wheelwell ahead of the brake assembly. Good pads & brake fluid would do much much more for our braking.
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Just placed an order for the air induction kit ( BMC filters & red scoops) + the block off plates.
All this information about it really made my decision alot easier. Hopefully the installation isn't so bad!!
I am going to take the advice from the RPI website and use the long screwdriver and snub one for the block off plates. What kind of difference/or improvement have you noticed?
personally I would say that initial throttle response is slightly slower, but a couple of seconds later the improvement is noticable.
Nothing dramatic, but if you really know your car, you can feel it that it's there.
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