Message
Greetings,
Attached are
pics of the current intake situation. They're cropped and compressed
as much as I dare, in order to be more dialup friendly. Some comments
on the pics follow:
1- I
recently added the scoop in a scoop to try to improve my MAP in-flight,
but I can't say it worked. I'll probably remove the scoop part, and
leave the smooth hole in the bottom of the rad diffuser, which might be
better than the way it is now.
2- Another
view of the inlet and hose to the airbox. This is 3" ID SCEET (inner
and outer layer of material).
3- A view
of the airbox. As you can see, it's small, and can't be much bigger.
The cowl is almost touching the top of it.
4- Inside
the airbox. This shows the 40mm TB inlets, and the "shorty" air horns
that TWM sells.
5- The top
of the intake, where the TB bolts to the two runners. The yellow hoses
are MAP ports, and are connected together for a more stable reading.
The MAP ports are only about 4" from the inlet to the TB, so I'm losing
about 2.5" of MAP in the first 4" of intake. The tubing is the same ID
as the TB, about 40mm.
6- This
shows the two main runners merging into the Mazdadrix intake. I spent
a lot of time getting the transition smooth inside, so it's much better
than it looks from the outside. If I decide to try Bernie's pitot
idea, the ideal place would be to drill and tap a small hole directly
below the main runners, there the primary and secondary split.
I've
measured the port size on the housings, and found that the combined
primary and secondary port areas equal a 45mm ID tube. Clearly, my
40mm ID tube and TB is smaller than that, so I'm sure that's an issue,
though not sure how much of an issue.
The airbox
is tiny, and lacks proper "trumpets", which is what Leon feels is the
main problem. I have to agree. Unfortunately, in the confines of the
area where this is located, there's no way to do it properly.
The burning
question for Lynn and others- is the 40MM size of my TB and tubes
causing me to lose power, or is this strictly a problem of not being
able to get air into the TB efficiently enough?
Without
scrapping the whole intake, the best thing I can think of to try is to
add a tube joining the two main runners. If the 40mm runners are a
problem, then the tube would have to go near the intake end of the
runners, but if the problem is mostly getting air into the TB, then the
balance tube could go near TB end of the runners, and would disturb the
momentum of the airflow in the runners less. Installing the balance
tube seems like it would act the same as a tiny plenum does in a more
typical system.
So what
should I do about this, and be nice :-)
Thanks,
Rusty
(Sonerai Sold, down to only one unflyable plane now)