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Isaac Merritt
Professor Jizi
UWRT-1103
8 December 2015
Research Essay
Every year, car companies spend billions of dollars on research and development of
engines. The engineers slave away making the engines as powerful as possible. These engines
have abnormally large amounts of power and are the engine equivalent of superman. This may
seem odd considering the fact that most people commuting to work dont need superman under
the hood. Instead, most people want Clark Kent for an engine. They want something industrious,
something reliable, something plain and not noticeable. Marketers know this and take advantage
of it. So they approach the engineers with their sales projections and their market-meeting
strategies, and they tell the engineers so build a car a specific way. So what the engineers do is
they take the engine and they reduce power and noise to improve reliability and comfort for the
average consumer. Then they reduce the cost of the materials use and sacrifice reliability a small
amount. Now the engine is cheap, reliable, and will last thousands of miles. The new engines are
installed in cars and purchased by consumers.
Bring in the consumer-enthusiasts. These people, myself included, are not satisfied with
the boring, Clark- Kent-facsimiles that are placed in cars today. Oh no, we want to put the fun
back into the commute for the sake of driving. So we take the engines which have been so
rigorously built by engineers and we try to restore them to their original, pre-marketer,
configuration. Modifying an engine from how it came from the factory is known as tuning.

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Theres just one problem that faces all tuners: because the part quality has been reduced to cut
costs, its a lot harder to give that power back to the engine without a rebuild. So tuners have a
few key areas they stick to in order to get the most out of their money and time spent modifying
engines: air intake, exhaust, porting/polishing, the list goes on and on. My favorite modification
that can be done to an engine is the air intake, because the car will usually still pass inspection
with the modification, it creates a wonderful noise under the hood, and the modification, if done
right, can add significant power for a small amount of money. Its also a very misunderstood
field which makes finding products that actually work a challenge with a faster, more powerful
car for less, the reward.
When understanding what I mean by air intake, first understand that I am referring to
naturally aspirated, 4 stroke, gasoline engines. Because the air is pulled into the engine on an NA
car, not pushed like in an engine with forced induction, the aerodynamics of the pipe that the air
travels through on its way into the engine are very important. This pipe is known as the intake
and intakes many different shapes. These various shapes and forms affect performance and every
engine is different.
Take to a message board, and you will see a load of verbal filth spewed out by people
who have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to modifying air intakes. Even
aftermarket companies take advantage of this lack of knowledge and put out products that claim
to make impossible power gains. For this reason, finding reputable sources, as rare as they may
be, was a must. First, I looked into aerodynamic properties for the benefit of intake efficiency.
Aerodynamics on a subsonic level are pretty standard and a great example of these properties is
the golf ball. Early golfers using smooth golf balls realized that the more they used a ball the
farther it would go. (Science of Golf: Why Golf Balls Have Dimples) when air flows over a

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surface, that air needs to make contact with the surface. Inside a pipe, the air will flow most
effectively if the air hugs the wall of the pipe. On surfaces where the air is prone to detach, like a
bend inside of a pipe or on a golf ball, roughing up the surface causes the air to hug the surface
by slightly reducing the aerodynamics. For this reason taking a large-grit abrasive media, like
150 grit sandpaper or a scotch bright pad, to the inside of an intake pipe will make for the most
efficient passage of air. It should be noted though, this will create dust which should be
completely removed before reinstallation of this pipe. This cushion of air created by a small
amount of air tumbling over the rough surface is called a boundary layer.
Creating a boundary layer is the reason for dimples on gold balls. As the air travels over
one of the dimples, a tiny pocket of turbulence or air disturbance, is created on the surface.
(Science of Golf: Why Golf Balls Have Dimples) These disturbances cause the air to hug the
sides of the golf ball and reduce the size of the golf balls wake. This wake is a low pressure
zone acts like the wake of a boat and pulls the ball back, slowing it down. This effect is known as
an adverse pressure gradient and its why these dimples are so important. In aerodynamics, these
dimples are considered a type of vortex generator. Vortex generators fundamental purpose is to
keep the flow over a surface attached. The flow above the boundary layer is moving much faster
than the air in the boundary layer. Now this where the vortex generator comes in. It produces a
swirl in between the two regions. What that means is that the high energy flow from the free
stream is drawn into the boundary layer. (How Do Vortex Generators Work?) Conceptually if
this knowledge can be taken and implemented in various ways inside the air intake. One of those
ways is the actual air inlet.
The air inlet is one of the most important parts on the intake. All the air that enters the
engine travels through this round hole. Naturally, the engine should have some sort of filter but

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the shape and dimensions of this filter have a huge effect on power. It all comes down to a device
called a velocity stack. Velocity stacks are a perfect curve onto the inside of the tube. When air
enters an intake with high speed and angle, and without the aid of a velocity stack to provide
a smooth transition into the intake tubing, can't adhere to the walls of the tubing and causes air to
condense into a fast-moving stream which could also prompt a MAFS to overestimate airflow.
(Can Certain Performance Air Intakes Decrease Power?) In other words, without a velocity
stack, the air could gain too much velocity (air velocity is gained when the intake becomes more
effective or pipe size is reduced; amount air going into engine stays constant) and trick the
engine into putting too much fuel in. this coming from a website composed of editors from top
automotive magazines, Super Street Network, who actually tested out various aftermarket intake
parts on a dynamometer. Their findings are further corroborated by that fact that I have witnessed
this problem first hand. I had a very short intake on my car originally and my mileage dropped
dramatically along with my top end power. This is exactly what happened to the writers of that
article. Another finding that my personal experiences concur with that Super Street Network on,
was that lengthening the air intake tube helped with increasing power. switching from our
previous short-ram intake to AEM's long-tube Cold Air unit increased peak output by nearly
12whp (Can Certain Performance Air Intakes Decrease Power?). When I added around a foot
of extra pipe to my intake, I could feel a noticeable rise in power.
Another big part of tuning an engine is restoring lost power. Over time, engines lose
power. As originally conceived, the induction pipe or manifold, transferred mixture from the
carburetor to the engine cylinders, with as equal a distribution as practicable. Nowadays, it also
acts, on occasion, as a power take-off for vacuum-operated appliances such as windscreen
wipers, brake boosters, automatic timing controls controlled crankcase ventilation. (Tuning For

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Speed and Tuning For Economy) When these vacuum lines become worn and start to age, the
intake flow is upset. Additionally, as the engine loses power, they create more of a tax on the
system. For this reason, if it is possible, removal or restoration of vacuum lines is a must to
restore power. On top of this, the flanges on the induction manifold should be dead flat and
true. (Tuning For Speed and Tuning For Economy) Car parts of the past were not as accurate as
they are today. Trueing up the faces of manifolds will increase power and reduce any obstruction
created when passing from the intake manifold to the top end of the engine. However, books like
Racing the Small Block Chevy do mention that as manifolds come from the factory, they are
pretty decent. Sanding the inside of a manifold can easily add power with little effort and take it
away very fast without experience. For this reason, manifold sanding and facing should be left to
professionals.
Overall, I would say that in order to increase power the most via an air intake, optimizing
the inside of the air intake tube through previously listed methods is the most cost and time
effective way to tune an air intake. Roughing up surfaces, adding length to pipes, and using
filters with velocity stacks are now a prerequisite for me when building that part of an engine. Id
like to see if together all these tips could make the crazy power gains promised by aftermarket
companies. In the future, Id like to also try using vortex generators on the opening of the filter
as well to see if that has an effect.
These discoveries will totally affect how I build intakes now. I used to be happy with
around a 5% power increase from modifying this part of an engine, but now Im shooting for 10
to 15%. I still want to know why longer tubes add power. The article had a few suggestions but
didnt know for sure why the longer intake tube boosted power. In the future, I would probably

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look into optimizing the bends in the intake system. Bends are bad period but there has to be a
shape that is most ideal.