adrial

<a href="http://www.vetteguru.com/ramair/" target="_blank">http://www.vetteguru.com/ramair/</a>

Below Mach 0.5, its BS anyway. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

I found it to be an interesting read.

iloveporsches

yeah, I've also heard that Ram-Air doesn't do much at all until very high speeds, and it even hurts performance at higher speeds.

triscadek

It sure seems to work for Kawasaki and Suzuki, that was how both companies got their bikes past 180 mph.

iloveporsches

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by triscadek:
<strong>It sure seems to work for Kawasaki and Suzuki, that was how both companies got their bikes past 180 mph.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Read the link Adrial provided. I'm no physics major (not yet anyway <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> ), but as far as I know everything he was saying was correct. It's really more of a show thing, just something fancy that actually has no use. Factory rice!

When it comes to Ram-Air, form does NOT follow function. If it worked so good, wouldn't Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini, etc. have picked it up by now? Raming air over the intercoolers and brakes is good because it helps cool everything down, but that's about it. Ram-Air is the factory equivalent of those "Electric Supercharges" you see on ebay. In fact, they work on the same principle, and both are useless. I like pointing this out to my friend because he payed a couple hundred dollars for a Ram-Air hood for his truck...we did just get done installing a supercharger though

Steve Lavigne

I think for ram air to really work, you need a large baffled airbox. The F1 guys do it. A number of the factory sportbikes have a ram air setup. Removing your airbox and having a pipe connected to your throttle body and ducted through a headlight will not do it.

I have a friend who has considerable 2 wheel and 4 wheel racing experience and race engine building experience (2 stroke GP racing engines, Honda racing engines, Chevrolet racing engines)which I respect a great deal. I recall him saying that one of the biggest gains from top level motorcycle racing engine development has come from the use of ram air.

It would be cool if we could see a data trace of a manifold pressure sensor mounted in the airbox overlaid with vehicle speed on a vehicle with a well designed ram air system.

iloveporsches

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">I have a friend who has considerable 2 wheel and 4 wheel racing experience and engine building experience which I respect a great deal. I recall him saying that one of the biggest gains from top level motorcycle racing engine development has come from the use of ram air</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Maybe bikes can actually get some sort of ram-air effect because of their relativly small engine sizes, or the much higher velocity at which they travel.

Steve Lavigne

When Michael Schumacher first joined Ferrari, didn't he tilt his head to the side on the straightaways so that his helmet didn't block the air intake? I suspect that their data logging told them them exactly what was happening and Michael Schumacher wouldn't have done the head tilt unless it made a difference.

joseph mitro

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by iloveporsches:
<strong>[QUOTE]Originally posted by triscadek:
[qb]It's really more of a show thing, just something fancy that actually has no use. Factory rice!...When it comes to Ram-Air, form does NOT follow function.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">is that why pontiac makes such a big deal about ram air?

streckfu's

Kawasaki made first big improvements with ram-air followed by Suzuki and Honda.

I believe ram-air does have positive effects otherwise it would not be prominate in motorcycle racing. Almost all top level sportbikes use it currently.

I believe the effect to be negligable on large capacity engines operating at lower RPMs (14,000 for a Superbike vs 8,0000 for a race car).

Vehicle velocities are not that different. WS6 T/A's can reach 150+ while the bikes reach 170+. At those velocities, 20mph isn't much of a difference.

Has anyone looked at the Camaro SS? It's not Ram-Air much as it is a pressurized airbox.

Tom R.

i didnt read the article yet, but read a lot of articles on ram air in muscle cars of the 60s.

turns out the air filter on the hood of GTOs and the like didnt do squat because the air was flowing over the hood. in effect the air to the carbuerators was coming in from a void/pocket. jsut the opposite of what they wanted. thats why subsequent cars have their air intake low down and in front wher it gets forced in.

Laughed my *** off when i read about that myth with pontiac, and they said the ram air in the 70 trans am was in the back facing the widshield where no air goes!

Brian McCoy

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by iloveporsches:
[QBMaybe bikes can actually get some sort of ram-air effect because of their relativly small engine sizes, or the much higher velocity at which they travel.[/QB]</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Or their relativly Large CoF... the slipery-ist sportbike w/rider pushes about as much air per inch as your standard school bus. Vent some of that massive air into an airbox and you have an honest difference (there's data out there of bikes w/ ram air on a dyno running back to back with and without ram air making significantly different peak numbers). Difficult to dispute hard numbers. I'll try to dig some of that info up right now....

yarin

My friend's opinion:

"my buddy and I did the calculations on a WS6 air intake cross-section at the wind tunnel up here.
70mph slipstrem turned out to basically add 1psi above absolute pressure. So 14.7psi became ~15.7psi @ 70mph.
Below about Mach 0.5, air can still be compressed - dont know what that stupid * is talking about. We watched it happen.
Ram air never really was intended to create a natural forced-induction effect. It was intended to grab cold air outside of the engine bay and stuff it into the throttle body... more so than simply shoving a filter in the fenderwell.
So anyone who says ram air doesn't do diddly squat, tsk tsk"

I highly respect his beliefs. Makes sense.

jabbadeznuts

OWNED!

qoncept944

Without some numbers (plugged in to equations I don't know), where is his reasoning behind mach .5? Sounds like a number thrown out there to me.

triscadek

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by joseph mitro:
<strong> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">Originally posted by iloveporsches:
<strong>[QUOTE]Originally posted by triscadek:
[qb]It's really more of a show thing, just something fancy that actually has no use. Factory rice!...When it comes to Ram-Air, form does NOT follow function.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">is that why pontiac makes such a big deal about ram air?</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Helvetica">My statement was about motorcycles not Pontiacs.

After Kaw. came out with the ZX-11 I remember the dyno tests with and without the ram air benefit, it was quite a difference.