COLD AIR BOX

Difficulty: Easy

Time: 2-3 hours

Discussion:

Rule of thumb:  "Cold air good.  Hot air bad."  If you remember from my earlier mods, I removed the restrictive stock air box and installed a Bonez intake kit from Rotary Performance.  This helped my engine breath a lot more air but is also caused a new problem:  Instead of getting clean fresh air from the front of the car, the engine was sucking hot air from the engine bay.  To alleviate this problem, I went to the local hardware store for some supplies...  My goal of this project is to create a divider so my K&N filter only draws cold air from the front of the car.

Installation:

Let me give my usual disclaimer and state that this is NOT the only way to go about this project.  I've seen dozens of these boxes and every one has been different.  The installation that I'm going to talk about below was my quick, simple, and cheap solution!  Feel free to modify...

First thing is you need supplies.  What I have below are the three ingredients that I used. 

 1)  A roll of 14" by 6' aluminum flashing.  (Cost:  $6.30)  This stuff is available in the roofing department of any hardware store.  It comes in rolls of different sizes but you'll need something at least a foot wide.  This stuff is super easy to work with!  Its about twice the thickness of a soda can and can be cut with tin snips. 

 2)  Aluminum Tape.  (Cost: ~ $5.00)  Aluminum tape is found in the ventilation section of the hardware store.  Its used to seal the joints of ventilation ducts.  Once again, its very easy to work with and sticks to almost anything!

3) Weather Strip. (Cost: $1.00)  Used to seal things up when you're done.  

TOTAL COST:  Less that $13 dollars!

PROCEDURE:

Make a template.  Below you'll see how I used a cardboard box from a 12 pack of soda.  I roughly cut it to fill the area I needed and trimmed until it fit neatly.  Its not totally clear from the picture, but there are 2 pieces to my air box.  One that goes from the radiator to the fender, and one in the bottom.  Once I had my cardboard templates, I transferred it over to the aluminum and cut it out.

Once I had my two pieces cut out, I started to fit everything. This is where the aluminum tape comes in.  You'll see how I used it to seal the area between the fender and the aluminum.

Almost done taping now... 

Another view...

Finally, I added the foam weather strip to the top of the air box to ensure a good seal between the hood and the box.

Notes:

1)  I'm very happy with the results.  The box is very sturdy and supports the weight of the AFM with no problems!  And don't worry about the tape, its not affected by heat.

2)  The hardest part of this project is figuring out how to transfer the contour of the hood to the top lip of the new box.  To do this, I created a third template that matched the bottom of the hood.  Once I had the template cut, I just moved it down to the top of my air box and cut accordingly.

3)  This whole project is VERY CLEAN!  By that I mean, there was no drilling, no fiberglass, no crap!  And if I don't like it?  Its 100% removable!   I doubt that will ever happen, but I can always take this out and no one would have a clue.

4)  MORE AIR PLEASE!!!  Right now, my only source of air is from the stock snorkel.  This is probably ok for the time being, but I need to start looking into plumbing more air into my new box. 

MORE PICTURES:

A Fellow FC3S list member, David Gibson sent me some pictures of his installation of a cold air box in his 91 convertible.  (Thanks Dave!  Sorry it took so long to post these!)

And that's it folks!  As easy as 1-2-3!