How to Build a Cold Air Intake

This article is a do it yourself article on building a cold air intake. It will provide you with a generic procedure for building one.

How Does a Cold Air Intake Work?

Cold air intake does exactly, what its name suggests. It introduces cold air into the car combustion engine and enhances combustion. The engine constantly burns fuel in air, when in operation. This combustion creates the thrust, that ultimately drives the engine pistons and takes your car forward.

Normally, fuel combustion occurs in the hot engine air. It is a property of gases, that hot air expands and is less dense. The rate of combustion and how readily combustion occurs depends on the amount of air Whereas, cold air is more dense. Cold and dense air has a greater content of oxygen than hot air. Therefore, if cold air is supplied to the engine combustion area, the combustion of fuel will occur more completely as the supply of oxygen will be more.

When more oxygen is readily available, the fuel burns more completely and forms less of carbon monoxide. Thus the installation of a cold air intake also reduces pollution by reducing emission of the highly poisonous carbon monoxide gas. Carbon monoxide poisoning is a menace and its major source is automobile exhaust.

There are many other factors that contribute to engine efficiency, but the air temperature and amount of oxygen intake is vital. This is taken care of by the cold air intake. Manufacturers do provide these systems in cars, but they are not sufficient. Adding one later is advisable as it gives you better mileage. By building an intake, you can also effectively reduce pollution levels.

Building and Installing

Step 1: Remove the old cold air intake provided by the car manufacturing company. For doing so, open the hood of the car and locate the air box. Then disconnect the hose that lets in air into the air box. To do this, you will require a screwdriver. Remove all the mounting screws from the air box. Finally remove the air box.

Step 2: Next, you need to decide, from where you want to introduce cold air into the engine assembly. The location will decide the length and kind of tubing you will need. An ideal spot of entry for cold air intake is the radiator base behind the air dam. This provides direct air input into the air filter. If you fix this spot, then depending on the geometry of the engine compartment, you must decide how you are going to route air by bendable exhaust tubing. Air from outside the car should reach the intake position.

Step 3: Mount the bendable exhaust tubing using brackets and connect it to the new position at the air filter. You can use metal strapping to secure the tubing in place. Ensure, that the air filter faces the end of the tubing and receives maximum air input.

With this new cold air intake installed, your car engine will breathe better.