My WAI
 

Just got done installing a crude WAI in my Accent. I'll make it nicer if it appears to add much to mpg. Maybe I can figure out a good way to do a conversion to CAI by then. The air inlet follows a circuitous path and the best place to intercept it was at this kidney shaped junction. I just crimped the 3" flexible duct around it and taped it. Lost a fair bit of skin in the process! I then slit and spread the hose out over the manifold heat shield for now. If it works that'll change to flashing. Reminds me of splayed shrimp.

https://bighugelabs.com/flickr/userda...b1dbd0ceed.jpg

Can you post larger pics, or a link to the album? It's hard to tell what I'm looking at besides a random piece of flex hose in an engine bay -- I can't see how it's connected or to what.

The pictures are a bit out of focus. My camera ran out of power while I was taking them so no more for a bit (guess I know how long the battery lasts now). The one in the center won't show much as it's all underneath. I'll try for better pics when my battery's up.

Bigger does show a bit more. Not much to show. I wired it in place after I took the pic.

UPDATE: brightened it up a little

https://www.fuelly.com/attachments/fo...7f5bd16b34.jpg

Ok, I think I get it. You sliced the flex hose open along its length and put it up against something hot. The right side of the picture is where it leads to the intake and the left side is an end. Is the end open, or if not, where does the air actually enter?

It could use a brightness adjustment. Washed out is better than dark details in a technical picture, IMO.

I'll try to get some more light in there. My garage lighting is pretty poor. The end is just bent over. It sucks air from all around the edges of the whole section, which is pretty much the edges of the manifold heat shield. Should I bias it to suck more from one direction than another?

do you have a lower inlet? i had to block mine before i got any temp increases.

You can brighten the photo in almost any photo editing software or website, and the details will become visible. I pasted your picture into paint.net and cranked up the brightness until I could see it well.

For my own photos I usually use Picasa to organize, brighten/adjust, and upload. There's a Picasa plugin for uploading to flickr.

I think photobucket can do that too. I'll check it out.

I didn't consider the hose splitting, so I'll double check. I traced the hose, but it is very cramped so maybe there's stuff I missed. I'll check it out with my inspection mirror.

I think it does have another inlet! Very weird shaped part, with a tube (I think it's a tube) going immediately down through a hole. I wouldn't have noticed it if I weren't specifically looking for the possibility. Good catch, Bowtieguy! I think it might go to the well right in front of the left wheel. There's an air vent there. I'd have to remove the fuse box and maybe the battery to get to any of this. Or go in through the wheel well and block it.

that's exactly what i had to do, remove the battery. blocking it gave warmer intake temps w/out affecting performance/acceleration.

I would be careful about the opening size around the manifold. you don't want to choke the engine down by not giving a large enough opening. that was also a big reason that I didn't close off the bottom of mine too.

if the airbox had two openings in it, you could just cover one of them with aluminum tape. I am not sure if your hose splits or if there are two inlets in your airbox. the tape thing is easy and if you are still working on your house, you probably still have some of it laying around. if you have a split hose, then disregard this part.

Only one entrance to the box itself. It's a split hose. It is a good fraction of the other hose's size, so I think you're right about not blocking it if it's another inlet.

I don't think this tube actually is an air inlet. It goes to a box next to the wheel well. This box has no air inlets in it. At least not that I can find. I peeled back the wheel well panel and nothing. It's hard to examine, but I can't see any with my mirror or feel any by touch. The only thing I can think of is it's a place for condensation to go? But wouldn't there be drain? I need to explore more.

I may stick my leaf blower in there and see where air comes shooting out. Not sure my flexible tubing would take such abuse, though, so I better use the fan I took off a dishwasher instead.

The fan revealed a very tiny hole in the bottom of the box. I think it is for condensation after all. Does this make sense to anyone? Getting way outside my direct experience, so I'm just speculating.

I mistakenly thought you meant the lower inlet before. The space around the edges of my intake is pretty good. The picture was take before I wired it and doesn't show the spacing well anyway. It's got more intake area than the diameter of the pipe by a good margin, because I erred that way. Wish I could be a little more precise about it. Maybe I should close it on the side next to the hose itself and open it more on the other end, or cooler air could crowd in.

Just did some errands with my WAI. The ducting gets warm, but not too hot to touch by any stretch. Need to get a thermometer to place in the air box. If there was a reduction in power, I couldn't tell.

Picked up a 500 lb boiler with my trailer today. I left the WAI hooked up but had the tools necessary to remove it if needed. Discretion being the better part of valor, I avoided the highway in favor of the back roads on the way home with it (about 75 miles or so). My new GPS helped a lot with this. :) It was definitely less responsive, but between the roads I'd never traveled and towing a load which I almost never do, I couldn't gauge if the WAI was sapping power. I didn't feel the need to remove it, so that's something I guess. Curious what the IAT will read when I get my SG2. Averaged 36 mpg, but I only had 84.1 miles on the tank, since I wanted that unusual event out of my data as quickly as possible. Only ran 265.7 miles with the WAI without the boiler, but 75 of that was still with the empty trailer and that's not many miles for a reading. Got over 43 mpg, though. Definitely need more data to be certain anything's happening.

I got to show it off a couple times, though. :thumbup: :D

I just realized I was considering 36 mpg to be "bad", for a car with a highway EPA rating of 32 mpg, while towing a heavy trailer!! That's what hypermiling does to you - raises your standards.

I've shown mine off a few times myself. most people think that I am crazy but others have this look of awe like they are looking at the "BACK TO THE FUTURE" flux capacitor.

I tell people that it does cut off horsepower a bit but since I have set my scangauge to horsepower, I haven't seen it over 60 but once (this is due to me keeping my revs low). my car is rated 115 so to cut off 20 or even 30 hp doesn't really affect my usual driving hp range.

as far as I know, the scangauge shows crank horsepower not wheel horsepower. I think there was a discussion about that but I am too lazy to look it up (plus I am supposed to be working right now)

My mechanic mostly thinks I'm crazy, but he's still interested. His tire suppliers have convinced him over inflating tires is a bad idea (even if within the rated pressure), so he hassles me about it.

LOL, Jiffy Lube hastles me about putting 70 PSI in the tires on my truck, because a GMC K1500 is only supposed to have 32 PSI... (For those of you that don't know, I have 1 ton truck tires on my 1/2 ton pickup.) Last time the guy that puts the air in the tires was in the bathroom when I said "70 PSI", and I walked out to the truck and immediately knew the tires were low. He drove it out riding on the sidewalls, but its 32 PSI, so it must be right, LOL...

have you told them that you are getting around 40 percent over EPA?

I had my tires realigned and the manager wanted to talk to me about the stuff I had done to my car to get such good mileage. I told him that the alignment was killing me. I was only getting 34-35 MPG. my EPA estimate says I should get about 25.

the big 38 on the side of my car does get some attention especially since it is an atuo trans.

I would say to the mechanic and the tire supplier, if it couldn't handle it then why is it printed on the side of the tire? I still stay a little below what mine is rated. I keep mine at 45 or so and side wall is 51 (odd numbe isn't it)

I tried that, and to be fair, he's always really busy and hasn't had a proper chance to explain to me why he thinks it's a problem. I don't really take his concern seriously, so haven't made a point of getting it out of him. He is interested to see what a belly pan would do, but is also a little freaked by the idea of a grille block.

I'm pretty sure that the ScanGauge horsepower reading is worthless for comparing cars, it's not giving you crank or wheel horsepower, just a vague idea that you can use relatively and only on your own car.

I suspect he hasn't tried it, at least not on modern tires and vehicles. I've been doing it for 400,000 of my 600,000 miles of driving experience and it's always been great for handling and wear (and most of the time I wasn't concerned with fuel economy at all).

Didn't I see in one of the WAI threads that the insight's WAI is behind the radiator so high power levels overwhelm it and cools the air off again? Has anybody tried doing that themselves?

Got my SG2 today and my IAT is 112 F after about 15 miles of driving (drove to fill up and zero the SG2). Not positive that's steady state or not, but 112 F seems about about what I'd expect based on my oh so sophisticated "touch the duct test" from the other day. What temp should I be aiming for anyway?

Based on what I'm seeing in the WAI threads, 112 is lowish. Maybe the manifold heat shield isn't getting hot enough? What if my WAI was the heat shield? Be easy enough to do.

From reading other posts there seems to be a bunch of others that say around 180 is good, and almost everyone says that over 200 the performance suffers too much.

-Jay

I removed my manifold shield and repositioned the split duct to cover the same area. It didn't like all the manhandling, but this is only temporary anyway. I ran the O2 sensor out the same way the original did.

https://www.fuelly.com/attachments/fo...a5bf1e43f6.jpg

if you already had a heat shield, you do have another option.

many that already have heat shields simply unbolt the top of it and bend it back. then place the ducting directly into that.

so far this year, the highes temps I have seen have been in the low 160s so it takes time and what is the average daily temp. the delta that I am seeing on average is 70 degrees over ambient if that helps

I wish I could, but I don't want to screw with the original in case I need to avail myself of the warranty. In that case, I'll rip my WAI off and bolt it back on. I'm actually keeping it in my trunk and have tools to reattach ti should I fail on the road.

thus the drawbacks of having a new car. (kind of)

depending on how expensive it may be and availability, you could go to your local u-pull-it (junk yard) and get a spare to tinker with.

there again, now you are sinking money into a mod that shouldn't cost that much.

Check car-part.com. Plenty of junkyards have 2008 Accents that they could get an exhaust manifold from; presumably they have the heat shields too (but car-part.com doesn't have a listing for heat shields). You might be able to get one cheaply that you can use for experiments.

Edit: BEEF beat me to it...

I'll figure out what to do once it proves useful. I'm handy with sheet metal and have a slip roll machine and lots of scrap sheet metal so I may just assemble something.

Guess I'll need something more refined sooner rather than later. The peak IAT was 145 F, and that was on the 3.4 mile climb nearing my home. Most of the time it stayed between 128 F and 134 F. I think it's drawing in too much cool air right at the end of the unsplit part of the duct. Difficult to prevent with the current geometry.

another issue is that if you refine it now to get 180 or so, once the weather gets really hot (late july, early august) you will see that much hotter temps. to guess, I'd say in the 200+ range.

I set mine up to where on the hottest day, it gets around 180. last years max was 179 so I don't have to tinker with it all the time. only just recently have I seen the 140-150s (and the odd ball 160) but it is a give and take that I am willing to give on because I don't want to constantly adjust anything.

I'm going to design in a bypass vent, much like the suction control on some vacuum cleaners. Won't be anywhere near as nice, though.

Forgot about my own post...geez. :o I figure if I'm going to go to the trouble of making something, I should at least consider the radiator mounted option. Seems like the temperatures available that way wouldn't be as hot. Does that make sense?

I did an experiment and if I put spacers behind my manifold shield and got slightly longer bolts I could create a wide enough gap at the top of the shield to draw air from. If I can design a proper adapter, I'm all set. I like this idea since ripping it off will be quick in case of a surprise warranty claim.

I get 128 ITA temps and I dont have a WAI.

Came up with an easy to make adapter that could suck air from behind my manifold shield if I put spacers in to increase the clearances. The straight sides will make this a breeze on my sheet metal brake. It's hard to make out, but the bottom edge of the adapter would have several hooks (just bend back some of the sheet metal) to latch onto the edge of the manifold shield. It's basically a funnel, trading width for height as it goes towards the ducting. On the end near the duct I could have a sliding panel over a hole to allow in colder air to limit maximum temperature. It'd just be a piece of sheet metal with a bent edge you can grab, hinging on a rivet. Maybe a locking wing nut too. I didn't bother to draw it. My drawing's dimensions aren't reliable, it's just the gist (it's drawn way too big). There are plenty of attachment points to support the far end of the adapter, and taking it off should be straightforward.

Figured out how to get the spacers behind the shield: use magnets to keep them from falling off the bolts as I install it. I guess I could use masking tape or some glue as well, but I don't want that stuff burning away, and I've already got the magnets.

https://www.fuelly.com/attachments/fo...667171d45a.jpg