DIY pod head shield / intake system

[PaRaDoX]

hey guys, i was talking about this ages ago but yeah only decided to do it now because a oppourtunity came up...

im studying computer systems engineering, one of my classes is workshop... bascially access to lot of electronical crap, also acess to alminuim bending/cutting working equipment... i got some sheet alminuim free... :P its not terribly thick, but not flimsy..

so i took some measurements and bent myself some sheets for the heat shield... its more of a L shaped wall that slotes in to prevent hot air from entering the pod filter,

my idea is to vent air from behind the replica senator grille through a pipe into the head shield effectively creating a cold air pod without mounting the pod near the front bumper so it dosnt get wet and make the car stall, im going to use a dense rubber product for the inside of the box for thermal reasons, maybe 0.5" thick wetsuit material ill go down to clark rubber and see what i can get, im doing this because im sick of the crap way holden "allowed" air to enter the intake..the intake pipe for the stock air box has a plastic cover infront of it blocking any and all air flow... the fords came with a stock CAI,

anyway this is aimed at a cheap DIY project any of you can do,
its pretty easy if you have the correct metal working tools.. otherwise its pretty tricky to make it look good,

anyway ive finished making it, just need to cut a 3" hole for the air pipe, ill post pics as progress follows!

note: this will make ALOT more sence in a few days when i fit it!!!!

[90VN55]

i could make 1 aswell cause i can use all the sh!t at school!!
oh damn i will have to get a pod first what a shame

[PaRaDoX]

finally got my ass out there and finished cutting holes, just gotta bolt it down and then coat the inside with a insulator


hmm dam i need a dermal... ill be doing the piping in weeks to come so stay tuned =D

[Matty081]

so i took some measurements and bent myself some sheets for the heat shield... its more of a L shaped wall that slotes in to prevent hot air from entering the pod filter,

.

hey mate,
I like your idea, but being an ali engineer myself it might pay to remember that ali has a fantastically high rate of absorbing heat and in essence it might just be a way of transferring the heat to other areas of the engine bay. That being said, it also has a high cooling rate so with an outside source of fresh cool air you may be alright.
being a thin material by the looks of it, just be vary wary when mounting it next to or on anything that gets extremely hot(exhaust components etc), it could melt and you won't get a warning like a heat glow before it crumbles drips over hoses and wiring-if any in the area-as i'm sure you are aware.

[PaRaDoX]

yeah its not near anything hot,
also i got some 250mm thick rubber to absorb heat... anyway its in for now and ill get more pics tommorrow when i finished it off, also got some adheasive foam...fixed my rattles

[mouce]

Where are the mods? This should be Sticky!

[Shounak]

Awesome stuff.. This sounds promising..

I'll need to do something similar myself..

[commy92]

mate not critsizing your idea cause its pritty good. BUT couldnt you just use the stock airbox with a few modifications. And run a CAI out the front and out the bottom.

[PaRaDoX]

heh, yeah car seems to idle funy atm, i believe its due to lack of air flow to the pod at low rpm, high rpm its perfect.... i need a dremal to bore the hole into below the air box, my mates got one ill see if i can borrow one.. or my detonation sensor could be playing up again, along with my oxy sensor..

so far ive used a angle grinder (to get first foot hold to get the jig saw in, a jig saw with a small teeth blade and a power drill

i surrounded the chrome pipe connecting to the filter in adhesive foam so it dosnt get scratched by the aluminuim, also mounting the 250mm rubber tommorrow then im going to sandwich it with more aluminion,

a question, should i seal the box at the top or leave it as it is, its pretty flush atm but yeah

commy92, considered the option didnt do it for 3 reasons

1. its no where near big enough to fit the pod in or have enough area to suck air through, and CAI would cost money im using to save for my sideskirts
2. i dont want to hack up my existing airbox incase some cop who dosnt like me decides to defect me... or im in a accident as its not insured and i need to bolt it back on quick...and i cbf getting one at the wreckers
3. %90 of the material was free soo yeah

[mouce]

The only way a cop can defect you for having a pod filter on there is if it violates EPA noise (induction noise) or EPA emissions (exhaust emissions) laws. I checked with VicRoads before I fitted mine. All I did was get an e-mail from my local VicRoads branch, printed that and had it in the glovebox.

It's not a defectable item on its own. Despite what the cops say.

[PaRaDoX]

care to email me it??? handy to have =)
(paradox616@hotmail.com)

btw mine only violated EPA restrictions doing 5000rpm

ahh i wish i could go work on my car... lol its too late

cant wait till tax return so i can start my supercharger project (sc14)

[CSL]

a cold air intake woudl go inot that nicely
ive got some color bond at work i might go hak on, but without a CAI hooked up i cant see much a point, and **** cutting holes into the body of the car.

[PaRaDoX]

a cold air intake woudl go inot that nicely
ive got some color bond at work i might go hak on, but without a CAI hooked up i cant see much a point, and **** cutting holes into the body of the car.

true, lol they're like $50 from holden and $300 from autobahn... hrmmm wtf???
ill get some more pics today with the box insulated as im about to begin it now

since i put the heat shield in, the intake sounds more muffled but louder, i believe this is to do with the echo's off the aluminuim, seems much louder noticed a bit more go after the engines warmed up... cant wait till i get the cai =P

[VN Commy]

Where are you planning to run a pipe to let the cold air in? Looking at mine I can't see how to get air from the grille. I also scored some free sheet metal so I'm making one of these at the moment. Much more effective than a CAI + standard airbox IMO. I was just gona take out the indicator (it's not my daily) and let air rush in through there untill I came up with a place to run an intake pipe.
Where did you get that chrome pipe the filter's on from?
The whole thing's lookin really good by the way.

[PaRaDoX]

cheers man umm i had to buy the chrome pipe, tried using 3" pvc but yeah needs to be max size 3" anyway, removing the indicator could work but would defect the car instantly, umm... getting air in from behind the grill would require either running hte pipe under the radiator (for not cutting) or running the pipe through a cut hole... yeah cai idea was ontop of radiator... gonna go have a crack in a min,

heh went out there to fit the rubber and ended up flushing the radiator block.. oh well needs more aluminion to sandwich the rubber... more pics next week, (tuesday)

[90VN55]

have you finished it?

[lsprewell]

the original box filters are fine, and I see this as a waste of time, either get a cold air intake for it or leave it, its not going to make a difference, if you are using a pod, than it can't have restrictions around it, if you go placiing sheets of metal around it it will reduce the air flow needed at low rpm, thus the problem you are having, air pods are designed to be in open air, and are really designed for racing, not for the everyday road user. Thats why the manufacturer spends a lot of time desiging these air boxes...

PS: Plus the air pods are very loud, and half the time people move them lower to the ground is to muffle the noise, but than this presents the problem of water....so just leave it...before you damage it....

[CSL]

i'll take a photo of mine tommorow. the only sheet meatl i had lying around was colorbond and i did a haack job, and it came up really good, with the CAI going into it, but only prob is now is the pod is louder

[VN Commy]

the original box filters are fine, and I see this as a waste of time, either get a cold air intake for it or leave it, its not going to make a difference, if you are using a pod, than it can't have restrictions around it, if you go placiing sheets of metal around it it will reduce the air flow needed at low rpm, thus the problem you are having, air pods are designed to be in open air, and are really designed for racing, not for the everyday road user. Thats why the manufacturer spends a lot of time desiging these air boxes...

PS: Plus the air pods are very loud, and half the time people move them lower to the ground is to muffle the noise, but than this presents the problem of water....so just leave it...before you damage it....

If you want the best performance possible, then the original box filters are far from fine. If you have other values before performance (want low induction noise ect) then yes they are fine. Some of us have VNs that serve more as track cars than daily drivers. The original box filters were designed to best satisfy a number of factors, max engine power being far from the most important. These box filters exist because they are easy and cheap to mass produce, have a low induction noise, are easy to service, stay relativley clean from road grime/water, ect, ect... The shape of the box itself creates turbulent flow which wastes energy (reducing air pressure, average velocity or both), rather than keeping the flow laminar. This is infact because it is a box shape. If you look at more modern air boxes on more performance cars you will see that they are shaped less like a box and are in more of a shape to flow air with minimal restrictions. One of the most efficant and cheapest ways of obtaining a high flow rate in our VNs IMO is exactly this CAI Pod setup. It will flow much more air than a standard airbox coupled with a holden CAI. The pod does not need to be in open air, with a large enough intake pipe feeding cold air to it, it will be surrounded by more than enough air than the V6 can suck into it. A good pod is much more efficiant than the V6 air box because the amount of restricted air flow is practicly negligable in comparison to the V6 airbox. The whole point of putting sheet metal around it is to prevent hot engine bay air from being sucked in and allowing the engine to only beath in cold air rushing in from outside the engine bay. The hardest part of the whole setup is running a large unrestricted intake pipe to feed the pod, but once this is achieved the custom intake pipe will easily supply much more air than the holden CAI with it's tiny opening.

That's my 2 cents but each to their own i guess.
BTW I'm studying engineering at university and a large part of it focuses on fluid dynamics.

Cheers

[VNV6VENGEANCE]

Hate to rain on your parade but a well placed pod in front of the drivers side tyre will give you 100% more airflow, heat shields work but they still collect hot air from the engine. The pipe stretched across the thermo fan diagonally will ensure no water can enter your engine via the pod filter.

A pod out the front gets no hot air from the engine hence better...

Another good thing with the pod being fitted on the drivers side out the front is by the time the cops have noticed it and done a u turn your gone...

[AirStrike]

yeah its not near anything hot,
also i got some 250mm thick rubber to absorb heat... anyway its in for now and ill get more pics tommorrow when i finished it off, also got some adheasive foam...fixed my rattles

250MM!!!!!:my::my::my:
How do you plan on fittin that in?
AirStrike

[lsprewell]

Hate to rain on your parade but a well placed pod in front of the drivers side tyre will give you 100% more airflow, ....

100%, OK, i love it when people just throw figures around.

Instead of wacking a pod on a VN, I suggest you get a cold air intake for the front, and run it to your air box, these can easily be purchased from numerous retailers. PODS are for race cars, and in a standard VN V6 engine I have used one, tested it and found that it makes no difference besides more noise. You get the sensation of more power, or car breathing better etc etc , but in reality, it makes NO DIFF, and a pod is designed for open air, putting a box around it defeats the purpose.

And yes, the best spot to mount your pod if you really want one is under your guard, but thats illegal, and there is a risk of water getting in......no matter what people say, (Thats why rally cars have their air intakes mounted high when on water obstacles)


And thats my 20cents worth

[mouce]

Why would mounting a pod under the front guard be illegal? Other than the fact that you need to cut a large hole in the panel to get it there (an engineers certificate would cover that though).

[PaRaDoX]

mouce mounting the pod under the bumper is a bad idea, if the clamp comes loose then you u can get dust in your engine (happened to my mates)

as for ISPREWELL, dude wtf, 1. pods have a larger surface area due to their design the interior of the cone adds around %15 surface area + the extra size, the heat shield is for use for me while removing the passengerside tail light for the purpse of dyno's / quartre miles... since changing its more responsive and gives genreally a beefier noise without breeching the EPA restrictions, have you even used a pod???

the main issue with pod filters is intaking hot air from the engine bay (generated from the engien head heating up)

roflmao im kinda not soo sober righjt now

[VNV6VENGEANCE]

100%, OK, i love it when people just throw figures around.

Instead of wacking a pod on a VN, I suggest you get a cold air intake for the front, and run it to your air box, these can easily be purchased from numerous retailers. PODS are for race cars, and in a standard VN V6 engine I have used one, tested it and found that it makes no difference besides more noise. You get the sensation of more power, or car breathing better etc etc , but in reality, it makes NO DIFF, and a pod is designed for open air, putting a box around it defeats the purpose.

And yes, the best spot to mount your pod if you really want one is under your guard, but thats illegal, and there is a risk of water getting in......no matter what people say, (Thats why rally cars have their air intakes mounted high when on water obstacles)


And thats my 20cents worth

Well your 20 cents worth don't mean shit to me mate. Explain to me how a pod filter can suck water which has a much greater volume than air all the way up a pipe slanted diagonally then turn a corner and reach your throttle body. The reason i know water doesn't get up there is because in winter last yr i went thru a massive puddle and drenched the pod. I Drove home then pulled off the pipe from the throttle body. Checked it all the way back to the pod. water spirals about 2 cm into the pipe then can't move against gravity. Don't tell me shit you know nothin about mate. Air flow is the best in front of the tyre ask your mechanic mate if you got probs