AU thermo fans into VR HSV - what to do with air intake?

[savage1987]

Title says it all. Is the super6 one going to be the best option in a VR Senator 215i?

AU thermos are going on to make room for a gilmer setup, and because they are a much nicer fan that doesn't sound stupid when your engine is at high rpm much cleaner sounding car under load.



Anyway /csb, what's the best option for air intake? Holesaw through guard not really an option because the washer tank is right under there.. and also because it may end up with a dual plane manifold or similar on it eventually so the messed up metalwork would be horribly obvious.



cheers
sam

[Pub247]

You buy another car?
Au are good people say mondeo thermo's are better but i have yet to see a mondeo setup and how good they work (having really bothered looking)
My mate has au thermos on his turbo 100m thick intercooler 2 trans coolers and a big oil cooler plus a 50mm thick radiator and the thermos can still suck a peice of paper onto the front they have excellent CFM Flow.

As for air intake buy a factory CAI intake if it doesnt have one or you can get some irrigation style ducting and run it to the front bar without cutting holes

[savage1987]

Nope, mate's car, we're trying to get this all 100% set up (or as close as we can) before I have to leave Perth again this Friday...

AU thermos purchased already, just waiting for them to land (good price on ebay)

I know they flow awesome, have a set on the LS1 and on the way to another set on the 304 unless I sell if first...

It has a HSV CAI already but that uses the factory fan shroud for the bottom half which won't be there once the AUs go on.. and there is WAY too much going on in that engine bay with all the Holden V8 mess PLUS all factory options cluttering up everywhere... no hope of piping to the front that I can see without holesaw love.

[Clint_G]

Best option would be the super 6 one man unless you want to custom something up.

[wraith]

Just cut the bottom of the airbox bigger. Looks clean and does a better job then the super 6 CAI.

[savage1987]

done that on a VN V6 before. Not really a fan.

[Pub247]

v8 one shouldnt use bottom half of shroud i had a v8 one on my v6 at one point its was just moulded to go over the hump in the shroud

[VrWagz1]

I got the HSV CAI intake with my au thermos. I have no issue wit it. Only problem is the factory shroud isnt there to complete the base of the CAI. Extremely minor performance difference, so minor i didnt even notice. Just put the thermos in as per normal and screw the cai back in position back ontop. Worst case, put a stock airbox in.

[savage1987]

v8 one shouldnt use bottom half of shroud i had a v8 one on my v6 at one point its was just moulded to go over the hump in the shroud

possibly poorly worded. The bottom of the CAI exists in the form of the top of the fan shroud.... the entire fan shroud will be removed to fit the AU fans, leaving the factory CAI totally non-functional with no bottom half whatsoever, making it nothing more than a pretty HSV logo.


Interested to hear more about the piping to front bar option, if anyone maintains this can be done (and ideally has pics for reference) then that is the ideal solution, because everyone knows holden V8s gain a lot from nice cold intake air My VN 304 certainly does!

[VS 5.0]

What about a MACE set up ? Check their sponsors page.

[savage1987]

Never gave it much thought, still pretty high priced for my liking personally. May be a good option though, just depends how long he's keeping the bananas I suppose

[BlackVXGTS]

I had a similar problem when I installed AU thermos and had issues with the installed HSV CAI because it required the fan shroud to provide its base. I looked at the V6 CAI but, a the time, it seemed to be more difficult to fit. I settled for the V8 CAI (which is totally sealed) because it was a better fit even though it was smaller in width. This wasn't a problem for me because I have a Motec TTB installed with dual air intakes. However, if I had my time over again I would attack the V6 CAI with a heat gun to get it to fit better because it is a much better looking CAI since it is wider than the V8 CAI and takes up all the space across the top of the radiator.

[savage1987]

Some good info in that mate, cheers

[MACE]

If you're keen on keeping the factory airbox and want a tidy setup then I would mod the super 6 CAI. However if you're planning on doing more work down the track then you could consider making your own enclosure to hose a large pod filter or get one off the shelf, if budget permits. In our case we'll also be releasing air box on the drivers side as well for people wanting to run twin pipes and filters. Otherwise this is how our CAI kit fits with AU thermos

[savage1987]

I like the look of that actually... forget the Senator, I may be up for one of these for my own LS1 VN unless I can figure out how to get an OTR onto it..

[MACE]

I like the look of that actually... forget the Senator, I may be up for one of these for my own LS1 VN unless I can figure out how to get an OTR onto it..

We have a complete retro CAI kit for these now, that genuinely fit a LS1 into a VL-VS

You could put an OTR on one of these, however the rad would have to be considerably tilted back, shortened (the rad) or chop up the top part of the rad support panel to make room for one.

You really can't go above it as there is stuff all room, which is reflected by how small the factory OTR openings are.

If you're interested in kit to suit I'm sure we can work something out

Cheers,
Steve

[savage1987]

if anything on mine I would put the battery in the boot, sort out the tray it came out of with some metalwork, and run a dual intake setup. make the bay look nice and tidy. I can't imagine that'd be too cheap to ship from Melbourne to Townsville though!


I think my shitty pod will stay for a while. Resting on the steam vent from the heads - I'm sure that's good for IATs