air intake pipes from super cheap

[vyaw2003]

Hi,
air intake pipes from super cheap are these things that look like benders arms off futerama. (house AC air ducts) Are these crapp? I am asking because i think that they would be inefficient creating swirling air, and straight pipes would be much better.

Would i be correct?
Tx

[vtcommodo3800]

no the more you can get the air to swirl or twist the better that is why when you port and polish something you don't polish the intake side

[Marks-VY]

I would tend to disagree. I expect the flexible duct is a compromise so you can thread it through the engine bay to get it to cool, clean, forced air. Ideally the air should be as dense and fast flowing until entering the cylinder, which is where the "swirling" becomes critical, so as to acheive the best air/fuel mix and completely fill the cylinder with the charge.

Can anyone confirm this?

[NOGEN 3]

I would tend to disagree. I expect the flexible duct is a compromise so you can thread it through the engine bay to get it to cool, clean, forced air. Ideally the air should be as dense and fast flowing until entering the cylinder, which is where the "swirling" becomes critical, so as to acheive the best air/fuel mix and completely fill the cylinder with the charge.

Can anyone confirm this?

Marks right, the turbulence is only req'd in the plenum to equalise air flow in each cyl intake port. With porting / polishing, u do the intakes and the chambers n just basically matchport the exhaust side(got a whole microsoft 4 page doco (I think) on cyl. head porting....

[NOGEN 3]

BTW, I was thinking the same thing 8 months ago but got the VS CAI instead- not that I know if its better or not, just how things went...

[Hairy Eater]

but Commodores already have factory CAI.... are these Supa Cheap ones any better?...

[TigerVX]

but Commodores already have factory CAI.... are these Supa Cheap ones any better?...

Yes they have a SMALL CAI but not big enough as far as most people are concerned. The idea behind the super cheap ducting is to increase the amount of air getting to the engine not to replace the existing CAI.
You can also use PVC pipe - there a few threads about custom CAI's