making a custom air induction point (ram air style)

ok.. the kia has a factory ram air type intake setup as-is, but I want to make it a little bigger and wider (the actual point of induction, that is)
I'm stuck trying to figure out a way to measure how much I have room for height-wise, though. can't think of anything I could do to measure clearance from the top of the grille area where it would be mounted to the bottom of the hood. to help, this is what the engine bay looks like:

any ideas? I'm going to start welding again after class every weekday until work time again, and my goal is to get good enough at tigging to be able to tig up a replacement to get some more flow and kind of get rid of the restrictive little opening (if you've seen the new sonata, it has a much bigger opening, and essentially the same engine and chassis and everything else. think vq35 size entrance)

Adding capacity to the intake can help, but ram air is a joke. You're not getting any boost from that.

http://autospeed.com/A_110824/cms/article.html Like N Sperlo said, I wouldn't get my hopes up.

Get a wad of clay. Shut hood. Open hood. See results. That should tell you how much clearance you have. If it works to find valve clearance, it'll work here.

N Sperlo wrote: Adding capacity to the intake can help, but ram air is a joke. You're not getting any boost from that.

you don't get much measurable boost, but ramming a bunch of cool air into the air cleaner housing only helps it run better. you just gotta take the air cleaner out every so often to shake out all the bugs that get embedded in the folds..

i still like the idea of it better than any hot air intake for sale, and don't fancy risking water from running a cold air deep in the fender wells
the only thing I could think of was clay also, will try that asap. want to talk to one of the porting masters at school about keeping some decent velocity and making it substantially bigger still...
hopefully my tig skills will eventually be up to the task, but may just go for glassing something up instead. or cf..
hmm....

Use flexible aluminum dryer piping and run it to a hole in the bumper. Connect the other end to the airbox somehow.

I fabbed up a similar setup for my Civic way back in the day--before I sprung for a "proper" cold air intake (AEM). I ran the hose to a hole where the foglight would be and capped it off with a trimmed section of gutter cap. Looked really clean.

That hole is blocked off with duct tape now (so I don't ruin my air filter in the rain) but this is what it looked/looks like:

N Sperlo wrote: Adding capacity to the intake can help, but ram air is a joke. You're not getting any boost from that.

From what I remember in a report I read years ago, the Mitsubishi Zero was calculated to get around a 5 hp boost from ram air at 250 mph on a 900hp engine. (It was something pitifully small like that)

You could try to see if it could pick up some air from the grille area. There usually is a higher pressure area in front of the radiator. Similar to the ram air trick owners did on 98-02 Camaro/Firebirds. Here is a site showing it for the F-body, maybe you can do something similar: http://www.installuniversity.com/install_university/installu_pages/freshman_year/free_ram_air_mod.htm

The ram air setup isn't there to boost pressure as much as to get cooler, denser air to the engine.

Ram air - as it is commonly used provides the highest pressure to the airbox, without the aid of a mechanical pump (turbo/supercharger). The best result of the enlarged intake opening, smooth intake tube, short itake tube is to reduce the pressure loss of the items forward of the throttle. The filter is the major restriction at speed (engine speed), while the throttle is the major restriction at low speeds. If you can reduce the pressure loss in the intake system you will be offsetting the losses at these two major components.
The best you can hope for with a ram air system is ambient pressure (zero boost). More likely than not, a stock system will have effectively negative boost due to the length/shape of the intake. The easiest way to keep the pressure losses ahead of the throttle low are large ducts and high inlet pressure. This keeps the speed down and provides more volume of higher pressure air to work with. You can keep some debris out of the intake filter by having the inlet NOT point into the oncoming air, but still in a high pressure region of the car.

Steve Stafford.

I opened up one of the lower fake grates on my mustang and backed it with cut to fit 3" PVC that directs air up toward my aftermarket induction tube. I made no attempt to seal it or capitalize on pressure, but back to back open road runs show a few degrees lower intake air temp with it open.

Plus I got to terrify my wife by using a dremel on my first-ever new car before making the first payment. He He.

hmmmm maybe some sort of cowl induction setup in the future? might just leave it alone til I start to do some real work to it, or just tweak it a little to see how it works out..