cleaned up the exhaust a bit

Those tips look great Corey! I didn't get mine to look that nice. What grits did you use? I might need to redo mine.

First, 60 grit, then 80 grit, 220, 320, 400, 600, 2000 cause I didn't have anything in between, 3000, toothpaste, rubbing compound, then chrome polish. Worked out pretty well

Wow you really did spend hours!

Around 4 hours, yeah, but I don't half ass my work

wow.....nice.thanx Corey

No problem, lol

I have so much work to do to her to get her really nice, and the two dents I have, plus hood corroding are really starting to get to me :/

Damn, those rims look fine !!! CHROME FOREVER

Thanks

By the way, they were only $50 off creigslist!

They look so much better on the classic body style of the riv than the grand am they were made for :3

my hood is doing the exact same thing,bubbling up on the edge!!!
I thought it was from road salt or something since my car was from Michigan.

It's because our hoods are made of aluminum, to save weight. They end up starting to corrode sometimes. I plan on repainting soon anyway, but I kind of hope the corrosion isn't too bad to the point of needing a new hood

Just repainted the mufflers and exhaust with 1200 degree high heat paint, tips are pretty much chrome finish, stock exhaust doesn't look too bad cleaned up ehh?

That looks very nice, Corey

Thanks

Don't think I'm ever going to change anything from the catback to the tips anyway. I read somewhere that the stock catback supports up to 400 crank horses, which I'll never have, and cleaned up, it looks better than most entry level aftermarket stuff anyway, in my opinion.

What I do plan on doing, is fixing my intake more, getting a new downpipe, and straightpipe this bitch 3 inches until it hits the dual pipes (I have no emissions)

I think I'm going to try to improve engine flow as much as possible, as well as getting the coldest possible air temps before the L67 top-swap happens.

As cool as I think my venturi idea was, I'm gunna scrap it soon, and get a way bigger all sided cone filter, and basically make the shortest possible ram air intake I can, and a heat shield for it,

My idea?

Feel free to make fun of me for being ricey.

But, considering that every 10 degrees colder the air is, I would gain about 3HP, and unlike some hood scoops Iv'e seen, this is extremely functional, and won't mess with the hood lines whatso ever, and I checked thoroughly for fitment.



For like $90, I can get this thing, which has a 4 inch inlet.



I'd like to put it as close to the nose as possible, but it's hard to tell how much closer I can get away with until I physically have it. with the grill removed, you can see how bad the paint is corroding :/

Basically, I want the filter to be a few inches from the throttle body, and a custom heat shield that almost snaps up to that NACA duct when the hood closes, making the engine pretty much suck air directly from ambient air. Then again, I'm sure I'll have people tell me it's a bad idea aerodynamically, and that not enough air will be fed to the engine, but I think otherwise.

That device is pretty cool!
I've been looking for a way to do something like this, myself.
Is the inlet diameter equal or better than the throttle body? If so, there's no reason it shouldn't do the job.
Might be a bit impractical for an all weather street ride because of intake of foreign material? Maybe not.
In any case, seems you should have a filter of sorts. A screen just won't keep out the grit.
Nevertheless, an interesting piece.
I suppose it's possible this could also be installed on the side above the wheel well.

That's really cool! Keep at it!

I think that thing will feed air very well indeed. Go for it! We need some fresh ideas out here in Riv world...

Karma wrote:

I think that thing will feed air very well indeed. Go for it! We need some fresh ideas out here in Riv world...

RidzRiv wrote:

That's really cool! Keep at it!

Thanks guys, I figured it might look unique, but wouldn't take away from what the riv is :p

denim wrote:

That device is pretty cool!
I've been looking for a way to do something like this, myself.
Is the inlet diameter equal or better than the throttle body? If so, there's no reason it shouldn't do the job.
Might be a bit impractical for an all weather street ride because of intake of foreign material? Maybe not.
In any case, seems you should have a filter of sorts. A screen just won't keep out the grit.
Nevertheless, an interesting piece.
I suppose it's possible this could also be installed on the side above the wheel well.

I'm going to have a screen on the inlet, and there will be a large all sided cone filter inches from the throttle body.inlet diameter is 4 inches.

I want the duct right there, because I want the intake air temps to be as cold as possible, without needing an intercooler. If you think about it, the longer the air travels through the intake tubing, the more the air contucts heat via convection from the heat radiated from the engine, to the intake tubing itself. Having ambient air temps, inches from the throttle body itself, which has it's own heat shield that directs and almost forces air in faster will pretty much eliminate any of these problems mentioned earlier.

I have a fenderwell intake right now, where the filter gets air directly from ambient temps, but I noticed how hot the intake tubing gets. Hot enough to make the rubber elbow get soft, close to the point of melting. This can't be good for intake temps, so I plan on solving it with this design.

I'm not worried about foreign material getting in the intake because a high end filter will be used, and rain won't even be a factor because of aerodynamics.




This was my initial design, but I realized after making my current intake setup, that the inlet no matter how I made it would be a constriction for airflow. Then I realized that I want it as close to the throttle body as it will allow because less heat is conducted that way, making more power, and ultimately a better throttle response, and slightly better sounding engine. If i go supercharged, it's the best way to help reduce engine knock as well, from the higher compression ratio

It would be cool if you could put a filter right on the throttle body and have a heat shielding box surrounding the filter with a hole in the front that lined directly up with the hood duct, so that the engine was only breathing air from outside of the car. I'd like to hear more of your ideas!

The duct will be screwed down into the hood, with sealant applied for a tight seal. connecting to the inlet of the duct will be the heat shield itself, which I will have to make myself, probably out of fibreglass, using a tube, and maybe a couple coathangers for the backbone of the structure, then applly some kind of heat reflecting paint on the side away from the intake.

Basically, the hood will close so the NACA duct will close on top of the heat shield, where the end will be shaped like the bottom half of a cylinder had the top half cut off, so the naca duct portion will rest on top of it, pretty much making the naca duct, part of the heat shielding which surrounds the filter cone, and forces cold, ambient insulated air into the intake manifold.

Obviously I can't get a perfect seal on the housing, but I don't intend to, actually, I'm going to make it so that air can flow a little past the filter if need be, so that idling the engine won't ever create a problem, also, this allows a little bit of heat to possibly go past the cone, if any were to build up.

It's a little hard to perfectly explain it,




Here's a retarded diagram I drew on paint. The blue arrow is the NACA duct, the red arrow will be where the filter will be. Brown box is the engine, the darker shaded grey is where the heat shield will surround the filter and pretty much dock up to the NACA duct with the bottom half of a cylinder that has an inner diameter slightly bigger than the outer diameter of the inlet on the NACA duct, making a slightly snug fit as the hood closes, but not tight enough to cause and snagging from the hood opening or closing.


The only challenge here is making a good enough heat shield. Why? Because with my years of building and overclocking computers, Iv'e done a lot of case modding, and I'm pretty good at making accurate holes in aluminum with a Dremel, which is VERY straight forward; just trace the inner flange shape on the hood where placement will be, cut out that hole slightly too small, file and grind smooth until it's a snug fit, then apply sealant and screw in the the hood. The framework of it will be either carved foam or a coathanger and a cylinder with a slightly bigger inner diameter than the inlet outer diameter.


Then again, I'm pretty sure a lot of members would think my idea pointless, but I've learned a lot making my ghetto Venturi intake, believe it or not :o

The biggest thing I learned making it, was exactly how important the slightest change in engine flow can be, which really does prove the point that the only way to increase horsepower is to improve volumetric efficiency, which makes you think a little differently.




Just upgrading my throttlebody to an L67 TB and tuning my car, would basically give me 10% more VE (volumetric efficiency).

These findings ere used from a 1998 L36 LeSabre, with a gutted airbox and K&N Filter.


I'm not entirely sure how much better this intake design will surpass a guted stock box setup, but I'm pretty sure that means I'll be gaining at LEAST 20 horsepower from a new throttlebody and tune, with this intake setup I'm thinking I can probably squeeze another 5-6 horses out of it if I'm lucky, but more importantly, it reduces KR, and if I do go supercharged, I need to find out more about the Gen V supercharger, which runs cooler, improving efficiency even more.

I also need to get an idea of how exhaust flow (ubend delete and new downpipe, resonator and cat delete, basically straightpipe the bitch 3" to the dual exhaust in the back) would affect VE as well.

I figure it's best to start at engine flow and temps before trying big power, because they are all supporting mods, improve reliability, and reduce KR, also, my engine won't explode on me randomly.

My only concern with your new intake plan is what you are going to do when driving in the rain. Otherwise, the fresher your air, the better.

When you say, "go supercharged," do you mean upgrading engines? Unless I'm wrong (it happens a lot , the L36 is quite different than an SC.

(He can topswap. Add the SC, LIM, heads with injector bungs in them, injectors, and a 4" pulley to make stock boost on the higher compression.)

Aye Mate, but I thought there is a difference in the bottom end. No?

A little, but nothing to worry about with careful modding. The impala guys do it all the time.