What was the goal?

The goal of the build was to have something track ready while also having something usable on the street. We all know that with Naturally Aspirated cars getting as much cold air into the cylinders as possible is very important since we don’t have a turbo or supercharger forcing extra air in. This means we need the coldest air possible with the least restriction possible.

Since these cars are mostly modified by 17 year olds who have just started driving, there isn’t much out there in terms of true cold air intake kits. It is mostly just pod filters on the end of a silicone hose drawing in hot air from the engine bay. This is one of the things I want to help people understand - you don’t want hot air going into your engine! The colder the air, the denser it is - this means that there is more air to burn in the same area; meaning more power! I know that is a very high-level overview and can be explained better, but all we need to know for now is colder air = better.

With a different intake as well, we can also get a change in intake sound. This is one of my favourite parts on a car as I am not a fan of obnoxiously loud, drony exhausts that pop and bang for 40 seconds after you let off the throttle (yes, I know the pops and bangs are not just the exhaust and are part of the ECU tune). So to achieve this, we can use certain materials to help increase the sound as well as the performance.

Making do with what is available off the shelf

There are universal kits that you can buy to have a cold air intake. I went for this one from eBay: UNIVERSAL PERFORMANCE CYCLONE FILTER INDUCTION KIT UN1607-FRD2

The reason I went for this particular filter was because it was enclosed. This means that all of the air that goes through the filter is only coming in from the front and not all around the engine bay. Also, who can resist the beautiful fake carbon fibre! The other reason I went for this filter is because it was quite cheap and came with everything to bodge something together. After all, this build is on something of a budget.

One thing I want to point out is that I am using the original cold air feed location that the factory air box uses. This is important because there is a duct there already that scoops all of the air into the air intake, rather than it just relying on airflow going near the entrance. Another thing, with this kit the pipe was too large for the intake manifold, so I had to use the original pipe that went from the airbox to the intake manifold and bodge it together with some jubilee clips and silicone connectors that came with the kit.

Below is what the set-up above described: Initial Air Intake

Improving the kit - the Cold Air Intake Mk2

I wasn’t happy with how the online kit fit. It had exposed piping which got quite warm (remember - hot air = bad). This led me down the rabbit hole of creating my own intake piping using silicone bends and aluminium piping.

Here are the parts I used to make this (excluding the kit mentioned above):

This did require some cutting of aluminium pipe which my dad helped with as we needed to get it to the right length. We used multiple pieces, the main one you can see in the image was to go across the back of the engine. The others are short segments that allow the rest of the silicone hoses to be clamped together. We found that using WD-40 on the silicone tubes made them easier to slide over the aluminium tubing (yes, I know we should have used silicone spray, we didn’t have any to hand). The image below shows what it looked like before all of the jubilee clips were added which is why you can see some of the aluminium tubing.

Finished Air Intake

You may also notice on the picture that I have a filter on the crank case breather tube. This is because I didn’t want to run this back into the intake as I didn’t want to modify the silicone tubes that much. The pipe it is on the end of is the stock pipe that usually clips into the stock airbox. You can find the filter I used here: Air Intake Filter Breather

I also wanted to talk about the gold foil/heat-shield around the intake pipe. This is to reflect heat away from the pipe, keeping the air inside it colder for longer. The reason we do this is again cold air = better. This doesn’t prevent it from being heated up though, it just prolongs how long it takes for the air to heat soak. This means that it should be more consistent for longer when on track.

Does it make a difference?

In terms of performance, I didn’t notice anything different. It is an 80 BHP car, so it isn’t going to knock your socks off when you floor it. However, when it comes to noise it sounds fantastic! The intake noise on this is incredible for a little 1.4! It adds just the right amount of noise when flooring it and it sounds especially good when at the higher end of the rev range. I also like the fact that if you want to drive this car like a granny on a Sunday morning, it doesn’t get obnoxious and sounds like the stock car.

In my opinion, this is worth it just for the sound alone over the stock air box.