Drilled Air Box

Hmmm, think I might attack my air box tomorrow and smooth it.... Cheers guys. I would like some more induction noise, but don't want an open filter on because of heat soak. Was looking at the Ram Air enclosed kits for £100 on fleaBay, but don't know if they're any good or not.
 
why bother? your airbox is already enclosed...it just needs a decent air feed that you wont be able to give it unless you fit an FMIC.....
 
Started to smooth my new airbox out today and it's a fair bit of hard work! Broke my only dremmel cutting tool just as I started to hack the top half of the airbox fins. The bottom bit is half done but I'm trying to do a first class job.

As I have a spare airbox it means I don't have to rush the job, I'll try and finish the job next weekend and get some pics up.
 
dooood, angle grinder is where its at.....took me less than an hour to grind them out and smooth it off, and its a good job ;)
 
na mate...... i didnt think about that haha...... have you? are they more time consuming you reckon?
 
The top half will take a lot longer than the bottom have due to their being ****** plasic fins everywhere. I just started on the top half when my cutting blade snapped.

Onece I've sand papered the thing flat I'm going to give it a quick wet and dry too, it'll be sooooo smooooooth :)

I'll do a vagcom graph for before and after to see if there's any difference at all or if it's just a load of old ********.
 
na that'll be good mate, keep hold of the results then you may be able to do a before and after 4 inch CAI once you've got the FMIC on..... looks like ive got yet another job to do, cant beleive i missed the lid!! just never crossed my mind
 
1animal1 said:
na that'll be good mate, keep hold of the results then you may be able to do a before and after 4 inch CAI once you've got the FMIC on..... looks like ive got yet another job to do, cant beleive i missed the lid!! just never crossed my mind
Click to expand...

Tim will be wanting to buy an Airbox lid after getting the angle grinder out :) haha.
 
i took mine out the other day and removed all the fins from top and bottom, also there are 2 plastic blades that are in the tubing which links the air box to the maf housing. i used a dremmel with a mini circular sanding attachment and it was pretty straight forward. Since putting it back together i myself have noticed the pulling of my car from stand still is a lot smoother, it used to have a dead spot and since doing this it seems to have been minimised loads. i would deff recommend doing the mod if u have a spare 40 mins.
 
I've spent all day (7 hours) sanding my airbox down. Here's the final finish:

attachment.php


attachment.php


I spent so long on the bottom and you cant even see where the fins were any more because I got it super smooth. I got fed up with the top and only partially sanded it down because I was getting bored.

After dinner i'm going to do a before and after VAGCOM run and I'll let you know if there's any difference in MAF readings and bhp/torque :)
 
Well here's the results:

Normal airbox:

BHP = 256
LBFT torque = 266
MAF = 191

Smoothed Airbox:

BHP = 258
LBFT torque = 273
MAF = 191

Boost was at 22psi and as you can see from the following graph the actual boost with the smoothed airbox holds a lot longer than with the normal airbox.

attachment.php


It was definitely worth the hard work with the following increases:

2 BHP
7 Torques
Smoother and prolonged boost delivery
I've also got a load of sound like an asmatic old man and I can hear the DV a lot more now.

If anyone wants to have a crack at it but doesn't want to attack their own airbox my standard airbox is now for sale. PM me if your interested.
 
kitpayne said:
Good work!!!!

Was that just smoothing the box or a panel filter aswell?
Click to expand...

Yeah sorry I was meant to have mentioned that. I have a green cotton filter. Not bad gains from a few hours work. I'd love to borrow one of the £100+ induction kits that companies sell and see what sort of increase I get from that because I dont think it'll be much, if any better.
 
thats nuts... its true all the little things make a difference. There is alot of people on here would not beleive that would work because if didnt come from "a performance specialist" and would cuss you. My little 1.8t ran a 156.9 on the rollers yesterday after cleaning my inlet manifold out, smoothing off the ridges and poshing it, Polsihed and smoothed TB with a small 1mm bore out front the edge of the TB. (basicly reduced ridge inside the rubber pipe thats clipped onto the TB) full service and a performance panel filter! i think for a 12 year old car thats outstanding!

I will be taking my air box off tomorrw and attacing it!!
 
audi upgrades
ALPINE said:
thats nuts... its true all the little things make a difference. There is alot of people on here would not beleive that would work because if didnt come from "a performance specialist" and would cuss you. My little 1.8t ran a 156.9 on the rollers yesterday after cleaning my inlet manifold out, smoothing off the ridges and poshing it, Polsihed and smoothed TB with a small 1mm bore out front the edge of the TB. (basicly reduced ridge inside the rubber pipe thats clipped onto the TB) full service and a performance panel filter! i think for a 12 year old car thats outstanding!

I will be taking my air box off tomorrw and attacing it!!
Click to expand...

That's excellent mate. I used to do all this sort of thing with my old Renault 5 Turbo, smoothing the TB and drilling out the air/fuel jets in the carb then winding up the boost. Its all good fun and there is easy performance gains to be had for nothing except a bit of hard graft.

kitpayne said:
Oh right thought it may have been an induction kit inside the air box. seen that done a few times!!
Click to expand...

No mate that's the beauty of this mod, it wont cost you anything.
 
Ive done this to my airbox to,looks like i need a green cotton filter for better gains tho.
 
ive just binned a 6 month old one... ******

had a look at the lid the other day when i replaced the filter..... whoah man, your too dedicated.... i cant be ***** to do them aswel!! the bottom were ones were far bigger, the lid will be a job if im ever super bored...good to see the results though matey :)
 
I found an easier way to do the top. Instead of using a dremmel I just used a pair of pliers and twisted all the fins off. A lot of them came off so cleanly that they didn't need much sanding at all.
 
Cool Ill be doing this next weekend

Cheers Matt
 
What about polishing the inside to or something or is that just going a bit to far??..
 
Westle said:
Well here's the results:

Normal airbox:

BHP = 256
LBFT torque = 266
MAF = 191

Smoothed Airbox:

BHP = 258
LBFT torque = 273
MAF = 191

Boost was at 22psi and as you can see from the following graph the actual boost with the smoothed airbox holds a lot longer than with the normal airbox.

attachment.php


It was definitely worth the hard work with the following increases:

2 BHP
7 Torques
Smoother and prolonged boost delivery
I've also got a load of sound like an asmatic old man and I can hear the DV a lot more now.

If anyone wants to have a crack at it but doesn't want to attack their own airbox my standard airbox is now for sale. PM me if your interested.
Click to expand...

O yea Westle, I want my airbox back! lol.

Looks good.
 
brilliant thread. good to see people verifying the gains for these mods.

you want the squared area of the inlet to match or be a shade larger than the outlet of the airbox.

some testing was carried out on cgti. typically these airboxes have a venturi at the top. this is actually a restriction. remove the venturi and then bell mouth the hole thats left over

de screen your maf too. ive seen that gain G/S on vagcom
 
anyone got a spare airbox screw lol? I lost one of mine and Audi keep ordering me the wrong one whenever I order it v annoying!!!!!!
 
Matt82 said:
brilliant thread. good to see people verifying the gains for these mods.

you want the squared area of the inlet to match or be a shade larger than the outlet of the airbox.

some testing was carried out on cgti. typically these airboxes have a venturi at the top. this is actually a restriction. remove the venturi and then bell mouth the hole thats left over

de screen your maf too. ive seen that gain G/S on vagcom
Click to expand...

When my FMIC goes on I have a 4" pipe ready to fit as an intake :)
 
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