cai sri combo question

[Soron]

Hey all something just came to me, with all this tech we got around why hasen't anyone ever come up with a cai/sri combo so you can get te best of both worlds? It seems simple enough to me to implement, 2 filters, piping (y pipe included), a set of 2 switches/valves and possibly a cheap external computer (i.e. not a computer more like just a chip to do it).

What I had in mind was a y pipe starts from the throttle body and at one end of the pipe would be the sri end at the other a cai. What would make this work is a set of 2 switches/valves that would progressively open/close one end or the other of the pipes, it would start out with the cai fully closed and the sri fully open when at a dead stop, and at speed the sri would be closed and the cai would be opened. The switchs would be controlled by a computer that is dependant on both the speed the vehicle is moving at and the amount of air draw required which are both already handled by the stock computer on the elantra already, all you would really need is a trigger (i.e. a chip) for them. I'm sure it could all be done for less than $300 max and once production on it is going much less than that with $200 or less being realistic. In addition I think that it might have an added benefit that the external computer can be programmed so that an aem valve is not nessary as it would automatically open the sri end should it sense the cai end is sucking up water.

Tell me what you guys think and would you go for it? maybe its something we could recommend to the elantra mod manufacturers out there like evofusion.

[evan938]

lol. this will never happen. there are too few modders as it is, and do you think if they did make it, someone is going to spend 300$ on an intake? its been proven that a CAI will make more torque and hp over a SRI

[Soron]

yes thats true but an sri will take off faster than a cai otherwise it wouldent be an option for some people and as for the $300 thats my conservative guesstimate on it, i'm sure I could make it myself for less than $100, however it won't look professional and it wont have brand name filters (ill just make my own cone filter or something) or the best parts, i'm sure a manfucaturer can produce it, considering normal cai's alone cost $150+ from evofusion alone so a combo for around $300 sounded like a fair estimate to me. Im just suprised no one else has thought of it as I have never seen anything can do both out there costs aside, there are people like me out there who dont give a $hit about cost and want the best.

[yevRPS]

waaaaaay overcomplicated imho. the problem in hand is not that complex to have such hi tech solution. all that's needed is a high flow filter away from heat with the most direct air path to the TB and don't drive into lakes. this will be the most expensive hp gain EVER. what will you net 2-3hp low and high as opposed to just low or just high rpm range?

yes thats true but an sri will take off faster than a cai otherwise it wouldent be an option for some people and as for the $300 thats my conservative guesstimate on it, i'm sure I could make it myself for less than $100, however it won't look professional and it wont have brand name filters (ill just make my own cone filter or something) or the best parts, i'm sure a manfucaturer can produce it, considering normal cai's alone cost $150+ from evofusion alone so a combo for around $300 sounded like a fair estimate to me. Im just suprised no one else has thought of it as I have never seen anything can do both out there costs aside, there are people like me out there who dont give a $hit about cost and want the best.


if you don't care about the cost and want the best....go forced induction. or better yet...buy a faster car.

[Soron]

Well with this setup you get the best of both worlds, you would get immediate response time from an sri on acceleration, the gas milage savings of a cai and the power from both (low, mid and high end) and whatever other advantage either had without any of the disadvantages. From the end users standpoint all they would have to do is install the piping something they would have to do with either alternative anyways, with the only extra work they would have to do is hook up a pair of terminals.

As for buying a faster car, sorry dont have that kind of funds but I don't think you see the bigger picture that this setup can be applied to ALL vehicles not specifically to the elantra, im just using it as an example. As for cost the only extra you would be spending on is 2 valves/switchs a y pipe and a chip, something you can realistically get for $50 - $100 for all of them.

And oh in case you have not noticed I did post this in the naturally asperated section for a reason.

[yevRPS]

good luck with it if you do it yourself or if you try to convince somebody to put something like that into production. cost/benefit is rediculously out of whack. what chip will you use? who will do the programming? who will do the research to know at what rate one valve should open and another close to yeild the most power/fule savings/etc. ? on top of "who will do it?" there also "how much will it cost" and "who will buy it" the R&D costs will never be covered because this contraption will never sell enough units.

another big factor is that this is all speculation. you assume that this setup will actually inherit all of the good and none of the bad of both setups. how about the complex piping will create more turbulance than either sri or cai and offset any and all of the possible gains. not mentioning the programming. the best solutions are the simplest ones not the most complex ones. the more components you have the greater the risk of mulfunction.

[05TidalWave]

Seriously... Just pick one. I think I'm going to go back to the SRI....

[Soron]

As to chip I will use I could ask some people I know not to mention my dad works for a semi conductor company anyways, as for the programming i'll do that myself (I am/was a programmer), the research will be done like any other research, through trial and error, if I had the data from the computer or at least the calculations from the onboard computer used to flow how much air at what speed then I could make much more exact guesstimates as to the timing of when and how much they open/close and as to who will buy it? that will be determined in who wants top performance and i'm pretty sure once its perfected it can be reasonably priced. Complex piping? it's a simple Y pipe, last I recall that was actually used in performance exhausts and as for turbulant air flow than can be controlled through the valves if not smoothed out by a high flow mesh screen or something. I can assume this setup will inherit all of the good and none of the bad because whatever gains you get from one side will cancel out the negatives of the other, yes I know its costly and you probably won't get as much power out of it as from separate alternatives (i.e. 5-6 instead of 7-8) but it seems good to me if you can accelerate faster than a cai alone and still get good gas milage like a cai at the cost of a paltry 1 or 2 hp (which you would lose through the use of dino oil anyways) why not go for it?

[yevRPS]

now you are talking about stickin mesh in there....more things to go worng. consider the problem in hand.

stock air intake is designed to keep noise down and water/dirt out. twisty piping creates turbulance.

solutions:

sri- less turbulance

cai- less turbulance and colder air than sri

now the engine always gets the same volume of air whether it is sri, cai or stock intake. the only way to get more air in is forced induction. neither one of those 3 do that. the only advantage of cai over sri is that the air is colder and therefore contains more O2 which depending on how hard you drive the car can mean more power or better mpg due to more efficient fule burn.

those are the existing solutions. each one is very simple with improvements like a bypass valve for cai. still simple in nature. you can not tell me that your solution is just as simple. more comlex means more potential ways it can fail. i don't see how you can stick a valve in there and keep the piping smooth on the inside. canceling turbulance with screens after the valve...again making it even more complicated. the trial and error will take forever to dial it in. instead..spend $30 and get a CAI. DONE. 0.002 seconds and 1-2 hp that you off the line will never be worth all that trouble. all that while making a big assumption that it will work the way you say it will and will have the best of both world and none of the worst.

either way...i've made my point. i will gladly take my words back and admit that i am wrong as soon as you can show that your contraption works in practice.

[Jonny666]

No matter what type of valve you use it will cause a restriction to flow. Not to mention you will have to invent your own valves because no-one makes a valve that would work in this particular application. unless you adapted 2 throttle bodies to the contraption. your also neglecting to realise that for the most part sri and cai's generally have differant sized piping for good reason. so you would have to make both from the same size (at which point you'd loose the advantage of having 2 intakes) or you would have to couple 1 to the other (that would also probably cause enough restriction to flow to cancel out the 1hp your going to make by switching from SRI to CAI)
Even if you went hardcore ghetto on this project
your looking at roughly
2 ebay intakes......60 plus ship
2 autowrecker throttle bodies.......$100
Cost of having everything cut & welded together in a shop....... aprox $60/hour
lets assume 6 hours
we're already at over $500 and you havent even actuated your valves yet let alone done the automation.
and ya wont make 1 iota more hp with this set up

[Soron]

The valves I was planning on using would act like a camera aperature so only 1 size pipe is needed, the aperature will cause restriction and turbulence yes but those are intended in the design as aperature size can be varied across the system so the whole thing can act like a system of a certain pipe size giving the restriction you are looking for by having set pipe sizes.

The whole point i'm trying to make here is not that it can not be done, it's the fact that it has not been done not even on enthusiast websites like this one I have not found anything that resembles it. Don't worry about how simple or complex something is at first, the automobile and computer were complicated when they first came out but look how much they have been simplified by now, the car has a multitude of moving parts, so one of them is bound to fail at some time which they do and when they do people just either pay the cost to fix it or go with alternatives. If you're too afraid to try something out then how do you know it will fail right off the bat? For all you know this system, though expensive at first, combo could outperform either one alone. I have already decided long ago to get a cai and aem combo myself but sri does have its advantages too and I was just wondering if a combo of both (though probably not feasable) is possible, according to your logic its not, even though it has never been actually tried to pass or fail

[yevRPS]

well maybe that should tell you something. i mean the fact that it hasn't been tried. hundreds of millions of enthisiasts out there and plenty of car engineers among them. i doubt this idea is 100% original. maybe it hasn't been tried cuz it was deemed pointless. but as i said. if you want to defend your idea go and make it happen. come back with results and prove everybody wrong.

[Vampyrate]

i have been discussing this since i first became a member here. it is impossible unless you can develop a flange sort of setup to control between the two.

in theory, it would work amazinglingly, but the engine can only bring is so much air. the only way that this could benefit is if you tricked the engine to ned to bring in more air than stock... thus making it impossible to develop. ive given up on this search once i actually started to think of the science behind it. it would be nothing more than eye and ear candy and serve no real purpose.

[Jonny666]

The problem with this invention would be Cost vs Benifit.
Your gaining maybe 2 hp by strait up switching between the 2 intakes.
for the cost of R&D on this item you could get a port and polish done and make some real power.

[Vampyrate]

actually, there would be no gains whatsoever if you think of the science of it, just from really rough gestimation, you would be lucky to gain 1/4 hp and 1/8 tq

[FinalBreath]

well ill trade someone my sri for a cai.... :)

[SilverElantra]

I had a sri and cai combo on my 2004 accent and i did notice a loss in power in the low end but not as much as if i just had the cold air....it is definitely something different adn worked well....and i would suggest it if ur a racer because he is right you do get the best of both worlds...but if its just for show dont bother cause it takes up too much room.... btw i dont know how you would do a combo on an elantra without moving too much sh*t around...but just so people know i did do it before and yes it is functional.

[Soron]

Im amazed that it was done! do you have pics of it?

[pjc6281]

If u looking for throttle response then get a cai with a narrower tube. I have had every single intake on my 04 elantra. SRI, and cai w/ 2.5 , 2.75 , 3' piping. The difference is throttle response and torque. IMHO the SRI sux, no torque, period. The cai with the 3 inch piping was great in the upper rpms but lacked the snapping acceleration of the 2.5 cai. The 2.75 was a good mix. I think u should just pick one that suits ur drinving style. I have an auto so the 2.5 was my fav cause it made the auto trans more responsive when hitting the gas

[XDGT03]

weapon r makes a cold air shield for their dragon line. http://www.eautoworks.com/productimages/WRcoldairshield.jpg

It is an SRI with a cold air inlet for a tube feed. Best of both worlds with much less complication.

I have a similar setup only no shield so a bit of a loss of torque.

http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/5/web/425000-425999/425321_75_full.jpg
http://memimage.cardomain.net/member_images/5/web/425000-425999/425321_95_full.jpg

[soullesselantra]

sorry, but IMO this is a baaaaad idea...too many moving parts for an intake...what if it breaks BOOM!! no mo motor...IBTL

[Jonny666]

I had a sri and cai combo on my 2004 accent and i did notice a loss in power in the low end but not as much as if i just had the cold air....it is definitely something different adn worked well....and i would suggest it if ur a racer because he is right you do get the best of both worlds...but if its just for show dont bother cause it takes up too much room.... btw i dont know how you would do a combo on an elantra without moving too much sh*t around...but just so people know i did do it before and yes it is functional.

Did you do the whole valve set up or just the 2 intake pipes. 1 goin to the fender and the other a short ram?

[SilverElantra]

i had it on my accent...no pics sorry the car was totalled....i had one filter which ran to right above the fan and because i had the carbon fiber hood it made it a cold air....the carbon hood had a lil divet in the front and that fed straight into the filter like it was made for it....and then just had the other filter sitting up a bit and wedged into the fuse box....it barely moved but did a lil and cut into the fan shroud....but once it had settled a bit it barely moved and worked functionally as both and made my car a lot faster with minimal torque loss compared to a sri.

[quickfingerz]

Because of air velocity, I would think that a 2.5 inch intake would be best between a 2.75 & a 3". I'd even say that 2.25" would be even better.

Hmmm... actually I am thinking about how our throttle body is designed & It might be possible that air velocity will not be as beneficial as in other cars. Anyone know of any redesigned throttle bodies? Maybe one where the butterfly plate was even closer to the block.

[soullesselantra]

sorry, but i think this is some california dreamin...i want to see some pics or numbers...
http://www.fave.ca/p/p039/p039s006lion.jpg