wondeful fan brackets

In this series of articles we will be looking individually at some basic auto Timing Cover that most people find to be necessary for your high performance vehicle. In this particular one we will be looking at cold air intakes, one of the first things most of the modifiers in the industry take care of right off the bat.

So lets talk about the whole theory of an intake and in particular of a cold air intake. We all know that an engine mixes air and fuel together, compresses it and then ignites the concoction,that creates a small explosion in your cylinders. So in the digital world the engine computer takes care of this concoction to the best of it's ability. Here is another piece of information, the colder the air is, the denser it is. What does it mean to you? The denser the air in the mix with fuel, the bigger the explosion in your cylinders, the bigger the explosion in your cylinders, the more horsepower you get. So we want to take advantage of this and put in as cold (dense) air as we can in our cylinders to create more horsepower.

Now to make a clarification of what a cold air intake really is and what it is not. There are intakes that are called short or ram intakes, and these are not considered cold air intakes. It is a better performing air intake system since it involves a better breathing filter and an intake tube that has less tus and kinks to improve the intake of air to your engine. Yet, consider where the a short or ram intake is placed; right next to the engine.

Well, if you haven't noticed the engine produces heat and that heat is kept in the engine compartment, thus when those short or ram air intakes suck in air they are sucking in the hot air in the engine compartment. Since hot air is less dense than cold air, you may not be getting the best possible performance out of engine.