bojanglesowner07252

I have never used a tuner and bought my 05 mustang gt in august. It already had the shaker ram air system installed with a cheap aftermarket cold air. I want to buy the steeda cai/tuner combo. I know the ram air does nothing, so buy adding the cai and tune will i still get those gains? Also will it still tune correctly being as I have the ram air installed? Last question is are u supposed to tune with every upgrade and does it save your previous upgrades or how does that work? Sorry very inexperienced and no friends with mustangs.

Nuke

First, try to be sure that you don't already have a tune other than the stock tune, but that can be worked around.

Second, the "ram air" is basically for looks and won't change the performance of a good CAI & tune combo. Whoever you buy your tunes from will verify that as they need to know what mods you have. Regardless, our engines can only use a certain amount of air and anything beyond what they can already "gulp" won't do squat.

There's great information in the stickies including info regarding what needs a tune and what doesn't.

NOLA26

I did not know that the shaker hood did not improve performance. Now I want to know why someone wold pay $800 for a non-functional hood scoop? Why doesnt it "work?" Doesnt it force fresh air into the intake?

chub46

A functional Shaker scoop is one of the best CAI on the market. It sucks air directly from outside the hood not from inside the hood like other CAI. On the dyno with the Shaker you will see the same hp as any CAI. The ram air comes into effect at about 40 mph.

Never2mucHP

Actually, there is NO disernible effects from "Ram Air" untill you get in excess of something like 400-500mph. Thats a fancy made up term used to sell cars and car parts. You are correct in that the scoop does induce cooler air into the intake (thats it's prime contribution).




For those of you that say "But if you stick your hand out the window you can feel the air pushing your hand!" meet Fluid Dynamics.

ski

Agree that the prime benefit of a "Ram Air" intake on a street vehicle is to maintain a lower IAT when the vehicle is motionless with the engine idling, which helps to prevent loss of spark timing for more power during acceleration from a standstill.

Also, agree that there is no "Ram Air" effect(Read: Greater than atmospheric pressure) at any speed for a Shaker intake due to its location within the laminar flow path of the air over the vehicle's hood, and extremely little(if any) "Ram Air" effect at the low speeds(typically<100 mph) of a street vehicle for an intake that's located anywhere out of the vehicle's laminar airflow.

However, I respectfully disagree that speeds in excess of 400-500 mph are required in order for "Ram Air" effects to benefit a vehicle's performance. If that were true, then why do the owners of NHRA Pro Stock cars, Funny cars, and Fuelies, as well as F1 race cars, spend extra $ on the research and development of the scoop style air intakes that are installed on their vehicles which never exceed 400 mph?

Never2mucHP

The scoop for the intake will usually feed directly into a supercharger. The supercharger is what is compressing the air. The scoop itself is used to funnel cool air directly to the intake tract, minimizing the possibility of picking up air heated from the motor. Also in most of those applications, ensuring the intake is as aerodynamic as possible is also part of the R/D. At least that’s how I understand it. But we are talking about teams that will spend thousands of $$$ just to pick up a few hundredths of a second in a lap or ET. Not that there is anything wrong with that!

ski

Before responding, I first have to correct 2 terms in the following paragraph from my previous post. "Laminar flow path" should have read "boundary layer", and "vehicle's laminar airflow" should have read "vehicle's boundary layer":
"Also, agree that there is no "Ram Air" effect(Read: Greater than atmospheric pressure) at any speed for a Shaker intake due to its location within the laminar flow path of the air over the vehicle's hood, and extremely little(if any) "Ram Air" effect at the low speeds(typically<100 mph) of a street vehicle for an intake that's located anywhere out of the vehicle's laminar airflow."

FWIW, Funny Car and Top Fuel engines are S/C, Pro Stock and F1 engines are NA.

That aside, the air intake on each of these vehicles is located well above any surface that would place the intake within the vehicle's boundary layer. This clearly indicates that the designers of these vehicle's are purposely sacrificing aerodynamics by locating the air scoop within the vehicle's laminar airflow. The obvious reason for this design feature is to take advantage of the "ram air" effect which occurs there(within the laminar airflow) at the high speeds that these vehicles travel.