Was RAM air ever originally used on hotrods?

Just curious if it was ever used in the early days and how it would be looked upon by the community.....

 

Cars had scoops, I am sure some of them were functional.

 

What did you have in mind? There are a lot of ways to get air into an engine...some were used in the old days, and some look neat. Most are neither.

 

Not a 'hot rod' per se, but the concept wasn't unheard of.

 

Does the "ram air" after to be pushed through the carbureator, or could it by p*** the carb and mix in the plenum???

 

if it p***ed the carb and mixed in the plenum wouldnt that be a giant va***n leak?

 

If the airflow was stationary, yes....but if the car was movingand air was being forced into the plenum then I am not sure...

Thats why I am asking, If it is forced through the carb would it mess up mix since the venturi works off of pressure?

 

Most ram air units have a sort of a by p*** it is not pressurized like say a blow through turbo or huffer.

If you ramed air into the intake in a normal intake it would just blow back up out of the carb under pressure with the throttle baldes open. maybe you could get one of those turbo intakes that were used a little in the '60s and instead of a turbo use the ram air.

 

Unless you are exceeding any legal speed limit in the USA by a goodly margin, Ram Air would be more correctly called cold air induction.

But the sales people were quite successful in selling "Ram Air" in the late 1960's and early 1970's.

Lots of carburetor scoops in older J.C. Whitney catalogues.

Jon.

 

Who cares how it's looked upon by "the community." Build your car how you like it, and screw the naysayers. Hot rodding is about making a car into your own personal statement.

 

Well I'm worried about the functionality of it more so than what others think...

 

There was a wild 32 drag coupe out East that had long forward facing trumpets, early '60s I believe. I know it's on a thread here somewhere about East Coast drag strips/cars.

EDIT: here it is

http://jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=437879



My first successful search using the iPhone app yay

 

yah really gotta think of the physics. The greater force is what moves most things. The piston moveing down only creates a void, the atmospheric pressure is what pushes air into the cylinder. But when the throttle plates are closed you get vacuum, because the air is being stretched out so to speak. So like someone else said youd have to go real fast to push air into the motor faster than the atmosphere of the whole earth can.

 

I had the inboard headlights removed on my buick and ducted flexible hose like the ford "THUNDERBOLTS" had to a stock style dual inlet air cleaner, the only problem was at highway speeds the air would push fuel out the top of the quadrajet and fill the cabin with gas fumes. All I did was unhook the hoses for the drive to the track. It worked perfect at the drag strip under w.o.t.

 

A little slower at sea level than in Denver.

 

I remember photos of world record holding Mopars from about 1957 at Bonneville with the headlamp induction hoses. They were stock bodied with all kinds of tricks that totaled up for significant top end gains.

 

Like II FUNNY, I was going to mention the "Thunderbolt" too! I also did that same kind of set up on my 60 Catalina, where I removed the inner set of headlights, and ran flex tubing to a dual snorkel air cleaner. This was in 1967 and at the time we referred to it as "Ram Air" Can't really say as it did that much because it was subjective without anyway for me to really measure any performance gains. It looked cool and I thought it was a trick, home made add on I guess by todays standards, it could probably be compared to a cold air intake. I felt like, "Can't hurt"!

 

he he he

 

if this is true,i'm on the wrong site.

 

The cowl induction thing seems to work ok on older vehicles that have a relatively tall/upright windshield, a lot of air pressure builds up at the base of the windshield.

Is this for the truck?

 

Wow. This time it took ten whole posts before someone felt the need to share this gem of wisdom.

 

I've been doing stuff like this since the first time I got under a hood.

Traditional?

If everyone else discovers it and uses it, then it's traditional.

Hot rodding is changing things to boost performance using as much of the original design as possible.

Mid 50's GM's had ventilation boxes on the firewall that could be reworked for incon****uous ram air. The vent at the base of the windshield stands up and catches the air coming over the hood. Not seen from the outside, but works better than a hood scoop.

 

The bird catcher is just an air box. The flex tubes push off if washing or going into rain.



Still looking for a more (Traditional) air box...........

 

like this?

 

Now you are talking!

 

Yeah its for the F100, I just was looking at the cowl vent, thinking should I weld it up or leave it since I wont use it.......and I thought, hmm open it curl a shroud and tube under it through the fire wall and into the air cleaner........

 

Martin..........

You never know unless you try. This is a very similar set up to NASCAR. Would they do it if it didn't work?

I had a factory ram air Super Bee and I know what it felt like to open the air grabber. Smokey Yunick gave us a lot by experimenting in the same way as this.

 

When I got my comet the ram air hood ducting had been cut out I gained 4 tenths in the quarter mile when I reinstalled the ducting. I'm not sure if it was ram air or just cool air from outside the engine compartment that did it, but my guess is cool air.

 

What is the purpose of these i never understood.

 

There is an air plenum for ventilation, the air goes in the grille at the base of the windshield, and then goes into the air cleaner. There is high pressure at the base of the windshield when the car goes fast, so it gets a ram air effect.