Raised vented headlight lid - anyone got it?

[ll_spud]

Hey guys,

Found this on the NZ MX5 Mart. Looks quite cheap, considering our conversion is great. Thinking of getting it.

http://www.mx5mart.co.nz/db.cgi?db=mart ... records2=1

Anyone tried these? Notice much difference in cooler air? or is it mainly for the Aesthetic side of things? They look good aswell.

(Works out to be roughly $90 AUD)

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Luke

[Jeo]

I stuffed about a little bit with these a while back and I'm pretty sure they work.
Quote of myself from back in the day. And before you ask, no I haven't got around to testing it any further although I really should...

Well today turned out less productive than I initially hoped. There were no real issues, the laptop showed the intake temperature fine, I managed to get consistent and repeatable results. The 'less productive part' was that the biggest difference I had between any of the tests was only two degrees C. Now I’m no expert on the subject, but I would have expected a larger range of results. There are a few factors that I think contributed to this, but I’ll talk about them where they are relevant.

My initial idea was to measure intake temperature at 40, 60 and 80kmh with each of the following…
Stock head light cover closed with an airbox
Stock head light cover open with an airbox
Vented head light cover closed with an airbox
Vented head light cover open with an airbox
Stock head light cover closed with an exposed air filter
Stock head light cover open with an exposed air filter
Vented head light cover closed with an exposed air filter
Vented head light cover open with an exposed air filter
Stock head light cover closed with an exposed air filter with a heat shield
Stock head light cover open with an exposed air filter with a heat shield
Vented head light cover closed with an exposed air filter with a heat shield
Vented head light cover open with an exposed air filter with a heat shield

All of the tests were done on the same piece of road, at the same revs. 40kmh = 2000rpm in 3rd, 60kmh = 2250rpm in 4th and 80kmh = 2500rpm in 5th. I started at the top of the list and worked my way down.

Now to show you exactly what the conditions were for each of the different tests, I even took photos for all of you nice people.

So this how my intake sits at the moment. I have a one piece cross pipe that is 75mm in diameter, which feeds from the stock airbox out of a VN V8 Commodore.




This is the vented headlight cover. No its not painted, yes it will be if this all works.




This is the exposed air filter. Note that the heat wrap on the cross pipe has been there for a fortnight or so, I just forgot to take a starting photo today.






And now we have a heat shield. 2mm sheet aluminium with 5mm heat shield foam either side. I hadn’t put it on for this photo, but there was also a foam strip the whole way around it, so that it made a seal against the bonnet/washer bottle/what ever that thing at the front is. Like I said in earlier posts in this thread, my idea here was to seal off the passenger side of the engine bay to basically make my own enclosed airbox.






First thing that popped up kinda surprised me actually. Regardless of which headlight cover I had on at the time, at all of these speeds, the headlight closed gave consistently cooler results. Because of this, I gave up on testing both open and closed after the airbox tests.

Next was the vented vs standard headlight cover. This was just as expected as the vented cover gave cooler results at any speed, with any filter arrangement.

While I’m sure this won’t come as a surprise to anyone, but the exposed air filter with no heat shielding gave the hottest results recorded. I even tried to give it the best chance possible, short of moving to the other side of the engine bay, by tucking it right up behind the headlight.

________________________________________________________40_______60_______80
Stock head light cover closed + airbox ________________________38.9_____38.7_____38.8
Stock head light cover open + airbox_________________________39.3_____39.5_____39.0
Vented head light cover closed + airbox_______________________38.9_____38.8_____38.9
Vented head light cover open + airbox________________________38.0_____38.2_____38.4
Stock head light cover closed + exposed air filter_______________39.6_____40.0_____39.9
Vented head light cover closed + exposed air filter______________39.3_____39.2_____39.5
Stock head light cover closed + exposed air filter + heat shield____39.2_____39.4_____39.7
Vented head light cover closed + exposed air filter + heat shield___38.8_____39.0_____39.3

As you can see, the heat shield didn’t seem to be doing all that much, so the obvious question, why? I started poking around under the bonnet straight after a run. It seemed to be doing its job as the cold side of the heat shield was significantly colder than the hot side. I got very annoyed here and dropped quite a few four letter words, because I leant my temperature probe to a friend a few weeks back and only realised just then that I didn’t have it. I will get it back and have another go at these last few tests to quantify the results, but for the moment you’ll just have to believe me that it was a remarkable difference. Even the filter itself felt cool to the touch.

So a little more swearing combined with a little more time and I’m now thinking it has to be to do with the cross pipe and/or the hot side of the silicone joiner. Went for another quick drive (vented headlight cover closed + exposed filter + heat shield) and same deal, hot side = really hot, cold side = significantly cooler. However this time I also had a feel around the other parts of the intake system. The outside part of the bend in the silicone joiner, the part that was closest to the exhaust; was really hot, far too hot to hold your hand on; and while the cross pipe was also quite warm, you could easily hold your hand on it.

This then lead me to believe that the silicone joiner was the next biggest problem. Like I said, I will get my probe back to quantify these results but for the time being, any thoughts on how to fix it? How can I stop the silicone joiner getting so hot?

At the very least however, I am a fan of the vented headlight covers. They seem to work

Edit: And a little more searching finds us this little gem from mx52nv...

When I was building the MX5 back in 1999, I had a few different headlight intake covers that I cut up just to test any benefits to power. As my mate (the dyno owner) and I were interested in the results for different headlight intake covers and air filters, we utilised a Saturday morning to do just power runs to test this.

Now from memory, the best headlight intake covers were the NACA duct and the 'RS Aizawa' type for a decrease in intake temps (due to slightly cooler air being drawn into the engine bay) which equalled to slight more horsepower. From memory, the increase was approx 1-3 rwkw. The runs were done on my NA6 turbo on 15psi boost in 4th gear, 32 psi tyre pressure, bonnet down, fan on with 15 mins intervals in 40 degree summer temps.

I don't have the dyno sheets as we never bothered to print it out (thinking that no one would care back then about bloody headlight intake covers). I wonder if he still has the files for my runs backed up....will ring him and ask and try my luck

Either way, I just thought this might give a little more information on the topic.
Hope it helps

Edit again: I just realised that I'm apparently all about quoting myself and Les in your threads ;)

[ll_spud]

Hey Jeo,

Nice ride. I saw your post in the garage section. Very slick.

Thats for those temperature readings.

Looking at those figures, it doest really make much difference. It seems the stock set up is quite good in itself. No need to spend all this $$$, with very little results or benefits.

Cheers,

Luke

[evil_weevil]

it does look good though! might get one myself!

[Hi 5]

viewtopic.php?f=73&t=37864

The car I bought (link above)had one fitted.

It doesn't fit exactly as the gaps are uneven.

It did let more air into the engine bay,but I don't think it makes a difference to intake air temp because the transfer pipe runs near hot engine parts.
The design of the na MX 5 intake system was a bit of a mistake I reckon-Don't hate me.

I'm not convinced the vented headlight cover looks better than standard so I refitted the standard one.

Going to ditch the NZ.mart front lip also as that doesn't fit well either.It has large gaps near both ends and in the centre where it's meant to touch the bumper.

Cheers,Andy.

[Steampunk]

so.... ah.... Joe....
Are there lots of naked people in your area?

[Jeo]

She's wearing pants I swear...