Dissertation on that little black appendix on air intake

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Silvia
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Dissertation on that little black appendix on air intake

Postby Silvia » Wed Jan 04, 2012 9:35 am

Just in case, if like me, you were wondering about the little black U-shaped appendix on the air intake pipe - well, courtesy of Miata net , here's your answer!! :wink:
It's a Helmholz Chamber :!:
Helmholtz Resonance occurs when this oscillation becomes synchronized with the pressure waves emitted by the sound source, causing the sound waves to sharply increase in volume.

It also helps to define the intake/exhaust note you hear. If you've ever blown across the top of a soda bottle and gotten a sound you were using Helmholtz Resonance to create that sound.

Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz, a german physicist in the 1800's. The resonance chamber is named after him because of his work in flow energy conservation techniques that are used to analyze it. In the simplest model, the air in the neck of the chamber is taken as a mass with no compressibility and the the air in the chamber is assumed to be a "spring" with no inertia.

Now to cut the end off it (fixable with a bung) to see how it sounds.....with apologies to Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholz :roll:
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Re: Dissertation on that little black appendix on air intake

Postby hks_kansei » Wed Jan 04, 2012 9:53 am

If I remember correctly removing the resonator reduces mid range torque or something?


More of a problem, if you cut a hole in it the car will be sucking unfiltered air as the resonator is after the filter.
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Re: Dissertation on that little black appendix on air intake

Postby Silvia » Wed Jan 04, 2012 10:04 am

Mine's well before the filter....
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Re: Dissertation on that little black appendix on air intake

Postby hks_kansei » Wed Jan 04, 2012 10:08 am

Ah, sorry.

You meant the Snorkel out of the airbox?

I thought you meant the big cross pipe from airbox to throttle.


My mistake.
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Re: Dissertation on that little black appendix on air intake

Postby NitroDann » Wed Jan 04, 2012 10:09 am

Before the filter? what model.

On an na6 you remove it, replace it with a milk bottle lid glued on and your intake noise doubles.

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Re: Dissertation on that little black appendix on air intake

Postby hks_kansei » Wed Jan 04, 2012 10:23 am

NitroDann wrote:Before the filter? what model.


NB8B has one on the snorkel that comes out the airbox.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3173/256 ... 52051c.jpg
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Re: Dissertation on that little black appendix on air intake

Postby Silvia » Wed Jan 04, 2012 10:27 pm

NB8C has it before the filter. The function ,it turns out, is to nullify certain annoying noises from the intake. Another report has it that there was found to be a drop in performance at around 4000rpm that was apparently cured with this device ( no doubt by teams of Japanese techs at huge cost using the Dr.Helmholz theories)
I shall therefore respect it , indeed cherish and maybe even polish it.
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Re: Dissertation on that little black appendix on air intake

Postby NitroDann » Wed Jan 04, 2012 10:36 pm

remove it, add real intake, enjoy sound.

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Re: Dissertation on that little black appendix on air intake

Postby Hjt » Wed Jan 04, 2012 11:32 pm

I'm so devo'd I went to my car. Opened the hood, expecting to see this beautiful device and all i witnessed was a c...rappy carbon fibre intake with flimsy clips

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Re: Dissertation on that little black appendix on air intake

Postby Silvia » Thu Jan 05, 2012 2:37 pm

It has been described to me as a "blivet".....

blivet - /bliv'*t/ [allegedly from a World War II military term meaning "ten pounds of manure in a five-pound bag"] 1. An intractable problem.

2. A crucial piece of hardware that can't be fixed or replaced if it breaks.

3. A tool that has been hacked over by so many incompetent programmers that it has become an unmaintainable tissue of hacks.

4. An out-of-control but unkillable development effort.

5. An embarrassing bug that pops up during a customer demo.

6. In the subjargon of computer security specialists, a denial-of-service attack performed by hogging limited resources that have no access controls (for example, shared spool space on a multi-user system).

This term has other meanings in other technical cultures; among experimental physicists and hardware engineers of various kinds it seems to mean any random object of unknown purpose (similar to hackish use of frob). It has also been used to describe an amusing trick-the-eye drawing resembling a three-pronged fork that appears to depict a three-dimensional object until one realises that the parts fit together in an impossible way.
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Re: Dissertation on that little black appendix on air intake

Postby 93_Clubman » Thu Jan 05, 2012 11:42 pm

Silvia wrote:Another report has it that there was found to be a drop in performance at around 4000rpm that was apparently cured with this device...

There should also be Helmholz resonator below but attached to the long intake engine crosspipe from the MAF to the TB. It's this one that actually has an affect on mid range range torque. The one on the airbox snorkel dampens sound.

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Re: Dissertation on that little black appendix on air intake

Postby Silvia » Fri Jan 06, 2012 8:27 am

per Number: 2005-01-3803
DOI: 10.4271/2005-01-3803

Author(s):

Sam Zimmerman - University of Idaho
Dan Cordon - University of Idaho
Michael Anderson - University of Idaho
Steven Beyerlein - University of Idaho


Thanks 93
In terms I can understand :roll: being a non-geek ......it would appear that it is true that such a fitting can not only effect noise, but flow of the intake and can affect the actual running efficiency of the motor. A great deal of research into this has apparently gone on by the geeks at Mazda and as the cost of the modification is small, they have included it/them.

"Acoustical tuning of intake manifolds is a common practice used to achieve gains in volumetric efficiency in a pre-determined region on the torque curve. Many methods exist for acoustical tuning of the intake including a variation of the Helmholtz resonator model by Engelman as well as the organ pipe models by Ricardo and Platner. In this work a new intake tuning model has been developed using an Impedance Transform Model along with a minimal set of limiting assumptions. Unlike the models of Engelman and Platner, this model can accommodate any intake geometry. The model can also be used to analyze specific points in the intake system or the entire system rather than just the intake runners. Model verification consisted of resonance testing of three different Helmholtz resonators as well as dynamometer testing of a Honda CBR F3 four-stroke SI engine using three different intake system geometries. The different intake systems and Helmholtz resonators were designed such that each would produce different resonant frequencies for proper model verification. The model accurately predicted the resonant frequencies of each different Helmholtz resonator and the torque peak produced by each intake system iteration."
There is a mention also from someone who reported a 25% torque drop in the sub -4000rpm range :shock: .
Not easy to accept but not something you'd want to happen for the sake of a little extra sucking noise .....
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Re: Dissertation on that little black appendix on air intake

Postby 93_Clubman » Fri Jan 06, 2012 4:07 pm

Norman H. Garrett III, a former Mazda engineer on the Miata/ MX5 project, on page 72 of his book "Mazda Miata Performance Handbook", shows the effect of what he calls the "No 2 resonance chamber effect", i.e. the flattening out the dip in mid range torque. The "No 2 resonance chamber" is shown as the one attached but just below the engine intake crosspipe between the mass airflow (MAF) sensor & the throttle body (TB). The "No 1 resonance chamber" is shown as the one on the airbox snorkel.

You might be interested in Free-Flowing a Miata MX5 by Matty of this forum: http://autospeed.com/cms/title_FreeFlow ... ticle.html

Also an alternative view to the torque dip believed created by removing the 'Helmholtz resonator' from the intake pipe across the front of the engine:
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=34361


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