Cold Air Intake

[tone]

If you've read the thread about "how to improve your WS fiesta engine" and then here is the "how I did it bit"

Firstly you need to remove the grill c/w number plate. Grab it firmly at the top and give it a sharp tug, do the same at the bottom and the grill will pop out. Next you need to remove the 4 plastic grommit type fasteners that hold the bumper to the body. Once you've opened the bonnett you won't miss them. 2 of them are holding the headlight assembly. You will now be able to pull back the top of the bumper and you will see the opening to the intake and how the bumper design is supposed to funnel air into that tract.

OK here are the bits I used

A 65mm x 90 deg waste water black elbow. (you can get all this stuff from Wickes whatever)

Various reducers to get down to 38mm for the flexi pipe

Henry The Vacuum Cleaners pipe or anything around 38mm in dia.

A couple of large cable ties (to secure the pipe and elbow to the main strengthening beam behind the grill)

Some gaffer tape to hold it together or plumbers plastic cement

And a bit of foam insulation, used to protect the rad (not really neccessary if you fit it properly)

Here is one of the intake pipes I made earlier.

In this shot I've installed both my intake pipes but you get the idea. The bump on the bumper will hold them in place. Hence why I had to reduce the flexi pipe dia.

This is the view of the 2 pipes located in the intake tract viewed from the engine looking towards the front of the car with my original intake pipe to the filter removed.

This is the view of the 2 pipes. Note how they are dropped behing the main strengthening beam and then cable tied to hold them in position.

The grill back in place. You just need to make sure that you locate all the tabs on the grill into their respective slots. Have a look at the rear of the grill and you will see what I mean. Also you need to be a little bit forceful when you push/clip it in. Notice I said push, NOT HAMMER. Under normal circumstances you won't see them.

Job complete. You can see the black plastic fasteners in this photo that hold the bumper on. The bumper is quite flexible you can pull it about, it won't break. Also you will need to make room to get the pipe or two pipes behind the strengthening beam and in front of the rad. I know some of you may think that the air flow to the radiator might be affected. Let me say, I haven't had any issues at all even in heavy traffic. In fact my air-con rad is sited in front of the normal rad. But what I do need is a performance filter which will help the engine breath. I don't know which type I'm still looking.

Also being cable tied it's not a professional job but I'm looking at alternative means, and the other benefit I doubt whether the Ford dealer will spot it when it goes for servicing.

If anybody from the "dark side" (petrol model) does this mod, I would be interested to see and hear how you went on. If anybody is passed by a little white Fiesta Van in the outside lane of the motorway pulling warp speed, save your fuel you won't catch me.

Many thanks go to our "ozzy friend" (Fi-Es-Ta) for giving me the inspiration, good on you cobber.

Cost for me nowt, and I don't think it will be more than £10. It might be cheaper if you use your imagination. At the end of the day it's all about getting forced (ram effect) cold air into that intake. Which is what this does above 20mph in.

So all to gain nowt to lose. Whether you use 2 pipes or one, "go burn some rubber"

[colinben]

I have investigated this. After taking the front grill off there is a plastic guard below the air intake and the top grill so no way through unless I cut a hole to feed the pipes up and through which is a no no on a 59 reg car . Shame tho was going for It as could have been removed as easy as It was fitted. Col. By the way I have a 16 petrol may be different design!

[tone]

Hi Col

Is that located behind the bumper at the top and behind the bump which you can see in the last of my photo's.

Can you get a photo of it?

[colinben]

Hi Col

Is that located behind the bumper at the top and behind the bump which you can see in the last of my photo's.

Can you get a photo of it?

Yes thats it you look up between radiator and front front grill

of car b

[tone]

Hi Col,

If you remove the 4 fasteners holding the bumper, 2 of them go thro the headlight unit, and the 2 either side of the bonnet catch, then you can get hold of the bumper and pull it away from the car. What do you see hiding behind the bump.

There is a narrow opening on mine, but I would have thought there should be enough room to get at least one pipe in.

Mind you it is a petrol model, and I've never seen under the bonnet of one and we don't have one on our fleet. I'll speak to our next door neighbour at work and see if I can get a look at his Titanium.

[MRC89]

Very inspiring. Good work, would you think dust filters would be unnecessary? They'd reduce the air coming in, but it would keep the system nice and clean, what do you think?

[dLockers]

Seems like a waste of time on a turbo diesel, specially if its the 1.6 with an intercooler.

[tone]

Not neccessarily so "dLockers" all engines can benefit from Ram Air Induction. This is not just about cold air, although in my case it is, but the more air you can get in a diesel, or a petrol for that matter, the more fuel you can burn, admittedly to an extent.

I agree, the 1.6 with its intercooler has an advantage, but it's worth bearing in mind that here we have an inherrant design issue in the way that air is fed into the intake tract. It's not very good and how much of a benefit will it be on the 1.6 if its colder to start with. If you look at the intercooler position on the 1.6 it's located alongside the rad, and behind the air con rad, so is it getting a full flow of cold air, I don't know.

I don't expect everybody to gain the results that I have, as different engines (petrol) will have different intakes. But even on these, Pumaspeed have proved it works. Change the filter for a better breathing one, and improve the air flow inro the filter/intake and you're sure to see/feel an improvement.

On mine I have the added advantage of a tuning box which has increased the power and fuelling, but now with a better air flow and its colder to start with, I have seen a great improvement over standard even an improvementthan when I just had the tuning box fitted.

See the thread about "how to improve your WS fiesta engine"

[colinben]

Hi Col,

If you remove the 4 fasteners holding the bumper, 2 of them go thro the headlight unit, and the 2 either side of the bonnet catch, then you can get hold of the bumper and pull it away from the car. What do you see hiding behind the bump.

There is a narrow opening on mine, but I would have thought there should be enough room to get at least one pipe in.

Mind you it is a petrol model, and I've never seen under the bonnet of one and we don't have one on our fleet. I'll speak to our next door neighbour at work and see if I can get a look at his Titanium.

[/quote

]

Yes Tone I did remove those 4 studs and when you pull back the bumper there is a black plastic guard between top of rad and under bump. Col.

[Fi.Es.Ta]

Great work tone,but im with col i have the 1.6 petrol and it isnt possible to do what you have done i have a solid peice of ABS plastic there which makes it impossible to get the pipes there.

I will get a picture to show you but will have to wait till tomorrow.

[tone]

Hi Oz,

Good to hear from you, well it would be if you weren't fast asleep with your Teddy Bear or should that be Koala Bear.

If the petrol models have this piece of plastic, where do they draw their intake from, or is it just a deflector re-directing air from the grill?

I look forward to your photo.

Sleep tight

[tone]

Hi Oz,

Good to hear from you, well it would be if you weren't fast asleep with your Teddy Bear or should that be Koala Bear.

If the petrol models have this piece of plastic, where do they draw their intake from, or is it just a deflector re-directing air from the grill?

I look forward to your photo.

Sleep tight

[dLockers]

Not neccessarily so "dLockers" all engines can benefit from Ram Air Induction. This is not just about cold air, although in my case it is, but the more air you can get in a diesel, or a petrol for that matter, the more fuel you can burn, admittedly to an extent.

I agree, the 1.6 with its intercooler has an advantage, but it's worth bearing in mind that here we have an inherrant design issue in the way that air is fed into the intake tract. It's not very good and how much of a benefit will it be on the 1.6 if its colder to start with. If you look at the intercooler position on the 1.6 it's located alongside the rad, and behind the air con rad, so is it getting a full flow of cold air, I don't know.

I don't expect everybody to gain the results that I have, as different engines (petrol) will have different intakes. But even on these, Pumaspeed have proved it works. Change the filter for a better breathing one, and improve the air flow inro the filter/intake and you're sure to see/feel an improvement.

On mine I have the added advantage of a tuning box which has increased the power and fuelling, but now with a better air flow and its colder to start with, I have seen a great improvement over standard even an improvementthan when I just had the tuning box fitted.

See the thread about "how to improve your WS fiesta engine"

All in your head imo

I've done the whole intake BS to death, and on a 1.4 it netted nothing just more noise and a 1.6 it is completely defunct. Maybe slightly better throttle response at best

[mintalkin]

in a heavy downpour at motorway speeds i wonder how much spray is going to get forced/sucked in?

[Fi.Es.Ta]

All in your head imo

I've done the whole intake BS to death, and on a 1.4 it netted nothing just more noise and a 1.6 it is completely defunct. Maybe slightly better throttle response at best

Id put money on it that if this was dyno tested to the original intake there would be a 7 10hp increase.

in a heavy downpour at motorway speeds i wonder how much spray is going to get forced/sucked in?

I personally think it will be minimal,by the time the water has hit the front grill and then the pipes it will have dissapated that much it wouldnt touch the filter.

[dLockers]

Id put money on it that if this was dyno tested to the original intake there would be a 7 10hp increase.

I personally think it will be minimal,by the time the water has hit the front grill and then the pipes it will have dissapated that much it wouldnt touch the filter.

Don't be so foolish. I had a much better setup on a MK6 Fiesta 1.4 diesel and it netted nothing just slightly better throttle response and even that was probably in my head.

This placed the K&N filter exactly where your little pipe is, removing like 70% of the induction pipe for a simple straight through method. It bolted just behind the foglight

My TDCI was running 110hp before it went bang and I learnt early on as you should that induction on these things is not the limiting factor.

[tone]

Whilst I don't have the benefit of a rolling road...at present... I have been able to run some back to back tests with very similar vehicles.

We have on our fleet 5 other Mk7 Fiestas all running the same engine.

After 4000miles and 4 weeks I've got the following results

Better air flow...proven by flow meter

Better fuel consumption....48.6 mpg over the month and 3600 miles to 51.3 mpg.

Better acceleration from 30mph...using another car from the fleet the first 10 mph I had eeked out a small lead but then I just left him and as I hit 60mph he was at least 3 - 4 car lengths behind.

Colder air temps going into engine.....the air temps going into the filter were down another 6 degs

Engine runs at 4 degs cooler.....laser temp reader on rad.

This isn't the first time I've seen benefits from getting more air and colder air into an engine. I tried this on my Subaru 3.0ltr Legacy and saw similar results.

Also a forum member from the Subaru Legacy UK forum had similar resuls. http://www.uklegacy.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=111119 , the "SSS Mod" he refers to is his Cold Air Intake Mod, which he shows the results he obtained on the Rolling Road.

So in fact quite a few of us have found that by getting a better air flow into an engine and with other mods, tuning box/remap, better air filter this works. Sorry dLockers but IMO the results speak for themselves.

[dLockers]

lol all your gains are from the tuning box. More flow to the turbo is irrespective if the turbo is already at max.

A subaru 3.0litre is a bit different to a 1.4 with a tiny blower on it

[tone]

Sorry to hear you think that. In fact if you had bothered to read my report the results in fuel consumption, noise and acceleration were actually carried out prior to re-installing the box too ensure that I actually got a proper comparison, using the best possible methods I could.

The box was actually then installed, and in fact because we are now breathing more air I turned the box up from a medium setting to a max setting and the result, better burning of the fuel and no smoke.

The Subaru isn't like a 1.4 but again it proves what can be achieved by feeding more air into an engine.

dLockers, if you refuse too accept the findings then that's your opinion, but at least give credit to people that have managed too achieved something you haven't, and there are more than me that have done so, our ozzy friend has achieved some benefits on this forum. And on other forums, see the link on my previous comment. (Pumaspeed for example as a professional body have proved that it works)

I've reported on my findings and tried to answer any questions and queries and that's all I'm going to say on the matter now.