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Build your own intake! Install guide!

3.5K views 42 replies 23 participants last post by  What?  
#1 · (Edited)
Another how-to from me.

Ok for those of you with any brains, no green (money not weed, potheads), and a drive for more power out of your 2.2, im sure you have tried making an intake.

THIS DOES VOID YOUR WARANTY - BE SMART ABOUT IT -
(plus if you break something like me, put your stock air intake back on and play dumb, saved me about $500)

here is an easy way to make your own.

It gained me 1 second in the 1/8th mile

cost me about 50-100 bucks depending on what parts you already have at your disposal.
(not including filter, these can vary from 5-80 dollars depending on company and quality) you can get them off ebay for 5, you can buy a quality k&n at advanced auto for 40 bucks. ask for a universal fit K&N cone filter and find the dementions you would like.

i was told it felt like it had more gain than a K&N cold air.



Materials:

1. at least 3' of 3" Pre insulated PVC (i think its called DVC? at Home Depot, Its black)
2. 2-90 degree joints
3. 1- 3" aluminum universal HINGED bend dryer duct. These have proven difficult to find. They have hinges in them so you can bend them in any direction. DO NOT USE THE ALUMINUM TUBING THAT IS JUST ALUMINUM FOIL, IT CAN NOT STAND UP TO TEH AIRFLOW AND WILL SELF DISTRUCT CAUSING MAJOR DAMAGE (take my word, metal shavings are not good in an engine)
4. (recommended) tape on insulation
5. Rubber adapter to make fitting from throttle body to pvc (i used hose from my stock intake. They adapters at home depot, but it is extreamly difficult to fit correctly. just use your head and come up with an adapter. you can buy these adapters at some car stores, but its ALOT cheaper to make your own.
6. Hack saw
7. Contact cement
8. 3" cone air filter
9. Sand paper
10. Oil breather filter (available at any autozone or advanced auto)
11. 3" hose clamp (usually comes with filter)
12. Wire for securing tubing.

Steps!
Removing your stock intake:
1. Open up your airbox
2. Unclamp the clamp that connects the tubing to your airbox and remove top section of airbox.
3. Unbolt the bottom of your airbox and pull it off of supporting bracket behind headlights.
4. Remove your intake thermometer. (if i remember correctly it just pulls out?)
5. Lift up your A/C compresser hose. They are just held down by a pop in bolt, apply enough pressure it just pops out.
6. Unclamp stock tubing from airbox by throttle body.
7. Unclamp tubing from the moisture collection box, its to the left of your radiator and the the right of your battary. the clamp is directly below yoru intake tubing.
8. Remove tubing.
9. Remove moisture collection box. (this has proven difficult, you have to twist and use force, just dont pull off your radiator hoses by mistake!)
10. Unbolt your airbox by the Throttle body. (all these boxes are ment to reduce noise, but waste gas and power in the process)
11. Disconnect your oil breather hose, behind throttle body, remember where that is, this is where your oil breather connects.
12. Remove airbox and oil breather hose.
13. Store for safe keeping. as said before, Removing all this voids your waranty, but keeping it so it can be replaced is easy and often the dealership doesnt notice or doesnt confront you about it.

Making and installing yoru intake:

1. Shave about .5 an inch off of 1 side of a 90 degree elbow. it wont make the turn off of your throttle body with the stock size.
2. Cut about a .5 inch secion of 3" pvc and put it in the shaved end of the joint.
3. Put your adapter on your throttle body and attach the pvc elbow.
4. Cut about a 10" pvc section or longer (not sure of the exact length, but its better to have more than you need.)
5. attach the second 90 degree elbow and test fit so you clear your compressor pully. Make sure you give the metal plate room because when your ac is on it will turn too.
6. cut a 5" section of pvc pipe and fit it into the pvc elbow.
7. Attach your filter to the aluminum duct and bend it to conform to where you want your filter to sit. There is a circular hole behind your headlight, behind this is the optimum location.
8. Mess around with your pipe lengths until you have good clearance all the way around.
9. Disassemble your intake. Somehow mark where all the tubes went.
10. Sand the inside edges of the pvc. when you cut lengths there are still shavings that can come lose when your car is driving, you dont want these in yoru engine.
11. Use contact cement to reconnect all your sections securly.
12. Wrap the aluminum with insilation, it gives off heat easily and kindof screws the whole "cold" part of the cold air idea.
13. Remount your intake.
14. Use the wire to secure it in place, theres a place for a large bolt and screw on your compresser that is not being used. Wrap a wire around your intake and put it through there, tying it tightly. this should keep it from shaking off your throttle body on speed bumps ect. and keep it from touching your engine.
15. wrap a wire around the intake near the filter and wrap it to teh bracket ment for your stock intake near the fuse box. this keeps the filter from hitting your wheel well and disloging the filter and any other part of the intake. this should also help in preventing your intake from hitting the pullies.
16. Attach your oil breather to the opening on the valve cover next to your throttle body.
17. Find a secure place to mount your intake thermometer near your filter (i just taped it to a braket near the filter).
18. Test and listen for whistling. if you hear whistling your intake is not airtight, locate the whistle and use contact cement to seal it, if its your adapter, then you need to come up with another adapter.

Problems i ran into fine tuning this intake:
1. I didnt cement it together the first time, it disconnected on i-40, fell onto my pully, got stuck, melted and caught on fire. CEMENT IT TOGETHER
2. Used the cheap aluminum foil intake tubing. it imploded sending aluminum shrapinel into my throttle body, but was stopped by quick thinking, aka turning it off REALLY QUICK.
3. Bad adapter. My adapter wasnt very good, intake fell off and i drove about half a mile on unfiltered air, no biggie.
4. Didnt secure it with wire. same as above.
5. Not enough clearance, turned ac on and heard BAHBAHBAHBAHBAHBAHBAHBAH then smelt burning pvc. no biggie, stopped before i caused damage.

if you fallow all these instructions your intake should preduce a very noticabe gain in power, you also have more throaty sounding engine and it complements yoru exhaust nicely by making it sound deeper.

but remember use these at your own risk, i am not responsible for any damages incurred on your truck.

check out my cardomain, i have a picture of my intake. i painted it black, sanded it smooth, used black insilation and when i took it to a car show, 9 out of 10 people thought it was a professional intake.

GOOD LUCK AND BE SMART

Leave suggestions on making that adapter and comments on your own trials!
 
#3 ·
LowRedS_Dime said:
youre nuts there are intakes out ther for cheaper than what you spent.....
Very true.
 
#4 ·
not just that but he thinks it saved him a second in the 1/8th miles. :blaugh: :blaugh: :blaugh: didnt happen guy. there is no possible way you gained 1sec in a 1/8th mile. there are too many variables to a run to say that the ghetto intake you made saved you a second. i have read the past couple of posts or threads you have made and they are useless. the autometer afr guage is good for nothing but a light show. its worthless. and now this crap. anyone who has any creative enginuity can do this for much cheaper than what you just spent in materials and time. besides there have been threads exactly like this posted 1,000,000 times. so please use the search feature and add to those threads if you want to post this crap instead of taking up more webspace to post this crap.
 
#5 · (Edited)
im glad this is what you do with your free time, make fun of pointless forums written by a 17 year old.

your cool
 
#8 ·
at least hes trying to help.
and it probably didnt cost too much to make.

i always build things myself basically because i usually HAVE the stuff laying around and just need to peice it together. he is just showing there are alternatives to buying mass-produced things. and you LEARN in the meantime. and it gives him something to do in his spare time.

anyways, i had a homemade intake on mine for a while but i got rid of it, couldnt stand the sound. and yes i could tell the difference when i got rid of it, but it wasnt worth the sound to me.


btw this is funny
I didnt cement it together the first time, it disconnected on i-40, fell onto my pully, got stuck, melted and caught on fire. CEMENT IT TOGETHER
oh ya, and 1 second in the 1/8th couldnt have happened, thats an added 40hp at least for that to happen
 
#11 ·
look i might have come across a little ahrsh but come on. do you know the dangers of using a pvc intake. i assume not that is why you used it. did you knwo when pvc gets hot it produces chemicals i didnt think so. this exact same thing has been posted here tons of times. its not like everytin someone goes into the 2.2l forum they want to read about yet another guy that used pvc pipe to make and intake. they are here to learn and discuss possibilities of what can be done to the truck. you made a whole write up and who know someone could go out there and follow your instructions and end up screwing up their truck. then how would you feel???? another thread is the autometer afr guage that you just installed and made a thread for. look around with the search engine. people have done this install 1,000,000 times do we need another thread that tells people how to install one when they can use the search feature or just follow directions. you really should do research on things before you do them. like the guage did you know that its really good for nothing but a light show? im not trying to be rude im serious did you know that. and did you know about www.chromeintakes.com???? you can get a intake that is made for the truck for about the same as waht it cost you to make that cheesy pvc pipe. that is research. now if you used the search feature to research things before you did them you wouldnt be spending money so frivously. im not being a dick i am stating the truth, sorry if it bugs you!!!!!
 
#15 · (Edited)
nox said:
Can you elaborate on this?
Its a narrow band O2 sensor, it just adjusts the voltage it puts out. The computer then take the signal and adjusts it to get it back to stoch(14.7:1) but all it ever does is wander back and forth constantly trying to get to 14.7 but goes past it...

Here is how you can think of it...

Imagine driving your truck down the road without being able to see out the windshield. Since you can only see out the sides of the truck you see that your getting to far to the left, so you start going back to the right to get to the center of the road. Then you realize your too far to the right now so you head back left again. (this is how narrowband works)

Repeat rapidly and all you really have is a useless light show, since you cant adjust it anyways...the computer does it automatically.

I was doing an emmisions test on my truck with the 5 gas analyser and I tried to richen the mixture by putting my hand over the intake pipe(less air and same fuel = Rich) but the computer corrected itself so fast it didnt change anything.....The only way I got it to richen up enough that emissions were affected was to inject propane or spray water into the TB.
 
#16 ·
Not bad. I applaude you for all the effort.

Here is what I did.

I went to the local exaust shop, said hey, can you bend me some 3in pipe? The dude said sure, we go to the truck and make some measurments. A half hour and 35$ later I have the pipe needed with a mount welded on and a hole for the AIT sensor.
All I did was paint it and install a cone filter.
 
#17 ·
Oh yeah, Im with everyone else on the 1 second of the 1/8th mile. Lets just figure out what your claiming....

I havent actually ran at the track with my 2.2L because of fear of being laughed at, so I borrowed a buddies G-Tech RR and ran a few runs.....

I averaged a 19.3 1/4 mile and a 12.5 1/8th mile (sad). If I were to add your intake and have it take 1 second off my 1/8th mile, my quater mile would drop from 19.3 to an amazing 17.8.

Thats 1.5 seconds difference, and you would want to market it and become rich....its possible too, the "Tornado" guys have done it....so have all the other snake oilers....
 
#19 · (Edited)
importmaster1300 said:
Ummm.....s10jimmi, I think your headlights are installed wrong (you can see the gap in your avatar).
nah on day while i was at work some asshole hit me when they were parking, bent my whole front end down, then drove off. $560 to repair

That little gap there and on the front left of my bumper is the only damage left unrepaired. thanks for letting me know though
 
#20 ·
gutlesswonder said:
look i might have come across a little ahrsh but come on. do you know the dangers of using a pvc intake. i assume not that is why you used it. did you knwo when pvc gets hot it produces chemicals i didnt think so. this exact same thing has been posted here tons of times. its not like everytin someone goes into the 2.2l forum they want to read about yet another guy that used pvc pipe to make and intake. they are here to learn and discuss possibilities of what can be done to the truck. you made a whole write up and who know someone could go out there and follow your instructions and end up screwing up their truck. then how would you feel???? another thread is the autometer afr guage that you just installed and made a thread for. look around with the search engine. people have done this install 1,000,000 times do we need another thread that tells people how to install one when they can use the search feature or just follow directions. you really should do research on things before you do them. like the guage did you know that its really good for nothing but a light show? im not trying to be rude im serious did you know that. and did you know about www.chromeintakes.com???? you can get a intake that is made for the truck for about the same as waht it cost you to make that cheesy pvc pipe. that is research. now if you used the search feature to research things before you did them you wouldnt be spending money so frivously. im not being a dick i am stating the truth, sorry if it bugs you!!!!!
i had all the parts lying around like someone else said. i didnt spend much on it. And about the chemicals pvc produces is true, thats why i didnt use it, i used a preinsulated pvc, it can handle tempatures surpassing 400 degrees before it releases any chemicals. Its often used to carry extreamly hot purified water.

oh and the guage, yeah it is a light show, but lets think about something here, we drive 2.2L s10's. they will never amount to anything performance wise that is worth the money, unless you go turbo, but still, a s10 is a mini trucks, mini trucks usually end up as show trucks, and my air/fuel is all show.
 
#21 ·
Could i have had a problem with my stock intake?
Your stats about the 1 second are right, so there must be a problem, maybe i reinstalled my stock intake wrong?

im not making the 1 second deal up though, i must have a problem down the line.

sorry for whoring the thread
 
#23 ·
I'm not an expert but, I have a friend that works at Firestone who has the newest and greatest car monitoring computers. The kind you just plug in under the dash and you're now reading every cylinders heartbeat. I swear the computer they have is awesome and can tell you literally everything cause of all the sensors of the damn modern car. Too bad we can't go back to the simpler styles of the 70's and just drop a 350 in it and never ever have to worry about OBD1 or 2 and all that emissions crap.

Anyway, my friend is claiming that (and he's a little bit of a horsepower freak and a bit of a know-it-all) the computer can adjust on the spot the lean-ness and rich-ness of the motor. Obviously leaning the motor out will make some power but creat more heat unless you're running forced induct which then dumping more fuel in would be better. But, any one know if that true? Then, I would suppose that an air fuel ratio guage would be maybe necessary. I run one so don't worry kid, I like light shows too.

Just wait till Gutless has that forced induct turbo kit designed, then you'll need a boost guage and then you can have "needle shows" or "blow off valve puff shows".

On another note. While the kid may have done a dangerous thing and then spread the word of its greatness, lets not knock on him. He's learning and that the only way to do it. I'm not a huge fan of clubs where other members are helping you out constantly. Instead I am a huge fan of figuring it out yourself and the only way to do that is - take it apart yourself - and maybe use this forum from time to time to get some added advice. That how this whole world of minis got started. Lets take it easy on him and remember that you know at one time you were in his same shoes making your own shit cause you had no money, but you grew up, made some money and now can afford the proper shit.

Sorry, got on my soap box
 
#25 ·
noFacejustBass said:
I like those projector halo headlights. Could you let me know how you like them, how much , and where you found them? Thanx.
i LOVE them. they light up the whole road. Its the first thing people notice about my truck.

as for getting them, autozone had them at some point on their website and you could order them at the store but i dont think they do anymore, $400 bucks there. i got mine through ebay, i paid 270 plus 35 dollars shipping, very easy install. Just splice the corner lights for the halo's.
 
#26 ·
s10jimmi said:
oh and the guage, yeah it is a light show, but lets think about something here, we drive 2.2L s10's. they will never amount to anything performance wise that is worth the money, unless you go turbo, but still, a s10 is a mini trucks, mini trucks usually end up as show trucks, and my air/fuel is all show.
then why put a guage in that does nothing. if you know our truck arent for performance then why btoher putting a guage in that is meant to monitor your performance. doesnt make sense. my point is that just because your learning doesnt mean you should act before you think or in this case act before your research is done. it can be very dangerous to start screwing with things you arent fimilar with. then go and make a thread stating how good it was when infact it can be dangerous and cause someone else to follow your directions and screw up their truck. then how would you feel you didnt state you were using insulated pvc. so the next person might not buy that particular set up and jsut go off your thread and end up with melting plastic in thier TB. think before you act or in this case post.