COLD AIR INTAKE

Burning fuel requires oxygen. Unless an engine carries its own oxygen supply (as with a rocket engine), that oxygen must come from the surrounding air. The amount of oxygen
available to burn and thus the engines maximum power output depends on ambient temperature and local static atmospheric pressure. As a rule, cooler, denser air will
yield more power while warmer, thinner air (such as on a hot day or at high altitudes) yields less.
The engine compartment of the average automobile tends to be very warm indeed. The normal operating temperature of the typical water-cooled passenger car engine is well
above 160 degrees Fahrenheit (71C) and an air-cooled engine may be considerably hotter. The heat radiated by a running engine quickly heats the air around it. Since most
automotive engine compartments are enclosed and rather cramped, with few opportunities for the heat to escape, the air in the engine compartment is usually significantly
hotter than the outside air. If the engine draws its intake air from under the hood, the high temperatures will reduce the density of the intake charge and thus reduce the engines
net power output.
An obvious solution to this problem is to add a cold air intake channel that allows the engine to draw its intake air from the cooler, denser air outside the engine compartment. An
effective cold air system can counteract much of the power loss caused by high under-hood temperatures, potentially improving engine output by 5% or more.
Simply cutting a hole in the hood does not a functional cold air scoop make. To be effective, a cold air intake (a) must be located in a high-pressure area of the hood; (b) must be
designed in such a way that it actually allows outside air to pass through the inlet; and (c) must have a tightly sealed connection to the air cleaner and intake manifold so that the
engine will breathe through the scoop rather than drawing some of its air from under the hood. The distance from the scoop to the air cleaner must also be as short as possible
the greater the distance the incoming air has to travel, the hotter it will get, both through friction and through absorbing engine compartment heat. A poorly designed or badly
placed cold air scoop can be worse than useless, costing power by restricting the flow of engine air.

RAM AIR INTAKE

In a normally aspirated engine, the density of the intake air is dependent on local atmospheric conditions. However, its possible to artificially increase the density of the intake
charge by compressing the air before it enters the cylinders, an effect generically known as supercharging. There are several ways to achieve supercharging, including the use
of a mechanical compressor (a supercharger or turbocharger) or resonance effects within the intake runners (described in greater detail in our article on the Dodge D-500).
Another approach is to use the vehicles motion to force air into the engine under pressure via a ram scoop.
In any body of moving air (or other compressible fluid), the airs static pressure is inversely proportional to its velocity. To take advantage of this principle, the cross-sectional
area of a ram scoops intake plenum typically starts off small and gradually increases. As a result, air enters the plenum at high speed and then slows as the plenum widens. As
fast-moving air continues to enter the plenum, air begins to pile up and its pressure increases. If this high-pressure air is admitted to the engines intake valves (assuming the
pressure is not diffused before that), it can be used to provide a mild supercharging effect. A functional ram scoop generally also serves as a cold air intake, although the
reverse is not necessarily true.
The benefits of even a properly designed and well-placed ram scoop can be difficult to quantify because the supercharging only occurs when the vehicle is moving and thus
cant be measured on a stationary dynamometer (unless you also have a wind tunnel). It can also be tricky to determine whether any power gain is due to the ram effect or
simply the benefits of admitting cooler air to the engine. However, a good system under ideal conditions might conceivably produce a power gain of up to about 10%.

lesser drag, coldest air intake, no weight addition