Hi Boxers,

Just thought I would post a quick pic of our new xB ram air hood that we are currently tooling up on. Not a finished product yet but at least gives an idea of what it will look like. Any questions, comments, suggestions, and feedback are welcome as always!

Keep Jammin,

--Ronnie
audioformz@aol.com
888-254-2826
www.audioformz.com

 

Cool

Are you going to include an airbox also?

 

ditto.....and, will you make it in carbon fiber?

 

Man, that is cool!

 

OK, you asked for comments, remember!

(I'm assuming that you want a functional hood scoop here, if you're going for decoration only you can ignore this!)

Have you done any tuft or manometer testing on the hood? I have observed that loose leaves and water drops tend to stay put with the car in motion if they are more than about four inches behind the front curve of the hood. I doubt that the scoop in its current placement will have any pressure recovery at all.

The streamlines of airflow come off the blunt front end and sweep well above the hood, striking the windsheld halfway (or more) up. As such, they will miss your scoop completely, negating any ram effect.

To fix this, you either have to move your scoop forward to the front edge of the hood or make it a _lot_ taller to get the opening into the airflow.

Another approach would be to turn the scoop around and take air from the bottom of the windshield where there is a high pressure area (that's why they put the cabin ventalation intake there)

A third approach would be to put an intake in the upper "grill". Lots of ram air potential there, and the upper grill is just a solid panel, not a grille at all.

George

 

 

That's what I was thinking.

-john

 

Thanks for the "constructive criticism" George. You made some good points. However, this hood is designed primarily for cosmetic reasons. As you mentioned, to get the largest ram air effect, the scoop would have to be taller and closer to the front. However, doing so takes away a lot of the cosmetic appeal in my opinion. Furthermore, there are many air intake systems on the market today that perform well and provide air flow improvement. Not to mention as you stated, a great place to put an intake is directly behind the upper grill! However, I do believe our hood with a properly designed airbox (which we may provide at a later time) would still provide a substantial improvement from the stock air intake system.

To answer the other question, this hood will be manufactured out of gelcoated fiberglass.

Keep Jammin,

--Ronnie
www.audioformz.com

 

I'm too.

It's refreshing to hear someone who really knows what they are talking about. Issues like these should be raised and they are especially relevant when you consider how performance parts aren't regulated at all and I'd be willing to be that 80% of the stuff out there or more hasn't been dyno tested and the claims haven't been validated. Just as most of the CAI's on the market suck in hot air and probably hurt performance if anything, but no one seems to care.

People buy stuff just because it LOOKS like it would work a certain way, the problem there is that so much of this stuff is bogus. How many body kits have you seen that actually make a car LESS aerodynamic by putting these fake scoops and ducts all over the front?

Some people are more focused on looks, but many of of actually care about results. I personally would buy this hood if I could see evidence that it actually works they way it should and will push air into the box.

Kudos to George for elevating the level of dialogue there.

So lets see some windtunnel tests or verifiable results of some kind, I've got my checkbook ready....

 

Dual scoops "nostrils" towards the front....

-Z

 

Are those giant roll's of F/G material in the background? If so, can you get them at a discounted rate?

 

I'd have to second George's comments about the "functionality" of this hood scoop. Getting water and other debris "force fed" into the engine compartment isn't a good thing, unless it's an entirely closed system that directly connects to the airbox or some other kind of filtering system.

I took a look at the stock xB airbox, and removed the stock airbox inlet tube that bolts behind the headlight. I got some 3" aluminum flex ducting, and routed it from the airbox inlet to the left corner of the middle grill, where it will certainly get the benefits of cold air/ram air. I haven't taken the airbox apart yet to see what kind of airfilter is in there, but when I do, most likely I'll toss the stock element and replace it with some kind of Uni foam filter. In my eperience from using both Uni foam filters and K&N gauze filters on my motorcycles, the Unis seem to flow more air, and the dual-stage foam Unis are pretty good at filtering.

Like the designer mentioned, this hood will be mostly for looks, which is fine, as long as most people realize that. I agree with the other comment about the functionality of a lot of these CAIs that are around. Sure, they might look good, with the bright shiny tube and colorful air filter, but are they doing more harm than good, especially if the air filter sits in the engine compartment and sucks in the hotter air, as opposed to the colder, denser air that's outside the engine compartment...?!

 

I think it looks good. How much?

 

This thread gets the award for the most academically challenging post to date. I finally see the hood I envisioned someone finally making, and get a dissertation on why it won't work effectively.
Constructively rewarding and a pleasure to read.
Thanks boys, keep it up

 

no offense to VIS....
i think this one looks really nice and not too crazy...i like it..

whats underneath?

 

Have you ever heard of the story "The Emperor Has No Clothes"? There's a lesson in there for you, provided you're not one of those "academically challenged" folks that you refer to in your post...

 

if you did something like this it would help with the ram effect you mentioned earlier

http://www.imagestation.com/picture/...2/f7bd4606.jpg

 

Ronnie,

The hood is looking good!

 

i think the second hood looks the best out of the 2. But the opening needs to be split in the middle to break the big "opening" up. I think that will make it look alot better. A black widow style hood would be nice or even a dragon style hood. just my opinion

 

Thanks for the positive (and the negative ) comments guys! We greatly appreciate it! I don't have a price on this hood since its still in development. I would like to add that I think its a tad premature to say this hood will not be functional or effective considering its not even finished yet ! And keep in mind that most ram air hoods are designed for "looks" not function as they can only help so much, especially in the xB's case! Let's remember that the xB is a 100hp box on wheels! We designed this hood with the xB's style and uniqueness in mind. We kept with the "boxed" theme of the xb as this is what truly makes an xB a xB! I will post more pics when available or feel free to email me with any questions.

Keep Jammin,

--Ronnie
audioformz@aol.com
www.audioformz.com