Air Intake

 

Throttle body
Throttle body

Adding an air intake took a little bit of imagination.   There just is not a whole lot of room here.   You need a decent filter.  And I wanted to use some kind of MAF.  I elected to upgrade to a blade type MAF/AIT unit.  Supposedly more accurate with less restriction.   The question is, where to put it?

Straight Filter
Straight Filter

 

This is the filter mounted directly to the throttle body.   No real room for a stock LS1 MAF once you add the connecting tubes.

 

LS1 F-Body K&N filter
LS1 F-Body K&N filter

 

This is a aftermarket LS1 K&N filter.   Clearly, no room for that here.

 

 

Stock 2008 Corvette filterhousing
Stock 2008 Corvette filterhousing

 

And this is a stock 2008 Corvette filter housing.  There is a place for the blade style MAF/AIT sensor.  But no matter how you trim it, this won’t work either.   Although it appears to be pretty much a drop in for a Miata chassis.

 

Time to make your own.  The 4 inch red silicone hose is available from a lot of parts supply houses; don’t remember where I picked these up.   The MAF/AIT sensor mount and tube are available from Summit Racing, made by Spectre (I think).   I had to experiment with a number of different configurations until I got something that would fit.  Air Intake Assembly

The filter is connected to the silicone hose with a some 4″ duct I got from Lowes.  I angled it a little by pie cutting and welding.  I don’t think I like it, I might re-do that.

 

Heat shield
Heat shield

I also made a small aluminum heat shield, to protect from radiant heat from the head and headers.  I painted the hot side with ceramic heat resistant Duplicolor paint.  I did some testing, and it works best to place the painted side towards the heat source, and leave the other side bare.

 

Air Intake installed
Air Intake installed

DSC01292

DSC01295

 

It’s a tight fit, but everything seems to fit well.   You can see that the coolant hose bypass is in the way again.  I need to get rid of that.

I would also like to build a heat shield for the front side of the filter, and maybe a NACA duct on the side panel.  It might help to paint the MAF/IAT sensor tube with ceramic paint, too.   So much to do, and so little time.