Ok, can someone explain to me why a "cowl induction" intake is beneficial? It would seem to me that a reversed hood scoop would produce a vacuum effect with any sort of speed... Why is "cowl induction" a good feature (i beleive it was on a lot of older firebirds). Or is it even a good feature at all? (not saying I want one on my olds, just was curious as to why they worked and what the benefits of it were).

Thanks,
Aaron

Your engine is a vacuum... It sucks the air in... RAM AIR is forced in.

aaron..the idea behind the cowl induction intake was to be able to pull clean air off the base of the cowl..this is a dead area, and would create a vacuum and pull air down in, vs. the ram air effect, which shoved more crap down the scoops....but was a better idea overall.....notice that there REALLY werent that many cowl induction cars made after 69...with the exception of a couple years of the late 70's/early 80's Z28's....most of em patterned themselves after the ram air idea....the more air you can push into an engine, the more power you can make....you'll generally make more power off a ram air setup..but the air will be cleaner with a cowl induction setup..anymore..the cowl induction thing is more of a looks factor than anything else....

Hey...i wanna put an aftermarket intake filter on my 1985 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera 3.8...get rid of that restrictive box. But im not sure which filter works best for my engine if anyone had any suggestions, and where i should attach it on, right after the MAF sensor or extend the intake down under the car, kinda like a RAM AIR setup, but ya im not really sure, need some ideas and tips, also the size of the stock intake pipe.

I remember my buddies '64 Olds when we were in high school. We knocked out the inside headlights, (it was a side by side arrangement), and ran clothes dryer hose from the head light buckets to a dual snorkel air cleaner. Then we took window screening, painted it flat black and covered the front of the headlight bucket to keep the bugs out of the carb. It actually looked pretty cool! I think some Olds race cars had setups something like that, which is what we did a very low budget copy of. The Cops didn't like it though!

Nighthawk