<VV> Re: AIR CLEANER HOUSING

[Tony Underwood]

At 01:01 hours 03/14/2006, Michael Kovacs wrote:
>The GM engineers did not waste time designing the snorkel(s) just to 
>make it look good. That cost $$. The snorkel(s) are just a venturi 
>accelerating the air through and the dropping it for volume inside 
>the flow pipes. The  whole system is also a silencer and fire suppressor
>
>N2VZD at aol.com wrote:   the snorkel shape was designed for the cu in 
>of the engine. the way i
>understand it after a rochester carb engineer caught me with it 
>flipped is the
>venturi length and taper was tuned for maxi efficeincy. he said if i 
>showed up at
>the plant he could demonstrate that fact. so i never flipped my lid again ,
>just retuned that draned egr and flow of converter. this was on 70's vintage
>oldsmobile 403's etc. corvairs are the same priciple.messing with the air
>cleaners is like tunning a stack on fuel infection units i guess. you real
>engineers can set us straight on all of this? intake and exhaust 
>tuning is a real
>science if you want to nit pick. me? i just drive them.earlier that 
>64 they only
>tried to keep the noise down , not tune them.
>regards, tim colson



Many manufacturers did obscure research like this with air cleaners, 
particularly Chrysler Co.   In fact, during the musclecar years, 
Chrysler was putting air cleaners on their musclecars that helped the 
engines actually make more horsepower *with* the air cleaner than 
without it.    Dick Landy wrote some articles on this during his 
"tech" days while fielding dragrace cars during which he discovered 
that he could turn a quicker quarter-mile by leaving the stock 
factory air cleaner on the carb instead of replacing it with a "low 
restriction" aftermarket "race" air cleaner.    Chrysler produced a 
number of brochures demonstrating cross-sections of air cleaners 
which showed how subtle curves and contours of the pan and cover 
could guide air into the carb more efficiently, thus improving flow.

GM did this also, with some of the air cleaners on muscular vehicles 
like the Corvettes and the SS cars.   Ford also caught on and did 
similar work with their SCCA effort Mustangs and bigblock Fairlanes etc.


The end result is that those 1960s air cleaners sometimes were more 
than an upside-down cake pan  with a tube sticking out the side and a 
lid on top.


It's also why you may end up having to pay 100+ BUCKS for a factory 
musclecar air cleaner on Ebay anymore, following so many of them 
being arbitrarily yanked off and tossed in the trash in favor of a 
Cal-Custom chrome plated screened-over dogdish air cleaner which did 
nothing for the air flow into the carb...  but it looked pretty when 
you opened the hood at McDonalds on a Saturday night.

Speaking of Cal-Custom:

Avoid those little C-C  chrome plated "pot" air cleaners that clamp 
onto the tops of the stock Rochesters via a nylon "adaptor".    They 
don't really clean the air all that well and they tend to choke the 
engine, as well as rattle loose, fall off, and get batted around the 
engine bay by the cooling fan.


tony..