Whether you’re a car enthusiast or still new to the world of owning a vehicle, automobiles of all kinds are extremely complicated pieces of machinery. Understanding every in and out of your vehicle may seem impossible, especially for the casual observer. You may not even notice many parts of your car until you take the time to look at it more closely. If you’re not familiar with the inner workings of an automobile, popping open your hood can be like looking into a maze of alien technology.
However, when you begin to learn more, you realize that they aren’t as complicated as they seem. When you start getting more into vehicles, one of the things you’ll learn about is your engine’s air intake system. This vital system helps to initiate the chemical reactions necessary to make your car move. The aftermarket auto parts industry developed an improvement on this component of your vehicle called a cold air intake. This article will look a little deeper into cold air intake systems—what they are and what they do. We’ll also give you an overview of what your air intake system does.
Before you can really understand what a cold air intake is and what it does, you need to know what a standard air intake system is for in your average engine. Internal combustion engines need three specific things to work: a fuel source, a supply of oxygen, and a spark. Your fuel source is what you fill up with whenever you go to the gas station, and the engine gets its spark from your spark plugs. This is also where the intake system comes into play.
The oxygen and fuel need to mix before the spark creates combustion. Intake systems pull oxygen from the environment and deliver it to the engine, ensuring that the airflow to the engine is continuous. The airflow needs to be continuous so that the engine gets a consistent amount of air and, therefore, a consistent amount of power. Without a working intake system, the unregulated amount of air entering the engine would cause random stops and starts. Cold air intakes work the same as standard ones, but they pull in colder air that is better for the engine.
Intake systems have three principal components that all work together to ensure a steady supply of oxygen to the engine. We’ll go over each part in full so that you have a good idea of what’s going on while your engine runs. Remember that each part of the intake system, whether it’s a standard one or a cold air intake, plays an integral role in ensuring that your engine and fuel remain clean and in reliable working order whenever you turn your vehicle on.
When your mechanic mentions your air filter, they mean the air filter that feeds oxygen into the intake system. If you’ve ever seen an air filter for an air purifier or a vacuum cleaner, it’s not that different from the one inside your vehicle. The air filter usually sits ahead of the intake system’s manifold.
These filters are important because they prevent contaminants, such as dirt, rock, and debris, from finding their way into your engine. They also filter the air as they take it in to remove smaller particulates that could end up gumming up your intake system. You want these filters to be as clean as possible so that they can continue to keep the oxygen that reaches your engine pure. The purer the oxygen is, the longer your engine will last, and the better your engine will run. Purer oxygen also helps to make the combustion inside the engine more efficient.
Your intake system needs to monitor how much air enters the system at one time and how much goes into the engine. A mass flow sensor measures the amount of air that the vehicle takes in. Mass flow sensors are usually in one of two different forms: a vane meter or a hot wire sensor.
Vane meters have small flaps that move as air comes into the engine. The more they move, the more air the engine takes in. The meter itself measures how much these flaps move and converts that into a measurement of how much air gets into the engine.
Hot wire sensors don’t have flaps; instead, the sensor measures the amount of electrical resistance in a collection of wires. As the electrical resistance goes up, so does the temperature. This creates a reaction inside the sensor that allows it to measure how much air passes through the wires.
The throttle body is what controls how much air reaches the engine at any one time. As such, the throttle body helps control the combustion rate inside of the engine. The more you press down on the gas pedal, the more it stays open, allowing more air to enter the engine and more combustion to take place.
Cold air intake systems don’t differ too much from standard intake systems in their essential functions. However, they do help take in air that has a higher density of oxygen, making your engine much more efficient. Cold air itself has a higher oxygen density, so when we use it in our engines, they require less air to get a good result.
Cold air intakes usually remove the airbox your typical intake system would have and replace it with a plastic or metal tube leading to a cone-shaped air filter surrounded by heat shielding. This allows the air to stay cool for longer, even inside the relatively hot environment of the engine.
Because cold air intake systems deliver more oxygen to the engine more efficiently, you can get much better performance from your vehicle with a cold air intake system. Your rate of acceleration can increase since it takes less time for the combustion reaction to take place. It also makes the flow of air steadier, which can create a smoother ride. Finally, it can improve your fuel efficiency in some cases since the cooler air mixing with the fuel can create a more efficient reaction.
If you’re in the market for something like a Ford 6.7 cold air intake, you’re in the right place. Norcal Diesel Performance can provide you with the parts you need to improve and perfect your vehicle. We’d love to answer any questions you have about our parts, so just let us know how we can help.
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