What is a Air Intake

The first intakes were offered to the market during the late 1980s.  They consisted of intake tubes made of molded plastic and cylindrical cotton gauze filter.  Because the modern internal combustion engine in essence a powerful O2 intake pump, like the exhaust system on an engine, the intake must be carefully engineered and tuned to provide the greatest efficiency and power.  A variety of intake manufacturers started to pop out here and there at the tail of the 1990s. Since then, intake underwent lot of improvements, upgrades, and innovations and by now, different intake companies offer them in metal tube designs intake, which allow a greater measure of customization.

There are a range of different cold intake available today, and yet a single principle binds them all. Each intake has the same goal: to boost the amount of oxygen available for combustion with fuel.  An ideal intakes system should increase the velocity of the O2 until it travels into the combustion chamber, while minimizing turbulence and restriction of flow. This is usually accomplished by flow testing the intake on a flow bench in the port design stage. Cars with turbochargers or superchargers which provide a pressurized intake system, usually have extensive tweaking of the intake system to improve performance dramatically. With the revolution of the intake industry, there are several strategies used in designing the most effective cold intakes. They increase the diameter of the intake, hence boosting airflow; smoothing intake interior to stomp out o2 resistance; giving a more direct route to the intake; and the use of a more effective filter.

A modern intake system should have three main parts, a filter, mass flow sensor, and throttle body. Many cars today now include a silencer to minimize the noise entering the cabin.  Silencers impede o2 flow and create turbulence which reduce total power, so many performance enthusiasts often remove them.  Production cars have specific length intakes to cause the air to vibrate and buffet at a specific frequency to assist air flow in to the combustion chamber. Aftermarket companies for cars have introduced larger throttle bodies and filters to decrease restriction of flow at the cost of changing the harmonics of the intake for a small net increase in power or torque.

Intakes are no longer manufactured using plastic alone: they are now constructed using materials such as:

• metal intakes,
• silicone intakes, and other composite materials like
• fiberglass intakes,
• carbon fiber intakes and
• Kevlar intakes.

But the materials do not make a significant impact to the intake performance since the o2 remains inside the intake tubing for a very short amount of time.