I wanted to add a bumper air scoop to bring in cooler air from below. Our cars feed air from 2 locations, but the lower is more often preferred, as it's cooler and denser. Does it make a difference? Enough that some charge you upwards of $300 for a Carbon Fiber one, apparently. There are other scoops, including some available on Ebay, but those seem too shallow and rough - didn't like the design on them.
I wanted to add my own, and figured that a custom piece would give me the same benefit.
Here is what I ended up with: the scoop and end piece is from a PC fan shroud. It fit perfectly into the opening. The middle is a water bottle.
I took the driver side brake duct off to do the test fitting/fabrication. A bit of trial and error, copious use of the Dremel, and then glued it all together, and painted it a nice coat of matte:
Side view - you can see the air has a ~ 45 deg. angle into the intake to guide it upwards:
Mounted in the brake duct, it fits perfectly and takes up the full height. I cut away at the side to clear the fog light shroud:
Head on, note the daylight - it doesn't span the whole width, so some air still gets to the brakes.
How it looks all finished. Almost looks factory, nice and subtle.
The back and the scoop is held on by 3M trim adhesive, the same stuff used for badges. So far I've had it on for close to a year, and it works well.
Does it make a difference? Yes - using my Scangauge, I can read intake temps slightly lower (3 degrees or so) at normal highway speed. The faster you go, the lower it would get.
It works better on cooler days, where the lower ambient air is brought in and it compounds the cooling ability, and keeps it from warming up.
It definitely gets more air - I notice the filter gets dirtier more often, so there is a Ram - Air effect.
This, with the small cooling, gives a definite benefit. I would say I got close to 90% benefit of the custom pre - fab scoops available in CF and from ebay. And, the faster you move, the better it works. 😁
-Gezim
2006 Coupe