Honeycomb flowstraightener idea...

[Zimmer]

I was working in our windtunnel today when I was starring at the flow straighteners at the inlet of the wind tunnel... and started thinking about the flow straighteners on my COBB intake. I started gettin' to thinking if I could improve on the current flow straighteners by using a honeycomb flow straightener. Now I'm not necessarily talking about gaining more HP with this change but really achieving more consistency in the cars performance.

I was thinking after reading some other threads on here about how the MAF sensor is really sensitive to the air rushing past it if I could smooth out the turbulence past the sensor. The idea of using some of the honeycomb flow straighteners is essentially allowing the MAF to get more consistent & accurate reading thus helping the car. When we were building our wind tunnel the tunnel would obviously operate without the flow straighteners but with them it eliminated noise in the mass flow.

What I plan on doing is cutting two circles and stacking them upstream of the current flow straighteners. We have the 1'' thick sections and 3'' thick sections which I think will be too long.

I am a little concerned about heat soak and the honeycomb melting esp when the engine is turned off ...

 

[MikeHTally]

... I am a little concerned about heat soak and the honeycomb melting esp when the engine is turned off ...

Yep, that would seem to be a bad thing. You could try aluminum perhaps. I would suspect that the honeycomb would present a small amount of additional drag in the airflow, since the overall area of the edges of the cell walls would be greater than the edges of the straighteners already there.

I still can't figure out how these motors retain so much heat. Mine's still "touch me not" hot around the oil filler an hour after I've shut it off.

 

[Zimmer]

there will be a pressure drop accross it don't know how much and is the "straightened" flow worth the pressure drop or drag... I'm not sure.

 

[dkswim]

interesting

 

[mr_mazda329]

If you can get your hands on some ABS plastic in the honey comb, you wouldn't have to worry about heat as much.

 

[dkswim]

probably work better for the mscai not enough space for the cobb and cobb has a decent design

 

[Zimmer]

Plascore is the name of the company and they do offer other materials quick glance this am at the site 350 F max temp.

 

[timmyturbo]

Don't most mafs usually have a honey comb on there for the straightner? I know my DSM did, it wasn't plastic it was metal. I was surprised that the MS3 did not. I like the straightner better on the MS3. I have seen pictures of a few people sucking in the honeycomb on very high horsepower EVOs, kind of rare though (big turbos).