CAI Question

[bigal004321]

i already did a search and didnt come up with any results..

but here is my question

when taking out the orginal intake stuff there are 3 hoses that hook up to the intake one is for the engine and there are 2 little ones that go to a box in the engine bay on the passenger side firewall. my question is my integra intake only has 2 hoses that can be fit to it, i know the engine one is a must but which of the 2 little ones should i hook up?

87 honda accord LXI
Thanks
Alex

[2drSE-i]

those two hoses are vacuum lines i believe, thats what that box is...im sure some1 will correct me if im wrong.. cant answer your question tho, sorry.

[bigal004321]

so do i need to hook them up?? but also there were 2 hoses on the right side(driver side) i left them unconnected and it was ideling high and one of them sucks in air so i hook that one to the intake along with the one that goes to the engine... the 3 that are just there dont seem to suck any air... maybe they are for like the heater or something? can someone help me out i dont want to blow my engine up

[bigal004321]

lots of people have done cai's what are those hoses for?

[Robs89LXi]

Please don't take this as a personal question; this is to the general membership: has no-one else noticed that our cars come from the factory with a cold-air intake system? What exactly is the point of changing it, unless you have already opened up the breathing to the head with valve work and exhaust mods?

[bigal004321]

well when taking out the factory stuff it didnt seem like it would be a very effective system. The box that is in the fender has no holes in it at all. I did notice improvement when i put in my cai. my question was just what those extra hoses did? are they for the heater?

[Busted_Blue]

Please don't take this as a personal question; this is to the general membership: has no-one else noticed that our cars come from the factory with a cold-air intake system? What exactly is the point of changing it, unless you have already opened up the breathing to the head with valve work and exhaust mods?


if you look closer, we don't have a cold air intake. At least to the EFi engines, there the look is of a cai. Inside the bumper there is a resonator box, and the air comes from the fender. It goes through the tube to the air filter BEHIND the intake manifold and loops back around to the throttle body. That isn't as direct as a pipe going from the bumper straight through to the TB.


I don't know about you, but I know the CAI makes a difference in our cars.

[Robs89LXi]

What kind of difference? Has anyone actually dynoed (not butt dyno) one? You refer to the stock design as not being a CAI because of it's routing, but I think you are confusing flow restrictions with intake temperature. Yes, an aftermarket CAI will give you better flow due to it's less contorted route, larger diameter piping and higher flow filter, but again, if your engine does not require more flow, what is the point? A stock motor is only "asking" for so much air. Increasing the flow to it will not help if it does not require it. And as for the temperature, I don't see how an aftermarket one will help there either :dunno: .

[bigal004321]

I only did it for the sound that it makes... i think it sounds cool... but i know rob u are a moderator but u kinda stole my thread away from its topic. should i just start another thread?
Thanks
Alex

[Robs89LXi]

I only did it for the sound that it makes... i think it sounds cool... but i know rob u are a moderator but u kinda stole my thread away from its topic. should i just start another thread?
Thanks
Alex

LOL. No, I'm not a mod, and yes, I apologize for stealing this thread. Let's get back to the topic. Actually, I've been trying to find some diagrams showing the hoses you refer to, as my '89 does not have them, but I've had no luck. I've looked through Paul's manuals, and even went to the San Leandro Honda site, but still no luck. Can you send a pic showing them? Hopefully, someone else w/ a carb will reply before then, but I'm just curious.

By the way, Alex, put your location in your sig. You'd be surprised how many people will respond quicker if they see that you're from their neck of the woods :).

[bigal004321]

Alright updated... oh and my car is an lxi so it is fuel injected and i thought u were a mod because below ur name is foundation member and didnt know what that meant...

but if i can find a camera or another pic ill show you the lines i am talking about..
where is the brake booster line located at? were these orginally hooked to the intake?

[Robs89LXi]

Okay, here is a diagram of your intake (from Majestic Honda). Where are the tubes you speak of?
http://www.hondaautomotiveparts.com/auto/jsp/mws/prddisplay.jsp?inputstate=5&catcgry1=Accord&catcgry2=1987&catcgry3=4DR+LXI&catcgry4=KA5MT&catcgry5=AIR+CLEANER+%28PGM-FI%29

[bigal004321]

alright well it dosent show the hoses i mean but it does show the peices where the hoses connected to...
if you look at part 8

on the top there are 2 connectors on the top left

and then on part 39 there are those two connectors on there i used one from there to connect to my cai and the other one was the one that goes straight to the engine

[Robs89LXi]

Well, my '89 only has one connector coming off part #8; it is the 1/2" tubing that connects to the valve cover breather tube. If you have another one, I'm not sure what it would go to. As for the part #39, I don't have that on mine either; I think your year was the last to have that little box attached to the air cleaner housing. Either way though, all those lines should be vacuum lines. Sounds like you already have your 1/2" breather tube connected to your valve cover, and you already know that one of your small hoses connects to the engine (and you know where). You also know that the other two go to the black box, but you say you only have one connector coming off your new intake tube. I would just make a tee off the connector on your intake, and connect it to the two tubes going into the black box.

Again, I'm just trying to help the best I can here, but I really don't have any experience with your model year. I would hope that another member with experience with this would step in here (anyone?), but I believe what I told you should work.

Let me know what happens, eh?

[bigal004321]

yea i was thinking that is what i would do.. just get a tee and hook them up but car is running fine at the moment so i was not in any rush at the moment... i had one of them not connected and it started fine but after driving for a little bit and at a stop sign i was like oh shit whats that noise... so i hooked that one up as well and it was fine but ill hook those other ones up sometime... thanks rob for the help

[NXRacer]

the hoses that connect to the original intake NEED to be connected to either your new CAI, or splice them in to your intake manifold. One of the vacuum lines (#12 i think, not 100% sure) is the MAP sensor and will screw up your idle if not reconnected. All i did was get some extra vacuum line and some splicers and ran the unplugged vacuum lines to an open port on the intake manifold and it worked just fine.


The original intake system on the EFI cars is NOT a cold air. If you look, the air comes into the car from the fender, comes thru the top of the box filter, down, then comes out the bottom of the filter box, then makes a U turn into the throttle body. A VERY inneficient design IMO. the air has to travel over 5 feet, go through several restrictions, all the while getting pretty warm from being so close to the engine for so long. Thats why our cars respond well to an upgrade intake system

[bigal004321]

alright ill hook them up as soon as i can then.. i havent had any idle problems yet but dont want any to start

thanks for the replies

[Robs89LXi]

The original intake system on the EFI cars is NOT a cold air. If you look, the air comes into the car from the fender, comes thru the top of the box filter, down, then comes out the bottom of the filter box, then makes a U turn into the throttle body. A VERY inneficient design IMO. the air has to travel over 5 feet, go through several restrictions, all the while getting pretty warm from being so close to the engine for so long. Thats why our cars respond well to an upgrade intake system

Again, you seem to be confusing routing with temperature. Yes, the stock system takes a more contorted route, and has more "restrictions", but so what? A stock engine only needs so much air, and adding more does absolutely nothing! So if it travels 1 foot or 20 feet, as long as the engine is getting what it wants, it does not matter. Now if you are saying our stock engines are running rich, and need more air, then I'd like to see why you think so.

As for temperature, there is almost no difference between the air in your fenderwell and the outside air. Matter of fact, the fenderwell is designed to be the box that most people w/ CAI's try to build around their filter to shield it from the engine heat, and water ingestion. The fact that the stock setup is made of plastic is another reason why it does not allow the air to heat up. Most aftermarket CAI's are metal, and are not coated (except for the better ones). They actually heat up the air! Look at the K&N FIPK and AirCharger Performance kits; they are made of plastic.

The leading aftermarket CAI company is AEM. They are also one of the only ones that advertise any type of independent lab tests. Go to their site and see what they have to say here:
http://www.aempower.com/product_reviews.asp?pcID=15

Now, look at the ones for Hondas:
http://www.vtec.net/articles/view-article?article_id=258732
http://www.vtec.net/articles/view-article?article_id=186660
http://www.hondaswap.com/features/2004/12/aem-hybrid-intake-install.php
http://project.importmix.com/V2/18.html

As you can see, the gain is almost none existent! Sure, for some other brands of cars that have inferior stock engineering, they might see some gains, but certainly not the claimed 10-15 whp you hear about. And for over $300?

Like I said at the start, CAI works well if you have other mods that cause your engine to need more air (head work, exhaust, boost), but for stock motors, it is just about useless.

Let me finish up this long ass post by saying that I don't intend this to be some pissing contest. I just like dealing in facts, not hearsay and repeated misconceptions. If you have some reliable proof that I am wrong here, I will be glad to change my opinion. In the meanwhile though, I'll trust the Honda engineers to have done their usual fine job :).

[bigal004321]

lol engineers did a good job.. hehe they did good on the rust protection on the rear fenders and bellow the tail lights...

but other than that everything seems good mechanical locations of everything seems easy to get at so far...

but rob u are basically the only one to reply to my messages so thanks :rockon:

[Robs89LXi]

lol engineers did a good job.. hehe they did good on the rust protection on the rear fenders and bellow the tail lights...

but other than that everything seems good mechanical locations of everything seems easy to get at so far...

but rob u are basically the only one to reply to my messages so thanks :rockon:

LOL. Hey, who told you to go live up in the ol' salt infested north :slap: ! We don't have that problem here.

[bigal004321]

lol damn u guys.... all ur cars dont have a spot of rust on them do u

[5spdaccordlxi]

What kind of difference? Has anyone actually dynoed (not butt dyno) one? You refer to the stock design as not being a CAI because of it's routing, but I think you are confusing flow restrictions with intake temperature. Yes, an aftermarket CAI will give you better flow due to it's less contorted route, larger diameter piping and higher flow filter, but again, if your engine does not require more flow, what is the point? A stock motor is only "asking" for so much air. Increasing the flow to it will not help if it does not require it. And as for the temperature, I don't see how an aftermarket one will help there either :dunno: .

i experienced more tourque at lower RPMs amd beter throttle responce. The stock system is very restrictive because of its convoluted route and it draws air from inside the engine bay- if you look close, where the tubeabove the resonator goes into the right quaterpannel it doesnt actually draw air from inside there- it bends around and pokes back through the wall into the engine bay. The tubing that leads into the fender in just a closed resonator- another thing that changes with a cold air system is you notice a drifference in performance day to day. On cool dry days you have much more tourque than on hot humid days due to air density

[Versanick]

all unimportant. every 11 degrees of intake charge temperature makes around a 1% power difference. related to air density.

back to the original question that's asked.
for the MAP sensor, you should have one of the two available vacuum ports used. I think the Haynes will tell you, or if not, you can do some research to quickly find which one goes to the MAP, and which one goes to the other (I forget what it is right now)... but the one that "goes to your engine" and the one that goes to the black box that is NOT the map one can be T'd off. just go to Lowe's or Hore Depot and get a vacuum T.

The best way is to actually drill a new one, so that you'll have 3. a lot of things run on vacuum in our cars. as long as your car is starting and seeming to run fine, it seems that you have the MAP sensor hooked up. All else aside, you're fine. I'm also trying to figure out if you're also seeing the hot air return from the exhaust manifold. I'm not even sure those are on fuel injected models, but if there's a huge hose running from your exhaust manifold to your intake manifold to begin with, you don't need it. I've always taken it off my carb models. my only fuel injected one is so far from the stock everything that I forget...

good luck.