There is a wall directly in front of the air filter. I removed my grill and cut a 4"x6" hole in that wall so cool air can go directly to the filter. I didn't notice a power gain, but I did notice 1.5mpg difference while cruising at 65mph. I now get 15mpg while I baby it.

 

I''m not 100% sure because I haven't done it but, that sounds like the 'Zoodad' mod. That's great that it had such an effect on your mgp. did you put some type of screen on it so water and road debris don't have a direct way in?

 

Can you post pics?

 

When I did this "ZooDad" mod (named after the screen name of a forum member at the diesel web site I believe) I used some standard fiberglass screen that I had left over from a window re-screening mission. I cut a little of the screen just bigger then the new holes I cut and simply SuperGlued them to the face of the fiberglass radiator surround the hole is cut in. This keeps out the big bugs.

As to water ingestion of the new straight path for the cold air into the inlet of the filter canister.... My filter did get wet in the 2001 round filter canister design but it seems to stay dry in the 05 and up square level filter housing.

Here in Central Texas we drive 70-75mph on the highways and when she rains it can sometimes be a 3 to 6 inch per hour event. In other words a SERIOUS Down Pour where direct rain and car in front road splash can be extremely heavy.

After my ZooDad mod on the 01 I drove about 17 miles in one of these deluges and when I got to work I popped the hood and pulled the filter. It was pretty wet for the first 1/4 of the paper filter but the top 3/4 was still very dry and I did not see any evidence of suck in distortion or tears. I drove that truck with the ZooDad mod until I assassinated her and my filters lasted my standard paper filter replacement process of new filter every other oil change.

I think I did the mod on my 05 3v V10 the third day it was in the dirveway...

I did not have enough MPG data on the 05 or the 01 to tell if that mod caused any gain.

All my 99 to present Ford motors always take me about a year to get enough miles for them to be properly broken in, so it is tough to say if any mod was responsible for the increased HP and MPG or not.

 

I haven't put anything in front of it yet. I cut it out when I went home for 15 days R&R I will take Fredvon4's idea though. I live in Wyoming. We don't get a whole lot of rain. Just snow. If it helps the motor has 49,000 miles and is straight piped after the cat.

01 Black F-250 V-10, Auto, 3.73 open.

 

I cut a slot in the bottom of the filter horn with a dremel and 1" cut wheel so any water that reached it quickly drains out the bottom instead of collecting up against the filter, seems to be an alternative.

My .02


D

 

good deaL I bet that will work

 

I'd like to know how it works out - I'm planning on this mod and was trying to figure out some type of water collector/drain as well.
While we're on this topic - I've also considered designing larger intake; it just seems to me that the current pipe from the airbox to the manifold is awful small. I know I could purchase an aftermarket one, but I thought I would play around with a few alternatives first. So what does everyone else think?

 

I did a few dyno runs back in 2002 on my stock 01 2v V10 with the round cone type filter and canister.

Base line run was with new factory paper filter.

One run with oiled K&N. ( plus 5 HP over new paper)
One with old filter. (minus 7 HP over new filter)
One with no filter. (plus 7 HP over new filter)

All the runs were with the intake housing installed and sucking in the air through the necked down intake tube you are looking at.

No I did not do a run with open chamber filter housing. So I can not report if the small looking intake tube is a restriction. However comparing the size of the opening to the similar "snorkel" on a real Big Block Ford or chevy from the 90s it seems to me to be slightly larger. My professional sense is that the opening you are looking at will flow more unrestricted air (no filter) then the 415 CI motor needs at ANY RPM

Obviously the "NO filter" run made the highest total peak HP and torque...but only about 7 HP above 4200 RPM.

On the NO Filter run, the dyno curve fell flat and dropped about the same as all the other filter option runs.

This tells me that valve opening timing, total lift, and duration are limiters for the top of the RPM band on this motor design. This motor's cams have been "optimized" to make the most power in the mid range of the RPM band and have 60% to 80% of it's power applied in the 1950-2500 RPM range (typical RPMs at "cruising" speeds)

The K&N made about 5 extra over the paper filter but again it was in the upper RPM band.

The interesting thing really was that under all four test conditions the HP and Torque from 1900 to 3600 RPM were all the EXACT same.

This means that the factory system has more volume and flow then the motor needs in the RPM range.

 

excellent info Fred.I like those dyno readings. I did add a bigger 4" inlet, just enough to match the size of the rest of the system as well as the Zoodad mod. I just installed a filter minder guage in the section between the airbox and throttle plates. I put my paper filter back in and plan to go on a roadtrip towing soon. I will switch back to the K&N on the way home and see if there was much difference in the vacum readings under towing conditions.

 

Hi guys, just a little update. with the paper filter, in damp conditions, towing 1000miles, the filter minder showed it was around 1/2 on the scale of 0-25 showing 11 " H2O( from green to red.) And I hit 3500rpm a few time. So as you guys have been saying, the paper filter was more than adequate for this beast.

 

your talkin about the MPH guage right? it has 4 colors on it, and #'s above the colors. it acts like a vacume gauge. would a typical vacume gauge work in the same aspect, it just wouldn't have the colors to match the #'s? i guess i'd have to know what IDLE vac # is, and wide open throttle vac # is. then go from there while crusing with a "typical" vacume gauge.

 

No, it' s a vacum device
used usually on diesel air cleaner systems. it stays where it is until you reset it. I got one from truck repair shop, where they do fleet maint. they can see the condition of the element, without replacing it .
.

 

I cut a few inches off the end of the filter housing till the opening was at least 4" in diameter. I then removed all of the rubber cladding in front of the housing that was next to the radiator, I then drilled 3 2" holes in behind the grill and it works great. no water problems because it is not hard piped directly to the air filter. Check my gallery for pics of the holes I drilled. Poor mans ram-air.

 

yep........i know EXACTLY what your talkin about this time......... we had.have them on the Military hmmwv's, 5-ton's, and 7ton's! and we got mostly electric ones on the big rigs i work on now (out of the Marines, and ENJOYING the HELZ out of civilian life!!)