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CAI Water Shield

TheTroyness

I changed a tire once...
Location
Arkansas
So here's a little story for you. I'm a college student. Right now I'm on winter break, so I have a lot of down time (I work for my University, so I'm also on a vacation from my job pretty much). Well, at the start of the break, I went hunting for a boost leak, as well as zeroed in on the source to my mysterious cylinder 4 misfire. Got my answers, and ordered parts.

Now I've got down time again while the parts come in. This is a problem. So I decided to fabricate something that I've been kinda wanting to do for some time. You see, I have a cold air intake from ABD Racing. Well, I had been running the hideous closed stock fog grilles. Ugly, but they were protecting my CAI from getting hit with a bunch of water when driving in or after rain. I don't want my turbo to try sucking air through my wet cotton filter, because that will destroy it. That's why K&N says not to use forced air flow to dry their filters when cleaning them.

At any rate, I recently got some open fogs, and thus made my filter vulnerable to the evil elements! So I decided to make a shield for my filter to protect it from incoming water. And that's what this thread is about.

I decided I could use one of two designs. I could mount the shield somewhere on the car between the fogs and the filter, or I could mount the shield on the filter itself. To make things easy, I decided to mount it on the filter. I thought up a few designs, and then decided to look at the parts involved.

I took off my bumper and stuff and checked out the area where the filter is. Looked at space constraints and all those fun things. Then I took off the filter to measure it. Then I noticed this could be a lot easier than I had imagined. The filter has grooves on the top and bottom of it in the rubber. These grooves were deep enough for metal to bite into without having to modify the filter or damage anything. Lucky me!

So the plan was to make a metal shield that would clip onto the filter using those grooves. Just in case that wouldn't hold it tight enough, I included some extra space on the bottom that I cold put a screw through and into the rubber part of the filter to hold it in place. That ended up being completely unnecessary.

Because of the support right next to the filter, I had to make the housing a shell shape. That put the shield close enough to the filter to clear the support, but as more space was available around the filter, I could give more clearance between the shield and the filter to avoid air flow restriction.

Now for the pictures!

I started taking pictures late, but oh well. By the time I took the first picture, I had already cut out the top and bottom pieces and the side wall. Here is a picture of the pieces. The side wall was half way bent into shape. This was the second side wall I made because the first one was less than a centimeter too short! :mad0259:



Here I have all the pieces set together around the air filter. This is how the final product will look.



Next, I started to JB Weld things together. Before "welding", I prepped the surfaces with acetone. Then I "welded" the lip on the top piece...


If anyone wants to do this themselves, make a note that if you use JB Weld, you can add acetone to your weld stuff to thin it prior to application. I didn't thin mine. It was easier to work with it thick (that's what she said :thumbsup:). I just smeared it in with a beheaded q-tip and smoother it out with my finger.



Prior to applying JB, I super glued pieces together to hold them in place while the JB cured. Super glue holds in a few moments, while JB holds in several hours (sets in 4-6, cures in 24).



Bottom piece welded to side wall, while the bottom lip is sitting in place. The lip was warped because I used tin snips (or metal shears, or whatever you want to call them), which bent the metal a fair amount. But I didn't care because the super glue would fix that.



Next to get glued into position was the top piece.



Now the top and bottom pieces are both "welded" in place, as well as their respective lips. <-- That sounds strange. Almost creepy... Oh well.



View of the completed top side...



View of the completed bottom side...



Filter put in place. This was a huge pain. Took a lot of wiggling and pushing and what not. It went in, though. And it is on there really good. No need for any extra supports or fixtures or anything. Not looking forward to taking that off to wash the filter, though. Which needs to be done soon...







Installed on the car... Not a whole lot of clearance on the left side.



Here's some perspective.


The end.

In before: "restricting air flow"; "just get a ram air intake"; "that won't work"; "needz moar low!".
 
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TheTroyness

I changed a tire once...
Location
Arkansas
Well, the pictures aren't showing. I've never posted pictures here before so I don't know if they have to be approved by a mod first or what the deal is, but I'll see if it sorts out by tomorrow. I've never had trouble with Imageshack, either, so any tips would be appreciated.

EDIT: Fixed them. I was using the short link, which doesn't work if trying to embed pictures in a message board. Why? I have no idea...
 
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ViRtUaLheretic

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Location
KC MO
Car(s)
2009 VW GTI
Good deal, I was juts going to make a custom little attachment ot my BSH Race Intake and was going to use JB Weld but was unfamiliar with it but it looks like I will be fine.
Thanks for the DIY
 

TheTroyness

I changed a tire once...
Location
Arkansas
Looks good.. What was the source of leak and misfire?

Misfire is due to a bad injector I'm pretty sure. I won't be 100% sure until the parts get here and I replace it but I've eliminated pretty much everything else.
The leak is between the end tank of my intercooler and the core.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
 

rippie74

Ready to race!
Location
NJ
Car(s)
2008 GTI
looks great
 

TheTroyness

I changed a tire once...
Location
Arkansas
throttle response

Just got a fair amount of snow (for Arkansas) so I haven't drove my car yet. I'm not expecting to see any sort of change in the way my car drives. At first I was slightly concerned, but after looking at the filter with the shield installed, it doesn't seem like it will be an issue at all. I'll update once the roads clear.
 

brian9892

Ramblin' Wreck
Location
Atlanta
I'm just wondering, doesn't making that enclosure around the filter defeat the purpose in running open fogs to begin with? correct me if I'm wrong.
 

mlowmk5

nothing rhymes w/ orange
Location
S.F. East Bay
Car(s)
2 dr CW
You can always spin it around in dry weather and it would be more of an air scoop like on rally cars!

The only thing about this is I don't think splashing water onto the filter is as big as a problem as bottoming out in a puddle and submerging your filter.
 

rippie74

Ready to race!
Location
NJ
Car(s)
2008 GTI
I'm just wondering, doesn't making that enclosure around the filter defeat the purpose in running open fogs to begin with? correct me if I'm wrong.

With open fogs the air stream is more direct. The shield protects the filter from road debris & water splashing onto it. etc
 

TheTroyness

I changed a tire once...
Location
Arkansas
I'm just wondering, doesn't making that enclosure around the filter defeat the purpose in running open fogs to begin with? correct me if I'm wrong.

While I have no hard data to back my claims, the open fogs still allow cold air to be drawn into the compartment. Even without the shield, some air will hit the bare filter and be drawn into it, but most would probably roll around the filter, assuming theres enough air flow into the compartment to cause that. Having the shield, I would think, still allows the air to flow into the compartment, and with the curved shape of it, allows the air to flow around to the exposed side of the filter. Having closed fogs doesn't allow any flow of air at all, so I like to think it helps! Even if it does defeat the purpose, I like the look of my new grilles SOOOOOO much better than the stock ones. That alone is worth the change.

You can always spin it around in dry weather and it would be more of an air scoop like on rally cars!

The only thing about this is I don't think splashing water onto the filter is as big as a problem as bottoming out in a puddle and submerging your filter.

There's an interesting thought! As much as I'd like to try that for kicks and giggles, that shield is on there really tight and bites into the rubber pretty good. It would be a huge PITA to turn that filter around even if it were easy to even get to it!
Regarding the water thing, for me, going through a puddle deep enough to hit my filter is highly unlikely. Water finding its way through my open fog and to my filter, while probably still not very likely, is more likely than dunking the filter in a road pond.


Now you could get hydro shield from aem in case you do suck up water! here

I actually looked at that briefly. However, AEM specifically said their product is not to be used on forced induction vehicles. Apparently it can cause damage to that thing and the turbo somehow. Or something like that. I wish I had a schematic of AEMs gadget, though!

I'm glad you guys like it! I hope it was interesting and useful for everyone!
 

TheTroyness

I changed a tire once...
Location
Arkansas
Did some casual and half-way spirited driving today. Didn't seem any different at all, so as far as I can tell, that shield has had no adverse impact on throttle response or anything of the sort! :happyanim:
 
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