I am thinking of having a custom intake pipe fabricated. I noticed on the stock pipe that there are two large plastic tumors coming off of it. They are hollow and I can find no apparent purpose for them. I have had people suggest that they are either silincers, or some kind of drip bucket(?). My question is, does anyone know what they are actually for, and if so are they necessary? If I make a replacement pipe can I just leave them out?

 

Those are resonators. Do a search to find out more about them.

 

Those are silencers. If you can find a straight pipe w/o a silencer you will definately pick up som HP. My friend took his off of his Eclispse and noticed a good gain. He did mention it was quite a bit louder but he prefers power to quietness. When I get one I will let you know if it was worth it or not . ..

 

Be careful. I know a lot of cars that improve when the silencer is removed, but from my research from others, you might lose a little w/ the SC. Research it for yourself first, or take your car to the dyno and let us know.

 

anyone make any headway with this yet?

 

TAKE A PICTURE AND SHOW US...

 

Yep, those are silencers/resonator or resonator. It all serves to make the quiet car that the masses look for. They don't want to hear it. Naturally, the less restirictive the intake = better airflow = better air delivery = more power. Usually, it is not much from my experience playing with hondas. For a honda - however, it is the most noticeable "upgrade" for the money. Aside from NAWS. We all need NAWS - two of em - the big ones. j/k
Though that n2o is the biggest power adder for the money. The cold air intakes and short rams look "cool" but are they worth it? Maybe. I've done all that stuff - insert random riceboy remarks - but found myself wondering if it was really worth it. In the long run - not really - but people like to look at it ;}.

For the lex - I've seen the BIG intake plans and that to me seems like the best bang for the buck. That is what is on the sc300 I recently purchased. I have not had a chance to get in it and really look, but it does what the ultimate goal is to do. Increase performance by adding less restricted air flow into the intake by means of increasing the opening and reducing turbulence. 14$ for BIG intake or 500$ for AEM. It's all opinion. I'd feel very comfortable with saying the gains are more or less equal.

My goal - turbo. I'm not gonna sweat the trivial stuff. Learned that with the hondas.

AJ

 

exhaust helps a lot too

lots of restrictions in the exhaust

and you, my friend, are a smart man to learn from mistakes

turbo the only way to go!

 

Intake resonators add power to a naturally aspirated engine as well as making the intake quiet.
There is an Intake Resonator page (1UZ-FE) on my webpage.

 

UZZ32,
From your web page and the facts stated it does seem that the upper resonator before the throttle body does well on the v8 version. Is this a-typical of most vehicle's. The resonators I was referring to are typically the lower mount "boxes" beneath the stock intake filter element housing. Then, there are those protrusions along the stock intake duct work that I can only imagine to be restrictive - how much? - probably negligable. It is interesting to see that at least on the v8 sc400, removal of the stock piping (at the the upper throttle body area) can actually decrease the performance.

I went back for another look. This is very good information. What I gather is that for practical applications, it really isn't a good idea to remove the resonator. How about in applications remaining within certain power bands? I.E. my accord may lose some low-end torque off the line but from 4,000 to 6,000 rpms gain 10 hp? (a lofty estimate).
AJ

 

It would appear that resonators just before the throttle (as per the SC400) are good for all naturally aspirated vehicles. Resonators before the air filter (on some turbo subarus for eg) would appear to be only for making the intake quiet and less effective for power.

A smaller resonator may be more effective for high rpm at the expense of low down torque on your Civic - theory only!