This winter I will be upgrading to a four barrel manifold and carb, as well as putting a 3.5 inch cowl on my hood. I was having thoughts of putting a Buick Ram Air cleaner under the hood and wanted this to connect to the cowl induction. But since I'm on an extremely tight budget, I recently began thinking of putting an Edelbrock open element filter on there because it would be much cheaper and much easier. Though it's a daily driver, which would I get better performance out of? I was thinking the open element might take in more air, but it would be warm engine compartment air, although some cool air would still come in from the cowl. The ram air would take in cooler air more directly, but wouldn't it still be somewhat heated after traveling over the hood? Will this ram air idea even work that well? Most importantly, which would look cooler? I was liking the thoughts of the big Buick cleaner, but then again, the Edelbrock cleaner might look a little bit tidier. All thoughts and comments welcome. Thanks, Jacob
There's no point in using a factory ram air cleaner. Use a regular open element air cleaner and build a tub around it with sheet metal. Seal the air cleaner tub to the bottom of the hood with foam. I assume the cowl hood has a "bottom" with a hole above the carb. If not, build that out of sheet metal too. Hard to explain, but look at the recent thread where someone posted a bunch of pictures of their new Stage 2 scoop, and you will get the idea.
The stock air cleaner really sucks (pun intended). I only use mine for shows. The car seems to breath a lot easier upstairs with the open elemnt.
