Air box mods (long)

[ggthack@swansea.ac.uk (Graham Thackrah)]

This is an often done modification to golfs. I have also been talking about
this sort of thing on a friends Capri 2.8 (with bosch K-Jet injection also).
The only thing is that the air entering through the holes in the airbox would be
from the engine bay and unless serious ducting from outside the bay was fitted
would thus be warmer than that entering through the conventional ducting into
the airbox. The addition of these holes would lead to a reduction in the volume
of air entering through the conventional ducting. The question is therefore 
whether or not the increase in the proportion of warm air entering the engine is
outweighed by the increase in volume of air that presumably results from 
drilling the holes.

A friend who has recently fitted a K+N 57i induction kit to his nova GTE (a cone
filter replacement to the oe airbox and dicting) reckons that the engine is more
affected by heat than it was, the honeymoon period being after the car has
warmed up but not been thrashed. After high speed driving his car is noticeably
affected, more so than before he fitted the 57i. This kit comes with a poxy bit
of aluminium ducting and a couple of cable ties that are supposed to locate the
ducting from behind the radiator to infront of the cone filter, I am sure a 
better arrangement could be fashioned by most people capeable of fitting the
filter in the first place, by the use of larger diameter ducting to begin with.

As a side note, the ducting from the airbox on my 80q has two hoses coming from
it as compared to a single one on my 80 sport, is this normal??? I am not 
complaining only curious as to whether or not this is as normal. The input to
the airbox looks to be of the same diameter though and if it is the same box as
the sport then the internal arrangment for the air flow is a little strange and
far from optimal in my opinion.

Lastly, in the world of the capri mailing list there has been recent talk about
swapping fuel distributor units around. Apart from the fact that you'd need to
swap a 6 cyl unit (they were talking about BMW 535's I htink) I thought that the
shape of the bore of the fuel metering unit was tailored to the fuelling 
requirements of the car in question and would not be compatible out of
context. The reason for the suggestion is that a ROver 6 cyl unit was supposed
to have a larger initial bore than the unit fitted to the capri and would thus
flow more air. This is irrelevant for the 5cyl Audi unit but I thought you may 
be interested anyway.