Flow Bench Evaluation of DDM, ZZP and OEM Intakes

[94383Z71]

As some of you may have seen, I had a term project in an airflow class and I decided to use it as an opportunity to perform an unbiased test on the most popular intakes. As I said in the other thread, I would love to do it again with the MPFab unit, K&N Typhoon and modified stock. But as a college student I couldn't afford to buy them all at once

Google Docs link. I figured it would be easier to make it a PDF rather than host all the graphs as images, etc

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByjU3EJx8mXeaWUtc0VucFg3T1U/edit?usp=sharing

Feel free to ask me about anything I didn't cover in the report, and I'll answer as best I can! Hope somebody finds this as useful as I found it interesting.

EDIT for the lazy:

DDMW outperformed OEM by about 150 CFM at the top end, and outperformed ZZP by about 40 CFM. DDMW also supported more HP over each by about the same amount as CFM, due to how the calculation works.

Some filter cross-testing and the fact the ZZP still had the insert in showed that it is possible that they could be very much equal with the same filter. I wasn't willing to full the insert because I had to return the intake when I was done. Results also showed that the K&N drop-in filter was entirely ineffective in providing more flow or HP.

Much more detail is available in the report about how I performed the tests, what the 'part throttle' values were and more.

Edit again: I should be getting an MPFab intake soon, so maybe next semester I can add data here to make it more complete.

 

[ss2000slp]

Great write up.

 

[Dogz]

Very cool. It would be nice to see more of this sort of independent testing on other products.

 

[jmwarren85]

Nice work.

It would have been interesting to know what the ZZP was capable of without the temporary reducer installed given that the reducer was put in to trick the stock tune to believe the intake hadn't been tampered with.

If only money grew on trees.

Let us know how you go with your marks.

 

[Larrymer]

Interesting data. Even more reason to not change the stock air box now.

 

[94383Z71]

Very cool. It would be nice to see more of this sort of independent testing on other products.

I would love to do it on pretty much any exhaust or intake products for our cars, I just can't afford to do it willy nilly due to shipping and restocking costs. Maybe this can garner enough attention to earn some promotional products to test and return. I would love to see how much the bell-mouth on MPFab's unit performs, respectively

Nice work.

It would have been interesting to know what the ZZP was capable of without the temporary reducer installed given that the reducer was put in to trick the stock tune to believe the intake hadn't been tampered with.

If only money grew on trees.

Let us know how you go with your marks.

Thank you. I really think it perfoms right with the DDMW unit, but couldn't risk damage or refusal of return to find out.

On a personal note, the DDMW unit feels better, but I did like that ZZP hard mounted the support, while you had to assemble the DDMW support. They also didn't put a branding on it, which surprised me a bit. DDMW was a much better company to work with; ZZP gave me a lot of run-around unfortunately.

Interesting data. Even more reason to not change the stock air box now.

Not sure I understand? Probably obvious, long day at work today

 

[laborsmith]

I suspect Larrymer meant not to change the drop in filter.

Laborsmith

 

[Larrymer]

Nope. If the stock air box is good for ~250hp, then that's good enough for me since the transmission is rated for less than that.

 

[94383Z71]

Nope. If the stock air box is good for ~250hp, then that's good enough for me since the transmission is rated for less than that.

this is very true in terms of max power. But take my "2/3" opening for example: OEM supports maybe 170hp or so, while the aftermarkets are a touch over 200hp. So an aftermarket supports more cfm across pretty much the whole band, which allows for a flatter curve in areas that aren't outrageous power (for our cars).

There again, there are so many variable here like IAT which would be affected by intake choice, as well as vehicle-unique conditions which make the usefulness of this info very debatable and relative.

 

[ranvette]

Thanks and nice test ! Bottom line though if your just tuned your not going to make any more power with a aftermarket air cleaner.And the stock intake is going to do a better job of giving the MAF good accurate readings for the ECM to control the engines output.Also note the stock intake on a Cruze would even flow better i would think most likely

 

[94383Z71]

I agree that an intake alone isn't going to make it a racecar. Just providing the info for those that may be looking to know what intake will carry them to their power goals the best.

The MAF thought is a good one, but I don't think it's necessarily true. I don't recall seeing an LFE in the stock airbox, so that's not affecting anything. The higher swirl rates are probably due to having a smooth wall for the turn instead of corrugated, which wouldn't affect the MAF. A Pitot tube test would have to be done to me known for sure though.

 

[ranvette]

I think MAF reading can be a problem with some intakes.But certainly not all.The Factory (GM) puts a considerable amount of time into calibrating the engine management system.And very accurate MAF readings are obtained with the factory designed intake.Aftermarket tuning tends to work real well with stock intakes.Nice strong HP and TQ increases with great driveability.And a very low chance of a engine check light related to the MAF control input.Again not to say thats a problem will all after market intakes.But it can be in a few cases.But of course completely moded 1.4Ts with exhausts and ported intakes and what have you.Is a game changer anyway as far as engine management goes.And intake flow requirements.