Ian’s Short Ram Intake

I owe a lot of stories to the few of you who actually follow this blog, Matt’s Camaro has taken several leaps forward and a big step back. I’ve also done some work on other cars, and finally have my own project car. But to knock the rust off I will start with a little story that is still fresh in my mind. Ian is a young co-worker of mine, and has been seeking my mentorship in a great deal of auto performance knowledge for the past two years. A while back I helped him install a new exhaust system on a Honda CBR 600 bike of his (which I still owe a write-up on). Recently Ian got himself a nice sporty 2010 Mazdaspeed3 and now he wants it a little more sporty(fun) than stock.

He ordered two things to perk up his car a little. The first is a set of motor mount inserts. The second is a Stage Two Short Ram Intake (SRI). Both of these are from Corksport.com
 

Totally stock 2010 Mazdaspeed3 engine bay.

DISCLAIMER: This is not instructions for installing these parts, more like a review of the install process. I have some corrections or amendments to the printed instructions that came with the new parts, and some tips to work in addition to the instructions.



First we installed the motor mount inserts. These are pretty easy to do if you have a jack (that works with the car), jack stands, a 1/2” drive ratchet 17 & 19 mm sockets, and a torque wrench. I suppose you could do it with out the torque wrench, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I mention a jack that works with this car because it sits so low. My floor jack is a high-lift SUV style jack, and when fully depressed still needs about 8 inches of clearance to fit under the car. These Mazdaspeed3s have about 6 inches so we had to improvise a little. I would have simply used my ramps, but they are holding up the back end of a ‘66 Chevelle at the moment. In their place we used some scraps of 2x4. You can judge from the picture how long they were. They worked well enough. Instinct may tell you to screw or nail the boards together, but I have some logic against that practice. We only used the wood to get the car high-enough to get the jack under the front end. Since we were going to use the jack to lift it we would be taking the weight of the car off the front suspension. The suspension is located by an A-arm on each side (one for each wheel), which each move through an arc. Picture wingtips on a bird, as the wings go up and down the distance between the wingtips changes. As we lifted the car the distance between the tires became less, this caused the tires to move in and slide the blocks around a bit. If they had been nailed or screwed together they would have to tip, which could have caused binding and a more dangerous situation. To lift this car with a single floor jack place the jack under the middle of the K-member (named due to its shape). The K-member is a heavy piece of metal that connects the A-arms to the car and supports the back of the engine. Don’t lift on the plastic-work or the bottom of the engine/transmission. If your jack has a metal saddle I recommend placing a 4'”-8” long chunk of 2x4 between the jack’s saddle and the part of the car you are lifting on. This helps save the paint on steel parts and prevents cracking of cast aluminum or cast iron parts.



After lifting the car we supported it with jack stands under the front sub-frame. If you need help locating this take a look at your owners manual for jack placement when changing a flat tire, from there look just inboard and you will see a build-up of structural metal with a few holes that convey its thickness. Once the weight of the car was on the jack stands and high-enough to crawl under it we moved the jack to the lowest part of the transmission, and lifted an eighth to a quarter of an inch. This is to support the engine while we remove the lower – rear motor mount.



The three bolts on the aluminum (gray) motor mount. Are labeled 17mm in the instructions, however the car we were working on used 19mm socket to pull those. The two bolts going through the black steel portion of the motor mount are a different style but are very similar, and could be swapped if not careful, take the time to pay attention to the differences. Also while you are down there you may notice a small rectangular box stamped into the bottom of your K-member with the word “FoMoCo” on it. This stands for Ford Motor Company – You’re welcome!

The motor mount comes out pretty easy and the inserts are even easier. At this point the hardest part was getting the car up on the jack stands. Follow the pictures to see how the inserts go in.




After the inserts are pressed in re-install the mount and its bolts and torque everything to 70 Ft-Lbs. Lower the car back to the ground and take it for a test drive, your car will feel surprisingly different.
Next is the install of the Corksport Sort Ram Intake. This was a little more difficult but with the right tools isn’t too bad. We took our time and had it done in about four hours. One word of caution about the Corksport intake –you may have heard of “cold air intakes” well this is a hot air intake. The factory air-box is sealed from underhood air, in fact, the air filter is fed air from a duct coming from a ram air scoop behind the grill opening. Ian and I took some measurements before and after using a Scantron OBD2 code reader. In the morning before we started the outside temp (indicated by the car’s sensor) was 68 degrees. While driving at 70 mph the Intake Air Temp (IAT) matched the outside air temp. When parked idling for one minute the IAT rose six degrees above the outside temp. After installing this SRI we did notice better throttle response and quicker turbo spooling, however at 70 mph the IAT was 3-4 degrees higher than the outside temp. and rose to six degrees above outside temp. in a mater of a few seconds. We didn’t even bother waiting a full minute.

What this means is this SRI can increase power while the car has air flowing over it, but if you spend lots of time at red lights you are increasing your IAT. Ian will be investing in a heat shield box or the Corksport stage 3 cold air intake in the future.

The turbo inlet pipe is well designed, but the quality of execution was 9.5/10. I noticed some welding slag on the inside, some of which you could almost scrape off with your finger nail. I used a long, straight-tipped screw driver to knock out what I could. It was actually kind of surprising how much I got out.

This angle shows a few little chunks of welding slag that I knocked out with a long screwdriver. These are small pieces of metal that could get sucked through your turbocharger.

This shows some of the crud that I scraped out of the inlet pipe.

The instructions for this job were pretty good, and although we didn’t use them they have links to YouTube videos of the more difficult steps to help you if you’re stuck. The only exceptions here were some hose clamps that had to be turned to give us a little more clearance for the turbo inlet pipe and just a reminder, the grommet that you need to transfer from the old pipe to the new one includes a small metal sleeve/washer piece that may be stuck on the stud on the side of the engine. Be sure to get that into the rubber grommet before trying to install the pipe. Also we took the time to un-bolt a bracket under the battery tray that anchored the wire-harness that led to the ECU (computer). This allowed us to move the harness back and forth with out bending the bracket all to heck. Follow the instructions until you get to the point of tightening the 2”-2.5” coupler to the turbo. By the way. This is low pressure plumbing. Tightening the t-bolt clamps enough to see them slightly compress the silicone couplers should be adequate. Lastly the snap to connect fitting for the valve cover breather hose can be a finicky one, and you can make a tool out of a paperclip like the instructions suggested, or you can go to the auto parts store and get a set of fuel line quick connector tools. I think it was 5/8” or 3/4” that did the trick. Up to you if you want to spend a few bucks on them. I would recommend it if you spend much time spinning wrenches.

Ian had a pro shop instal a big stereo system into his car. They connected the positive cable for the amp to the bolt that is to only be used for clamping the connector to the battery terminal. We relocated the power wire to the terminal with the black/red wire, next to the white wire. We also did a better job of routing the power wire out the bottom of the battery box.

Lots of reviews and forums mention how difficult it was to tighten the T-bolt clamp on the intake of the turbocharger. I’ll tell you it’s very easy if you have a 24” extension on your 3/8 drive ratchet. Which can reach down between the firewall and the engine. I strongly recommend getting on even if it’s a cheapo from wal*mart. These stupid long extensions have really earned their keep with exhaust and transmission work lately.

The Boost Control Solenoid’s tube seemed a little loose on the brass fitting of the turbo inlet pipe. We used one medium sized zip-tie to clamp it down a bit. Again this is low pressure plumbing and often has vacuum on it. Nothing needs to be super tight on this section of the intake.

I found another situation with the “air straightener” on the new MAF housing. In general the build quality of the MAF housing body is great. What I didn’t like is the little bit of flashing on the middle of the vanes of the plastic “air straightener” its self. It was a simple fix with a file (an emery board could be used as well). It may not have caused any problem, but if I’m here, I fix what’s wrong. Also I recommend getting a can of “Mass Air Flow sensor” cleaner. Yes, this is specific stuff, you can not use water, WD-40, alcohol, or brake cleaner for cleaning the sensor, but it is worth it in the mileage and drive-ability to buy the can, I can promise that. And you can use the MAF sensor cleaner on other things such as other sensors and more rugged electronics through out your car (connectors, light sockets, etc.)




The duct that led to the factory air box pulls out of the car easily. And I wanted to keep it, yet in stock form it turned down and missed the new air filter. I hacked the turn-down off with a hacksaw and smoothed the edge with some sandpaper. Finally I zip-tied it to a small tube running along the top of the radiator just to help hold it in place.

Ian's car with a Stage 2 short ram intake and an upgraded motor mount.