I’m looking for technical help or recommendations on: __ Building a DIY Racing Beat intake
So I have been looking for an intake let that doesn’t have a negative impact basically since I bought ‘Geoff’ two months ago and have come to the conclusion that the Racing Beat solution is probably the best (see below, u shaped bend above the mass airflow meter into the cold air behind right hand side headlight) and you can buy ducts to improve the efficiency.
Plus, and far more importantly, intake make car go VROOM.
HOWEVER!
There are no NB Racing Beat intakes in the UK for sale. One or two companies are still advertising them but all admit either before or after taking your money that they don’t have stock and RB are saying no uk stock before Q1 next year!
SO!
I think it looks like a pretty simple bit of kit so I’m thinking I can try and make one myself. I don’t have any fabrication skills so any ideas on how to create this without having to resort to blacksmithing would be great.
My current idea is to buy another standard mx5 intake tube from the MAF to the engine and cannibalise that for the two bends to turn the intake towards the cold air area behind the headlight and buy a knock off racing beat intake duct to fit the intake into which is available on eBay.
Racing Beat Europe aren’t actually part of Racing Beat. Try contacting Racing Beat directly, but you wll be paying US postage rates.
Try GoMiata.
Goodwin sells them, but they won’t ship international.
You could cobble one together from mandrel bent tube, but a better intake, for the NB, is from behind the drivers side headlight, ie a cold side intake.
His is a US car, so perhaps the wiring is different, but its possible no actual cutting of wire is needed. So potentially you need some Samco tubing and the biggest K&N (or other).
Also note, I visited Racing Beat in 2000. Mazda asked them to to get their intake ready for the NB, and to be compatable with the factory brace on NBs. Racing Beat had to develop a custom brace bracket .
There are a ton of DIY write ups for cold side intakes, such as this:
Wow thanks so much for such an in depth response, the only reason I have stuck with a ‘hot’ side intake is because I have read that it is important to retain the resonance chamber on the tube between the engine and the MAF and by using at duct such as the one below you can retain cold air:
Do you think it is preferable to retain the resonance chamber or have a short ram intake?
The Helmholtz chamber is arguably more important on the VVT engine, and cars deleting it supposedly lose a bit of mid-range torque. But on the otherhand, K&N and Moss sell a lot of Typhoon and Cobalt intakes, and you don’t here that many people going back to standard.
When it comes to any of these intakes, including the Racing Beat elbow, none of them do all that much, if you are expecting significant more power (its mostly a placebo effect, due to the louder intake sound). Same for hot air versus cold air. Its fun messing around, don’t expact any real difference. But if your ambition is as cold intake air as possible, then your only option is to move it to behainf the drivers headlight .
Short intakes on cold side may look very attractive, but are not efficient as they are too short , and change the the torque of the engine (negatively). Look up pulse tuning
Unless you’ve tuned your car significantly the OEM filtration is by far the best. The standard filter is designed so that at it’s service interval is still has built in surplus capacity. Generally only turbo vehicles with a considerable change to power output will exceed OEM filter airflow.
Also by positioning one of these filters to draw air in from a hot engine bay will more than likely reduce your performance. The only increase is in intake noise which may make it sound quicker. But I must admit they don’t look as nice when you lift the bonnet.
But it’s your vehicle your choice.
Thanks for the response, I know I’m not adding significant power, I believe the the racing beat kit has been independently dyno’ed for an extra 4-6 bhp but scepticism is rife! All I’m looking for is more noise and not to lose mid range torque.
Hence trying to recreate that kit, I can buy the same filter easily and just need to somehow fabricate the ‘elbow’.
Hi Richard, thanks for the response, I saw on a YouTube video someone claim that the ideal distance from intake to engine is 21’ but with no indication of a source for info or how he’s worked it out.
I’m really keen not to lose mid range torque if I can avoid it hence I don’t want to lose the resonance chamber. I’m not looking for 20 more bhp or anything but if I can make the change bhp neutral not a net loss then I’m happy because car goes VROOM! That being said I do know the racing beat kit has been dyno’ed to confirm some small gains. Others not so much.
On the otherhand, that old school Jackson Racing intake that sat right at the front of the engine was always considerd awesome, and proven by rolling roads.
Its probably not the correct word to call cold side intakes as “inefficient”, but what it will do is move that torque curve. The BP and B6 engine don’t really do much below 4000 rpm. Many drivers will spend their time never exceeding that, and consequently, miss out on the benefits of this engine. Fitting a cold side, and driving in this conservative fashion, you will notice that the engine appears to be gutless; conclusion, cold side intake is useless. On the otherhand, if you spend most of the time caning this engine, you will notice decent power benefits. The ultimate expression would be fitting IRTBs to a MX5 engine; you can’t really call these “less efficient” than the stock plastic intake with its snaking shape. It suits a different type of driver.
The standard intakes over the years have had a bunch of “resonance” or “Helmholtz resonance” chambers as part of the design. There are convulated designs before the filter. My understanding, over the years, these serve mainly to quieten down the intake. The cross over pipe has had various chambers, which those who are apparently in the know, have labeled as definitely Helmholtz Resonance chambers. Its changed a lot in shape over the years.
I don’t know what witchcraft was involved in determining the positioning and different shapes on these boxes. I suspect it was as much to do as not wanting to hit spinning things as achieving “optimal” performance of the engine (which depends on what the engineer’s goals were; did they want as much power as possible, or better drivability, or better fuel consumption, or not trying to hack off the neighbours through noise).
Some blokes in a Japanese shed decided the various tubes before the filter did have some sort of performance function, to do with “loss of mid range torque”, and with a new level of witch craft, involving beating aluminium over wooden forms and absolutely no computers. And so ARC (Abbey Road Company) Magic came up with the “Super Intake Chamber” for the Mk1 1.6 and 1.8.
I’ve had both. The 1.6 version feels like it does something, but maybe it doesn’t. The 1.8 does nothing, but I like it, so kept it on. No science to offer, even though, on paper at least, I am a scientist.
Intake discussions generally veer from “Don’t do it, Mazda knew best” to “Do it, Intakes are tight” to “Its your car”. I’m in the latter camp. At some point, we will have talk about the heat soak properties of plastic versus metal.
Intake mods are generally reversible. If you don’t like it, you can easily reverse it.
As for temperature, every stock intake draws air from a hot engine compartment. Probably matters more when the car is stood in traffic as opposed to moving.
Matt King attempted some science when freeflowing a Mk1 MX5
Which begs the question; why can’t you tune the intakes merely by ziptie-ing different sized coke bottles instead of the factory chamber
This thread covers the debate:
But as an expert in my field (molecular diagnostics), I generally like experts in other fields. In all the replies in that thread, I generally take Lance Schall as being a SME on the subject (the chambers are there for NVH, little or no impact on performance). Or maybe I am cherrypicking to suit my own prejudices.
On RB’s own site, they reproduce bits of “the Great Intake Shootout” comparing various intakes. I don’t believe in the end there is much dfference (to me). 4-5hp is noise. Note, RB edited out the results of the stock intake.
I fitted a Ramair filter recently, and now have a strange whistling sound under acceleration.
If you are worried about “loss of torque” (in a way that you notice it), just take off your stock airbox, fit a universal filter to the MAS (they come with various rubber rings so you can get a good seal). See if you notice that “loss of torque” compared to standard; if you do, fabricating a RB elbow isn’t going to restore it. But probably you won’t, because you will be noticing your induction noise more.
Update on this, I have managed to find a silicone hose that should fit nicely, just awaiting delivery.after that should be able to get everything sorted.
Main problem now is the bolts in the bracket attaching the OEM plastic intake heat shield to the chassis are completely rusted. removing that and keeping those holes usable for attaching the new duct is not an ideal situation. I really don’t want to have to drill this out but hey ho.
I’ve never drilled a bolt out before, will I need a tap and die set as well? Any input on the best way to drill out engine bay bolts?
