text: tennis ball in my intake | ClubWRX Forum
  tennis ball in my intake
  wrxCIA
  ok just follow me a sec....
  so today i feel like taking out my silencer to see what it sounds like. after i pull out the silencer and ram air, it seems a little ghetto. the airbox does not sit against the fender hole properly. Even if i sealed it, it seems like im decreasing the amount of air that is entering the intake now. The ram air is there for a reason right?....
  now im thinking about buying a new silencer delete elbow, then i think.. wtf? am i retarded. come on its a plastic tube with a big tank connected to it. i can just seal up that tank with some foam sealer i have. so i open up the sealent can and the damn thing doesnt work.
  now the funny part....
  i see a tennis ball. i laugh and think about jamming it in there to block off that tank. so then i do it... and it jams in there perfectly. so i put it all together and drive around. it seems to have worked fine. the tennis ball was still there, and none of the little green hairs were caught by the filter. can someone tell me that im incredibly retarded for doing this?:confused1
  04 black sti, gold rota torque, turbo xs tbe, turbo xs rfl bov, utec
  someone trade their rfl axleback for my regular turbo xs magnaflow!!!!!
  lol whatever works buddy
  Hmmm... got any pics of said setup? I would be interested in seeing it. Although I don't think I would ever do it ;-).
  sorry i dont have a digital camera it broke...
  i know i feel so stupid driving around knowing i purposely stuck a tennis ball in my intake. i think im gonna get a new can of that sealing foam stuff because i think the tennis ball might pop out under launching haha
  im really cheap and cant find it in me to pay 40 dollars for a plastic tube its sad.
  one plus for anyone who is as stupid as me is all you hafta do really is take off the ram air and drop a tennis ball down in there and push down haha
  Does that get hot, could it be a fire hazard... hopefully that wasn't a totally noob question?
  i dont see how it could since the air coming in isnt hot, plus that whole silencer section is separated from the engine by the fender well
  interesting idea - I don't think i would do it but just out of curiousity - can you still hear the turbo spooling and the factory BOV with that hole where the silencer was all plugged up??
  Discussion Starter • #8 • Jul 8, 2004
  yea thats the point of removing that silencer so you can hear everything.
  to those of you that left the whole ram air/silencer part of the intake off, what did you do to keep the intake box proped against the fender hole better
  and also do you think removing the ram air is now leading to less air entering the intake?
  well...if it works...
  the only thing I'd say is this:
  the OE intake elbow is ribbed, the silencer delete elbow is smooth...don't really know if that makes much difference until you start pushing serious horsepower. also, the tennis ball sticks INTO the air path causing turbulent flow. Part of the intake's job is to smooth out the airflow, if you got a big fuzzy lump sitting in the airflow you're creating turbulent airflow instead of laminar airflow. again, until you start pushing some serious horsepower (approaching the limits of the stock internals...about 350HP) I don't know if that makes much difference.
  I'm not going to pretend that the $40 intake elbow will give you more power...but sticking a tenis ball in the intake....that is a bit ghetto.
  P.S. the price of those elbows seems to have gone up right after I got mine for $40...now they're $45-$50...and they don't offer free shipping anymore
  I saw n some Wimbledon higlights last week that the tennis ball goes from 0-140+ in like .2 seconds. Have you noticed any of the acceleration rubbing off? Nice upgrade man! :thumbup:
  Instead of jamming a tennis ball in there, which could be dangerous if it gets out....Just slice the silencer box part out and find some sort of lid to plug the hole with, that way you don't have to have that box in there for no reason.
  Discussion Starter • #12 • Jul 8, 2004
  yea i laughed so hard when i first did it... i dont really think the "turbulence" of the airflow is going to matter much for me because it seems like once the air hits the filter its going to smooth out. but yea it is incredibly ghetto and i took the tennis ball out this morning to see if it really did make a diff in sound. i already have a new downpipe so all that wastegate flutter (which i havent fixed) and other noises are already apparent.
  i have no reasoning to not recomment doing this, but i would say to use foam sealent or something because its embarrasing to tell people you upgraded your intake with a tennis ball..they might think your crazy!
  edit:yea i was gonna slice it off but if for some weird reason i had to return to stock i dont want to hafta buy another one!
  ya, it really seems like they aren't worth it anymore, especially when you can just make your own for *maybe* 5 bucks.
  yea, have any of you just completely left the ram air and silencer off? i was thinking of doing this but it seem like alot less air is going to make it into the intake that way.
  this has been a subject of many threads...the jury's still out...i guess noone wants to go blow several hundred dollars on dyno runs to see if they gain 1-3 HP by taking out the plastic thingy.
  personally I'd say keep it. It definately doesn't ADD anything, and it MIGHT reduce performance a little...so why risk losing ANY performance just for a little noise maker??? it just seems silly.
  $25K seems like an awful lot of money to spend on a noisemaker...on the other hand its really not much money at all to spend on a performance car.
  Just post a picture of the tennis ball intake. It will be really funny to see that.
  wrxCIA said:
  I had it off for almost a year and half, never noticed any performance loss...
  sorry dont have my camera anymore... yea it would be funny. someone with a camera could just drop one down there and take a pic if you really want one, or you could imagine!
  alright i think im just gonna toss the whole ram air and silencer thing out for a while see what thats like..alot less ghetto