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I'm going to build a custom air intake box soon

B

bdemutis

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I'm going to be building my own cold air intake soon. I'm going to make the box out of 16g steel of aluminum with the box open on the passenger fender side to allow air to flow in from the fender. So it's going to be 3 sided with a Plexiglas lid. For the plumbing I'm going to use a 3" 180* degree mandrel bent aluminum tube for a intercooler. For air filter I was thinking the same one used on the 7.3 cold air intake #6637 dry flow heavy duty filter. When ever I get around to doing this project once I clean the garage and make room for my welder lol. I'll upload some measurements and photos.
 
For a cold air box, you want to transfer the least amount of heat through the metal. The only metal that conducts better than aluminum is copper. Might I suggest mild steel instead? Stainless steel would be even better. Remember electricity and heat are the same in conductivity, so the more electrical current the metal (or anything) blocks, the more heat it will block.
If you want to get fancy and stop a lot of the heat coat the metal in ceramic paint and some form of insulation.
Even better choices if you know to work with them would be fiberglass or plastics.
 
Have read where some have modded marine battery boxes. Consider checking car-part for used K-47 boxes; just need to use care that they are from the 6.5L.

The 6637 will probably flow more than enough air, but might find the fitment a little tight when using it insied a CAI box. Consider going with the K-47 style round filter.
 
I had thought the 6637 would be a restriction because of its water resistant properties however after digging through the web I find it will flow 470+ cfm at 8.0" of H2o so it should flow upwards of 750+ cfm with lesser restrictions in intake system design. A well built 6.5td is capable of handling 750+ cfm plus flow @ WOT this is why the bigger turbos like ATT & HX40w are such great upgrades.
 
JayTheCPA said:
Have read where some have modded marine battery boxes. Consider checking car-part for used K-47 boxes; just need to use care that they are from the 6.5L.

The 6637 will probably flow more than enough air, but might find the fitment a little tight when using it insied a CAI box. Consider going with the K-47 style round filter.
Click to expand...
Never thought of that and I was looking at the k-47 on car part but I wanted to build my own and try and fit the big filter on I'll have to measure and get filter dimensions offline and measure the fender area.
 
FellowTraveler said:
I had thought the 6637 would be a restriction because of its water resistant properties however after digging through the web I find it will flow 450+ cfm at 8.0" of HO2 so it should flow upwards of 750+ cfm with lesser restrictions in intake system design. A well built 6.5td is capable of handling 750+ cfm plus flow @ WOT this is why the bigger turbos like ATT & HX40w are such great upgrades.
Click to expand...
So way to much flow for my stock turbo?
 
Well its 12" by 8" with a 4" inlet battery box is only 11.5" long so that filter might be a no go unless I'm making a hot air intake with no box lol.
 
bdemutis said:
. . . [the 6637] was such a good filter for the 7.3 it might work well on the 6.5.
Click to expand...

It is a great choice for the 7.3 DI as the system has an intercooler and is much more tolerant to sucking in warm air.

Seeing as the ATT does not need an intercooler (IIRC it actually is better without one), the 6637 might work just as well with warm air, but personally I will not go back to a WAI setup as it makes too much drone.

If you can figure out a box that is big enough for the 6637, fits under the hood, and has enough distance from the turbo, my vote is to go for it! :)


bdemutis said:
Well its 12" by 8" with a 4" inlet battery box is only 11.5" long so that filter might be a no go. . .
Click to expand...

Maybe get two boxes, cut the walls accordingly, and epoxy them together for a longer box? Still need enough room around the sides as something is telling me that a big filter with no room around it will result in a restriction of flow.
 
JayTheCPA said:
It is a great choice for the 7.3 DI as the system has an intercooler and is much more tolerant to sucking in warm air.

Seeing as the ATT does not need an intercooler (IIRC it actually is better without one), the 6637 might work just as well with warm air, but personally I will not go back to a WAI setup as it makes too much drone.

If you can figure out a box that is big enough for the 6637, fits under the hood, and has enough distance from the turbo, my vote is to go for it! :)




Maybe get two boxes, cut the walls accordingly, and epoxy them together for a longer box? Still need enough room around the sides as something is telling me that a big filter with no room around it will result in a restriction of flow.
Click to expand...
There is no intercooler on a 7.3 from 94 to 97 the intercooler was integrated into a 7.3 in the super duty body style witch started in 98.
 
Think also about swapping the battery and air box locations. I did it on mine and it has a little ram air effect. I'll try to find my post on that.
 
You said eco and tow chip what about 3 positions like eco tow and one that just dumps fuel for truck show
 
On this one they were relocated under driver side rear seat area, probably not something most will want to do. The simplest thing is just to swap bat and air box. Use an aftermarket battery mount and mount it to fender or you could even mount it to firewall by changing spots with coolant tank.
Pretty simple things to do and not much money.
 
n8in8or said:
Installation time!! The first step was to remove the old battery tray because I was going to swap the locations of the battery and air intake for better routing. I wanted to do that eventually, but since I still have a MAF meter on my truck it was going to be difficult to impossible to route it with the existing configuration. Even with the battery moved, the MAF still proved troublesome and made me change my intake routing plan...though it turned out ok in the end. I intend to make a fully enclosed and insulated airbox in the old battery location later this year.

The battery relocation was much more difficult than I expected. Using the stock battery tray didn't work as I hoped because it was too tall. So I had to cut the indentation off the bottom of it and weld a flat 11 gauge piece of steel on the bottom. It turned out ok in the end, but not what I planned.View attachment 43911 View attachment 43912 View attachment 43913 View attachment 43914 View attachment 43915 View attachment 43916 View attachment 43917 View attachment 43918 View attachment 43919 View attachment 43920
Click to expand...

n8in8or said:
To make the intake work, I needed to cut a piece off an existing piece of intake tube that I had in order to take up the space between the smaller MAF meter and the new 4" silicone tube. I also had to cut the BRAND NEW 90 to make the routing work, which ticked me off, but oh well, it worked. I was going to use 2 90s with a short section of 4" exhaust pipe in the middle that I was going to weld a bung to for the attachment of the CDR pipe. You can see what I ended up with instead. It works ok, just not what I intended. Also, here is the painted battery tray.

View attachment 43921 View attachment 43925 View attachment 43926 View attachment 43927 View attachment 43923 View attachment 43924 View attachment 43922
Click to expand...

I did an airbox/battery location swap when I installed my HX40. I modified the existing battery tray to work. A word of caution - make sure you place the battery far enough away from the firewall so the hood hinge doesn't hit it when closing the hood.....ask me how I know. :shifty:

My air filter will be open for a little while, but soon I will be making my own airbox in the front corner of the engine compartment. So far I'm planning on using some aluminum sheet I have (I'm guessing about 16 gauge, but don't know for sure at the moment) because it will be easy to work with. Then I will cover it with DEI Floor & Tunnel Shield to keep the heat out. If I find some nice sheets of ABS plastic when it comes time to make it, then I may use that instead. If you work on yours before I work on mine I will be interested to see what you do.
 
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