Has anybody tried the Volant Air Induction System with or without the air scoop attachment? Comments, Pros and Cons please.

 

The Volant scoop is designed to be used with their induction for the 1/2 ton 4.8, 5.3 and 6.0 trucks. I have a Volant in both of my trucks and fabricated a tube that allowed me to use the scoop with one of them. I wouldn't say that it's a night and day difference but it's better to have cool air ramed in over just drawing air from the bottom of the box. I haven't found any drawbacks to using the air scoop.

Tom

 

You can make your own ram-air system alot cheaper than going the Volant route if you want, but I've heard the Volant system are quality pieces. You can keep the stock air box and cut a 3" or 4" hole in the bottom of it using a hole saw. Then cut a hole in the lower metal mouting plate that the air box bottom attaches to. Get some 3" or 4" flex duct and run it up through the bottom of the air box bottom. You'll need a scoop, I used a 5"x10" home a/c register for a scoop that I got from Home Depot, I trimmed it to the correct angle and mounted it in the hole next to the passenger side fog light (2wd truck, no tow hooks). I attached the flex duct to the scoop and you have a ram-air system similar to the Volant system for much cheaper. If you want to replace the intake tube as well, AirAid makes replace tubes, you can get them at www.macromotive.com for about $110. The hole set up would cost maybe $150 ($200 if you bought a K&N filter) vs the $400+ of the Volant system and their air tube. Just a thought.
Jim

 

I got the Volant and ramair tube on my truck, kinda pricey for what you get, but it looks the most stock out of doing a home made tube. I only noticed that the ramair helped when doing 80 or over. It improved my mileage at 80 since I go everywhere on the freeway at about that speed. But when getting up there on speed and cruising to cali, it makes a pretty good difference in mileage and power going up the hills. I noticed a good gain up there but, for the most part, I think that it is a completely unneccesary mod. Maybe if you do a lot of freeway driving like mine, than it would help you. The ony drawback that I see is that it acts like a freakin vacuum cleaner for the freeway. I look at my filter every 1000 miles or so, and remove it and shake off all the little rocks and stuff that get all in and on the filter and airbox. Then I have to rotate the filter to move the completely soiled side away from the inlet where it gets dirty. It also makes the filter get completely filthy within 3000 miles. I have had to clean mine twice already with only 7800 miles!

 

I second what hodgeee says but to fix the problem of the filter getting dirty from the ram-air tube picking up sand & dirt I did the following: Went down to lowes and picked up some solar window screen, cut a small circe out and placed it over the outlet of the ram air piece then connected the rubber hose to the air box, and there you go a pre-screen filter.

 

Thank you one and all for your replys. This gives me further food for thought.

One thing that I am trying to track down is that on the Silverado SS Prototype a couple of years ago the only mod that they susposedly did to the induction system was to add a bell mouth opening to the factory air box.

Also, I talked to Lingenfelter and asked if they used any kind of modified air box on their trucks with Gen 3 engine installations (in addition to their own version of the RADIX supercharger, they blueprint and build strokers, etc.). I was told no, the use the factory air induction system as is. I currently have a rectangular K&N filter.

 

I ended up buying the Volant Air Induction System from Tom Byrne and I really like it. It's quiet at constant throttle settings below half-throttle. It sounds authoritative under harder acceleration. I didn't buy the ram air tube, but I may in the future.