In early September I went with a one-off type component: Rod Bower’s Ram Air System. Normally Rod works with the RV gang, but I spoke with him at length about using this on a Long-EZ, and I think this is the polished, albeit more sexy version of what James Redmon built (himself!) for his Berkut. And since James’ Berkut is literally one of the nicest canards in the world, I gotta have something nicer than him! Ha!
If I haven’t explained it previously, a Ram Air system is fairly straightforward in operation and does what it’s named: It simply takes an external, isolated source of air and rams it into the intake manifold via the fuel injector servo WITHOUT being filtered. Yes, I did say it’s UNFILTERED AIR being RAMMED into the engine intake.
“Ok, is that smart?” you ask. Of course not! At least not on the ground! Ahhh, so the beauty of Rod’s system is that you throw a lever (or a servo switch) and a butterfly valve closes off the outside air source. The air, then, is brought in through the 4 reed valves on the side of the aluminum coffee-can sized housing that just so happens to have a K&N filter therewith inside. Thus, on the ground, or close to it, the air is in fact filtered. Bit once airborne, the valve is opened to let the ram air do its magic, ala Red Bull Racers, thereby providing anywhere from about 1–1.5 inch gain in manifold pressure. Brilliant!
And here’s what it looks like:
And installed on a tractor setup: