Air Intakes – And what we chose!

We recently purchased a 2019 Ram Rebel and we are loving the truck! We have been looking at snorkels, and other air intakes for a few different reasons. Lets take a look at intake types, functionality, and what we decided to go with.

Air Intake Functionality

To make power the internal combustion engine needs to main ingredients air and fuel. Air intakes bring cool, clean (filtered) air into the engine to mix with the fuel to create combustion. Most air intakes pull air from the front grill, wheel well, or a lower vent away from the heat of the engine. This is ideal because cooler air generates more power.

Snorkels

Many people overcome this issue by installing a snorkel system which raises the intake, usually to the roof line, providing access to clean air and away from water. Snorkels are great but they have some downsides. When installing a snorkel you often have to drill into the side of the vehicle to bring the inlet tube out. We did not want to do any drilling. There is also no snorkel kits available for our truck so it would have to be a custom build. The truck is pretty tall and we are not going to be traversing water deeper than a couple of feet. So a snorkel was not the right fit.

Cold Air Intakes

Cold air intakes usually replace the baffled intake tube with a smooth tube that is designed to deliver as much air as possible in a smooth motion. These intakes often increase power, sound, and in some cases MPG. Cold air intakes are designed with some sort of heat shielding to separate the intake air from the heat of the engine. These intakes often replace small paper filters with larger oiled filters, allowing more airflow. The downside for us is that most of these cold air intakes use the same location for air inlet. We were looking for something that raised the air inlet, gave more power, and hopefully increased MPG.

Ram Air Intakes

From Wikipedia: A ram-air intake is any intake design which uses the dynamic air pressure created by vehicle motion to increase the static air pressure inside of the intake manifold on an internal combustion engine, thus allowing a greater massflow through the engine and hence increasing engine power.

Air Intakes Off-Road

Driving on the road presents very little issues when it comes to the design of air intakes. There is no significant water or dust/dirt to deal with. This changes quickly when you are designing a vehicle to tackle harsh terrain that includes many dirt roads and water crossings. We are building this truck to be able to take us into the back country and we don’t want to worry about getting large amounts of dirt or water in the intake, potentially leaving us stranded.

What we chose

The Hemi motor we have in the Ram has a unique intake location. The intake manifold is directly on top of the motor. This allows for an intake to be mounted on top of the motor as opposed to the side. We decided on the Veraram Airgrabber air intake system which mounts right on top pf the motor.

Here is why we chose this system:

The air inlet is now moved roughly 12″ from where it was.

The air intake has a much larger surface area, allowing more airflow.

The filter is easy to remove, clean, and replace.

On the highway air is forced through the grill directly into the intake. This generates more power, and an increase of 1-3 MPG depending on the terrain.

The filter frees up room for a dual battery system that we are going to install under the hood.

It looks badass! Totally gives the truck a hot rod style and sound!

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What should you choose?

It all depends on your needs, and driving style. If you are planning on hitting a ton of water, and you have a lower vehicle go with a snorkel. If you are doing a lot of dusty trails consider a cold air intake in a box, or a snorkel. If you stick to the roads maybe a cold air intake or a ram air intake.

If you have questions about intakes, or just want to chat, hit us up! Get Up, Get Out, and Create Adventure!