The Art of DIY Air Intake: A Humorous and Informative Guide

As we embark on this journey to create our own air intake system, it's essential to acknowledge that we're about to get our hands dirty. The boys who helped me make this show really wanna see me make an intake out of poop pipes, so that's exactly what we're gonna do today. With a healthy dose of skepticism and a pinch of creativity, we'll explore the world of DIY air intakes.

Before we begin, it's worth noting that intakes are pretty simple. You just gotta get air into the engine. Pretty much just some tubing... So, if you don't have all that money, fear not! We're about to show you how to create a custom air intake system using plumbing components from the hardware store.

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Our adventure begins with a trip to Home Depot, where we pick up some essential plumbing components. We've got three-inch pipe, couplers, a cone filter, 90-degree elbows, bracing, cement, and hardware store stuff. The total cost? A whopping $75! Not too bad, considering the price tag of an aftermarket air intake system can easily exceed $200.

Now that we have our materials, let's get started on building our custom air intake system. Our goal is to create a 90-degree bend and place our filter right where the air box is, in front of the snorkel. This will allow us to capture some of the airflow coming from under the bumper and funnel it into our engine.

Before we begin, let's listen to how the current intake sounds. (engine revs) Yeah, it's pretty quiet... which, you know, many normal people want. But that ain't us! We're about to make this thing a little bit louder.

Now, piece one is done. Easy as that. Next, we need to get from three-inch actual OD pipe to the 3.5-inch hole. Look at this! The filters have these different rings that sort of allow it to be different sizes? Once you tighten down all that gets sandwiched, and it's like one big piece.

As I stare at this, I can only think of one thing: "Oh my God, the PlumbQuik baby." It's rock solid. Can you say... (laughs) Okay, maybe not that last part.

Before we move forward, let's take a moment to appreciate the TRD intake on Joey's car right now. It's obviously very nice. This is like a traditional panel filter style air box. The filter is nice and protected from the elements. What else is important is the placement of this intake. You can see at the very front, it has a little snorkel that's going under the bumper where there is a bunch of airflow.

The bumper is catching a bunch of air from the front, and then that's getting routed up and funneled into this air box. So, what we're gonna do is basically just try to make a little 90-degree bend and put our filter right here, right where the air box is, in front of the snorkel.

Now, let's get started on piece two. We've got a hose that needs to be pulled out, followed by the MAF housing from an old intake that Joey had. This will allow us to avoid hacking his up and use what we have. Simple solution, right?

With our materials in hand, it's time to start building our custom air intake system. Let's get creative, get dirty, and create something truly unique.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en(dog barks)- Oh my God, the wrinkles.(dog growls)Dang, that's what we gottaget the car to sound likeat the end of all this.You can buy a niceaftermarket air intake systemfor pretty much any car.They make your engine bay look cooler,make your engine sounda little bit better,and heck, they'll oftenbuy you a few horsepower.But, they also cost a lot of money.Often more than $200.What if you don't have all that money?I mean, intakes are pretty simple.You just gotta get air into the engine.Pretty much just some tubing...So...I bought, I went to Home Depot.We're gonna make an intakeout of plumbing componentsfrom the hardware store.Let's be honest for a minute.This is a little bit ridiculous.But, the boys who helped me make this showreally wanna see me make anintake out of poop pipes.So that's what we're gonna do today.What's the worst that can happen?(engine revs)(man cheers)Should I DIY,or should I Don't.♪ Do it ♪♪ Don't do it ♪Jeremiah quit being a tool.Go get yourself our new toolsshirt at donutmedia.com.That's right, we came outwith our all new tools shirt.It's made out of 100% cottonso it's the perfect shirt to wearwhile you work on your car.Or, to give to that one friendwho forgets the name of that one tool.Maybe it'll help you get thatproject car up and runningthat you've been planning on working on.- Yeah, the problem is thatI can't remember what pliers are called.(laughs)This is probably possibly myfavorite shirt we've ever made.First off, I love the color purpleand it looks sick against this gray.And it's like a cheat sheet.If you're in like automotive school,have the person that sits infront of you wear this shirtand you'll get everythingright on the test.Donutmedia.com, get you one today.Trust me, best shirt ever.- Mm hmm, so soft.- Okay, so first off,we've got this piece of three-inch pipe.Plumbing stuff, thingsare a little different.The three inch is actuallymeasured off the ID.So this is actually aboutthree and a half inches,which makes things a little tricky.Not like your normal car stuff.Then I've got these three-inch couplers,which again, are really threeand a half inch couplers.We've got this cone filter.I spent about 30 bucks on this.That's the most automotive partof this whole thing I'd say.Two options for 90-degree elbows.We'll choose whichever one works better.And then I can return theother for even greater savings.Then we've got some sweetbracing for, you know,holding the thing in place.Ooh, I like it for real.We've got some cement for... cementing...For cementing, our bits together.All the hardware storestuff was about 45 bucks.The filter itself was about 30.So we got about 75 bucks here.Not too bad.On Joey's car right now,we've got the TRD intake,and it's obviously very nice.This is like a traditionalpanel filter style air box.So you got a big flat air filter in there.They're great, they comeon pretty much every car.The filter's nice andprotected from the elements.What else is important isthe placement of this intake.You can see at the very front,it has a little snorkel.That's going under the bumperwhere there is a bunch of airflow.The bumper's catching abunch of air from the front,and then that's getting routed upand funneled into this air box.So what we're gonna dois basically just try tomake a little 90 degree bendand put our filter right here,right where the air box is,right in front of that snorkelso that our filter will be catchingsome of the air that'scoming up through the bumper.What we're really gonna gethere hopefully is more noise.So before we take anything offwe should start this thing up,give it a few revs,listen to how it sounds.And then we can do the same at the endand see if we've improved onthe noise quality of this car.All right Mario, fire this pig up.(engine revs)Yeah, it's a pretty quiet intake,which you know, many normal people want.But that ain't us.So let's see if we can makethis thing a little bit louder.Okay, first thing I'm gonna dois just pop out this mass air flow sensor,get it out of the way.For your engine to be able to useall the air that you're getting into it,it needs to know how much is there.And that's where your mass airflow sensor comes into play.It's very important, you have to have it.But if I was trying to do thisas cheaply as humanly possible,I would literally just cut this intakeand use the MAF housingthat's built into the factory intake.But, this isn't my car.This is Joey's car.(engine revs)So we're not gonna hack his up.We do have this from anold intake that he had.This is just a MAF housingand we're gonna use it so thatI don't have to hack his up.We'll pull out this hose,and then we can just takeout the whole intake.Yeah I mean, that's a nice intake.We'd be fine leaving this alone.Okay.Piece one, done,easy as that.Now we need to get from thisthree-inch actual OD pipeto this like three and a half inch hole.You see how these filtershave these different ringsthat sort of allow itto be different sizes?'Cause once you tightenthe hose clamp downall that gets sandwiched,and it's like one big piece.Look at this.Oh my God, the PlumbQuik baby.Oh, hell yeah.That's I mean, that's rock solid.Can you say, "Hell yeah?"God, I just love it whena plan comes together.That's gonna fit in there, no problem.So I need to make some cutsoutta that straight piece.And then that'll hang outta hereand give us room to make our bend.To the saw.This stuff is easy to work with.Way easier than metal.You might wondering whyeverybody doesn't just maketheir intakes out of this.And I mean, kind of sortof a lot of companies do.But the plastics that are usually usedon intakes and in your engine bay area little bit betterdesigned to withstand heat.This stuff from the hardware storeis only good for up to 180 degrees.And engine bays can definitelyget to 200, 225 and beyond.So, we'll see how this holds up.It is very easy to work with,but, it's not quite theright stuff for the jobif we're being honest.We're gonna clean this out real nice.I've got my deburring tool.I wanna make sure we get allthe scraps out of this thingso that we're not sucking anychunks of ABS through Joey's engine.Okay, check this (whistles)And now this.(whistles) That looks pretty good, man.Cool, where's my tape measure?Okay, so I'm gonna wantthat to be about six inches.Mark out our cut.What the ****?My pen doesn't need a jacket.Why would I want this?Whatever.Okay, six inches, right?Right.Good enough for government work.Hm, I think we're gonna trim thisa little shorter than whatwe've got it right now.I don't want it to stickthat far into the filter.But definitely better tostart long and trim her down,than the other way around, so.You know, we might be using poop pipe,but that doesn't mean we wantit to look like poop, right?Okay, I think this is gonna bethe last piece of crap conduitthat we need to insert.So we've placed our filtersuch that it's catching all that cold aircoming through that snorkel.G whiz, a little bit of planning,some great execution, andthis thing's coming together.You know, when you think about it,this pipe is living its best life.It was doomed to carry dung.And now, it's gonna be making power.Now I need to glue togetherall the pipe pieces.This is an all-purpose.This works on PVC and ABS like thisand this will make a permanent junctureof the pieces that we put it on.We made a permanent junctureto the cap to the bottle.Just a little bit like this kinda action.And then one of these type of deals.And you give that a little bit of time,and that'll be one piece forever.All right, now we can workon bracing this thing.Basically mounting it to the chassis,and I think it's gonna be pretty easy.So I've got this thing.This is for hanging poop pipe in,you know, a building like up there.The old anal aqueduct.Okay, so we're gonna doa little bit of bending.Not bad.Now, we'll pull this off.Cut the tail off,put a hole down throughthese two layers and,brace built, baby.Voila.Wow.Oh hell yeah, brother.That's an intake madeout of the kaka canals...We made a sick little hot snake intake.But, the proof is really in the revving.So let's hear this thing.See what it sounds like.Mario, hop in.(engine revs)Sounds a little throatier already.All right, Mario, gimme some revs.(engine revs)Okay, that's enough.She sounds rad.I mean, you can really hearthe engine deep breathingto try to make somepower and it's awesome.Honestly, in my opinion,there's nothing quite likereally good induction sounds,especially on a four cylinder.One of the best ways to make'em sound good in my opinion.- Hey Zach, that sounded annoyingly good.Like even from the other room.- Thank you.Are you gonna be able to handle the power?- Let's find out.(engine revs)It sounds kinda cool.- It's like, woo.(both cheer)- That's not bad.- So much power you don'teven know what to do with it.We don't have the road for it.- I've never had thismuch power in this car.- You got some passengers inyour car and they're like,"Whoa, this thing soundsso frickin' cool."And then you pop thehood and it melted off.- But like, if you find yourself in a jam,where, for some reason,you don't have an intakeand you're like, "Oh, okay.I need to throw somethingon this to drive it home."- Oh yeah, this will get you home.- This will get you home.- Should we takeit to "Cars and Coffee," maybe?- See what the people think.- We just got back from the road testand now let's see if it held up,if it's still where we left it.Hey!- Look at that.- It's not even melted.It sounded pretty good.I think this is, you know,about as good as it can get.But I'm really interested to seewhat this thing would sound likeif we just made it a little bit longer.And I have a spare piece of poop pipe.So let's put it on there,see what it sounds like.See if we can notice a difference.I'm not sure.Probably gonna get a lotof like gravity effecthelping the air down.Yeah, that's pretty cool.That's pretty cool.All right, let's fire this hog up.(engine revs)(man cheers)Hell yeah, brother!Wow, oh my God!Sounds about the same.Looks way cooler though,you can't deny that.And if we did cut a hole in the hoodthink about all the cool coldair this thing would get.This might be the ultimate intake.It also might not.Let's, let's talk about it.Well, we did it.We made an intake out of PVCpiping meant to carry feces.We hardly spent any money.We spent less than 70 buckson the necessary materialsto make an intake.So, not too bad there,especially when you consider thataftermarket intakes oftencost 3, 4, 500 bucks.Didn't take very long.I'd say we were probably at itfor like an hour and a half maybe, tops.Bada bing bada boom, we were done.That not withstanding,it didn't look that bad.If you just walked bythe car at a car show,you might not even think about it.But, it is stuff that'snot meant to be usedin an automotive environment,like in an engine bay,where things get really hot.I don't really actuallyrecommend doing this.But, you know, do what you want.Your mileage may vary.You know, I'm not your dad.I can't really givethis that high a score.I'll give this a oneand a half out of five.I hope you enjoyed it.I hope Joey likes his new intake.Like the video, subscribe to the channel.Don't forget to follow meon Instagram, @zachjobe.Follow donut @donutmediawhile you're there.And I'll see you guys next weekfor another "DIY or Don't."