In our never ending quest for more horsepower and more importantly, affordable horsepower, gearheads have tried every known trick in the book. Back in the day, taking your air filter off and adding octane boost were the go-to moves before a street race. Simple weight reduction tricks like removing the rear seat, spare tire, jack and anything else that made a home in the trunk helped the power to weight ratio, giving you an immediate advantage over someone who did not pay attention to these “secrets.”
Removing your air filter certainly helped to introduce more air into your carburetor, but it also introduced any dirt and flying debris that happened to be within a vacuum pull away. We quickly found out that not all air is created equal. Non-filtered air brought a host of problems into the engine. Hot air from high under hood temperatures brought little to no value to the “increased air” philosophy. Then came the introduction of the factory ram air and cowl induction.
