honey comb foil panel material where can i get it?

[Davezj]

i am after getting some honey comb foil panel material about 30-50mm think and cell size of about 5mm-10mm diameter.

like this
http://www.kemtron.co.uk/products/emc/aluminium-honeycomb-vent-panels.html
http://www.ambercomposites.com/downloads/datasheet/aac3003-tds-v5.pdf

the trouble with amber is they want a minimum £200 order and only want about 100mmx 100mm.

can anyomne point be in the right direction.

[Davezj]

Someone must know about this.

[horndog]

Google comes up with this? - but its only 20mm thick
http://www.easycomposites.co.uk/products/core-materials/6mm-aluminium-honeycomb.aspx

[Davezj]

Cheers Marc,
I will contact them and see if I can blag a sample of each size.
It would still cost £61 +vat for 20mm thick 1250x625mm.

[Davezj]

Someone else must have had some dealings with this stuff.

[Louis]

Does it have to be conductive? or ar you just looking for something similar

[Davezj]

No it does not have to be conductive.

What did you have in mind

[Jesus-Ninja]

What ya makin', Dave?!

[Davezj]

I want it to try straighten the air flow out before the MAF to see if improves fuel economy.

I think 3cm to 4cm think will be enough to do it an fitting it directly in front of the MAF and behind the air filter should do it. I might have to increase the distance with a small filler pipe between the two, but that would not be difficult to do.

[Jesus-Ninja]

You trying to make cone filters work? :) Good luck if you are! Does it have to be hexagonal? Could you go for something square or round? You could make something by just bunching a load of drinking straws together. If you're straightening airflow out, you want to it travel a reasonably distance in your "device".

I'm currently trying to source a BIG panel filter with plans to make my own airbox for it. Apexi seem to be the best in terms of maintentance and protection. K&N seems to suck on all counts.

[Davezj]

No, I want to leave the standard air box.
But I am not convinced the standard setup is as good as it could be. I don't think the 5mm of plastic mash that it in there as standard does a good enough job.
Due to the issues people have with cone filters, due to turbulent air coming out of the back of it, it got me thinking the standard panel filter would not have a particularly laminar flow out of the back of it, and probably only just copes.

But this just my thought on it, I could be completely wrong but I wanted to prove it one way or the other, it has been bugging me for ages now.

I have got a small section of honey comb foil panel but it is part of a sun shade for an optical sighting scope for a riffle and it is not really the right shape.

[Jesus-Ninja]

Dave - I read this last night: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_conditioning

It's fascinating, and got me to thinking how much do we know about "why" cone filters and pods upset the readings that the stock MAF takes. What you are proposing is to improve on what mitsubishi has done, but what if their set up is built to accommodate the flow from a panel filter? I'm not saying that the panel filter gives the best flow for performance, MAF aside, but that there's a few ways we can look at air flow into the turbos:

* What is the best flow of air for delivering optimum performance - ie getting the stuff in there. The method (eg cone filter?) that is best in theory may upset the stock MAF not reading correctly as a result of changes in the flow characteristics.
* What is the best way to preserve the stock characteristics of the air flow to the MAF - ie so that we can use any filter type and get correct (by stock set up standards) readings?
* Can we "help" the MAF - this is what I think you're considering. Is it possible to get more accurate readings from the stock setup and therefore improve power, response, economy etc.

I know that we all say that it's because anything other than a panel filter gives more turbulance, but are we sure that's the actual reason for the loss in power. We can be pretty sure that it's the MAF that's getting upset by something, but is it perhaps something other than just turbulence - eg a change in the velocity flow profile? (See nerdy link above :) ) Is the MAF set up for a given flow profile - ie if the flow through the centre is a certain amount, then it can derive the total flow. Is it possible that by "improving" the flow profile with something that actually flows better, gives less accurate MAF readings, because the MAF is calibrated for something less than ideal?

Aside from turbulence there is also swirl (slightly different to rubulence). I think that swirl may actually be a good thing, although perhaps not for our MAFs.

I'm kind of rambling now, but I like your thinking, Dave :)

I've been toying with the idea of tube bundles (I had no idea they were called that until I read the link above). With my battery in the boot, I have enough room to run a decent enough length of straight pipe before the MAF. I'd been thinking along the lines of drinking straws bundled together inside a pipe of much larger diameter than the MAF inlet, before a reducer into the MAF. The idea being that you could then bung the filter of your choice on the other end (mine would be Apexi, for a number of reasons).

That said though, Dave, the link above suggests that tube bundles are only so good. In fact it would seem that something like what you are proposing would be better - a perforated plate - this link is good too: http://www.processonline.com.au/articles/38653-Flowmeter-selection-for-improved-gas-flow-measurements-a-comparison-of-DP-and-thermal-dispersion-technologies

Food for thought, and I'm not even sure if there's any answers in there or just more questions! :) It'd be good to make a few test pipes up and run them back to back on some rollers.

[Davezj]

i have tried the staws thing, holding them together with cable ties and glue but the starws don't really lend themselves to being glued, due to the material they are made from.
but that is not to say that if you you fill a tube of the correct size with straews then this would hold them in place. to allow tests to be done.

i was trying to fit about 3-4cm of air starighten right in fron tof the MAF in the standard air box, but at i said above the bundles just kept on coming apart before i had a chance to test it. so that was the main reason for using the pre formed honeycomb sheet.
the front of the MAF is a kind of squashed and streached octagon shape and my bundles didn't really fit, so when i tried to reshape the bundle they all fell apart and i was annoyed to say the least, i used an entier tube of super glue to fix them in position.
i will have to get round to trying this again, now i have done a few other things i can revisit it with fresh eyes.
i will have a look at the links now for some background reading.

[Davezj]

I have posted up some where else on here about my thoughts about accelerating air down a tube to get it to flow quicker and to stop the back pressure stalling of air movement.
my test showed that a small spiral on the inside of of a tube about 1/5 of the radius of the tube does accelerate the air flow dramatically.
the spiral material is perpendicular to the outiside of the tube surface and wraps around in a spiral on the inside of the tube. i found a pair of spirals worked best to ensure the air moves quickly.
the spiral looks like a double helix (vertical DNA strand without the horizontal joining bars)
i am not saying i have done exhaustive testing on this but i have made tubes and spirals and cones with spirals, etc, etc. when i was out of work for a while, it kept my mind busy while waiting for responses to job adds. this was all observational experimants as i didn't have all the test equipmet to do proper flow measurements. but it is obvious to see when you have a masive increase of air flow from a tube.

[Kenneth]

You might be better served to get hold of a program which lets you do fluid dynamics simulation and see what happens rather than randomly trying things.

All that said, I am convinced you are barking up the wrong tree in regards to fuel economy. MAF type sensors are not known for good transient response and I am certain that the majority of fuel use in a VR-4 is down to transient conditions.

The fact that I can get a HUGE variation in fuel economy (over 35%) just by travelling open roads and not being excessively heavy on the accelerator (that bit was hard and I could have done better) makes me even more certain.

I have seen people ruin their fuel economy by playing with the MAF but never seen any improvement over standard. In over 7 years, not ONE case where improvement was made.

[Jesus-Ninja]

I suspect you are right, Kenneth. Personally I'm not driven by trying to improve the accuracy of the stock MAF readings. My suspicion is that Mitsubishi have calibrated it to work, as well or poorly as it does, with the stock airbox. Improving airflow, in an idealistic sense, is not necessarily going to improve the readings that the MAF takes.

I'm more interested in being able to run a different filter (Apexi cone), but whilst increasing flow, maintaining the flow character of the stock panel. The panel is acting like a flow conditioner.

[Wodjno]

I thought that cone filters are ok. As long as they are fitted further away from the MAF. Ie. Near battery, and shielded, boxed away from heat. With the cone filter further away from the MAF allows the air to straighten out before reaching the MAF.

Sent from my HTC Wildfire using Tapatalk

[Jesus-Ninja]

Is that all it needs then - a decent straight run before the MAF? I thought that cones / pods were a no-no with our MAFs. Has anyone done any rolling road analysis to confirm it? The only evidence I'd seen to date was that anything other than a panel gave a power drop - although granted that was with one stuck where the airbox is.

[swinks]

Isn't it that relation MAF vs. ECU is a limit? Thinking about scaling.
Let's say it's similar situation to PC upgrade. If we have computer with 4GB RAM memory (our air flow) and OS system (MAF vs. ECU) has potential to see max. 8 GBP RAM, then regardless if we upgrade RAM up to 16 GB (increase air flow by using supa air filters, etc), OS will see only fraction of upgrade and won't use all benefits of it.

So question is... air flow scaling is there limit within ecu tables or actual maf? And how it can be override, because if not, then any messing about improvement of intake is a bit pointless.

[Jesus-Ninja]

There will be a point at which the map runs out of values for air flow, but I suspect these would be quite high. It's not pointless, or else no one would bother increasing boost.