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#2534 - 04/27/08 07:54 AM Vararam CAI  
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 5,176
teamzr1 Offline
Owner - Pays the bills
teamzr1  Offline
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Lives in Engine Bay

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Posts: 5,176
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We find it hard to understand why people continue to believe the marketing hypes of vendors who claim to have a ton of customers have to spend their time soaking the forums selling car owners hype and people buying it.

We have seen countless times when doing custom tunes that everytime the car has this product of an ill performing powertrain.

Anyone believing the RAM effect at the nose of the front end needs to look at the C/D, fuel mileage abd drag to know no air would be RAMMING into designs such as the Vararam and in fact if you look at it's design limits airflow

Worse is cheap design slanted for high profit margins and their claims of performance over hyped.

In this example we look at two Corvettes, one has more overall mods and outputs more HP and Torque yet the caprtured engine data from feedback sensors such as the MAF prove this product is not what you want to spend your hard earned money on.

If you look at the results related to airflow between the car with the Vararam and then the other with the Blackwing and our Icebox CAI you see even though the car outputting more performance ( as a CAM where the other does not) is getting less air to the cylinders.
Both C5s are in the same weather, city and elevation

Vararam C5 ------------------------ Blackwing/Icebox

37 lbs/min Max ------------------- 41 lbs/min Max
0.770 grams/cylinder ------------ 0.970 grams/cyl
492 CFM air volume ------------- 590 CFM

The Vararam C5 ran average intake air temps 10-15 degrees hotter then what the weather was where the Blackwing/Icebox C5 had average temps that equaled the weathers temp

In this case the Vararam C5 we had tuned 1 month ago. We told the owner what we saw in the OBD collected scanner data as to the performance costs using this product.

Owner contacts us 1 month later that rich DTC error codes suddenly after 1 month tripped.

We had owner do a testrun with a Ease OBD scanner in record mode and email us the recording to analyze. From that data we concluded that the Vararam caused the engine to go -14 % too rich.
Owner checks out the Vararam to find what we see is common due to bad design and cheap makeup of their product in that corners of the top and bottom cases do not seal causing the air to devert.
As seen with the lower image below to make this car function correctly we had to tune fuel flow in a odd way in that airflow was poor in some engine loads needing less or more fuel through out the engine load and RPM range.
Image shows the Blackwing/Icebox C5 and how linear the commanded fuel flow is where the Vararam required odd tuning to correct airflow issues but in no way can solve the poor design that causes the cheap airfilters used to break up or the CAI to be ill fitted and cause unmetered airflow that confuses the PCM and how it adapts to this plus the fact hot dirty air from engine bay gets sucked into the leaks.

Attached Files vararamcmp.jpgvararamcmp2.jpg

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#3060 - 05/28/09 05:07 PM Re: Vararam CAI [Re: teamzr1]  
Joined: Dec 2000
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teamzr1 Offline
Owner - Pays the bills
teamzr1  Offline
Owner - Pays the bills
Lives in Engine Bay

Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 5,176
America
Tuning a 2006 Z06 where the owner paid the big overpriced newest Vararam product with the adult name of snake charmer.
As the norm they make big claims but this is what we found.

1. It uses nothing more then a flat air filter that is less then what stock filter is.

2. most of radiator shroud is cut off for this product but them causes deflecting airflow where it is needed for water cooling

3. Worse is the "funnel" that has owner smashing open the bottom area of front fascia ( GM has had lots of engine functioning issues and has a TSB just about this [copy on this forum]). As we tested this tunnel deverts the needed airflow away from the radiator and monitoring water temp and then taking this off we found this product induced water temps up by 20 degrees !

4. the top is mounted to the bottom section with nothing then a rubberband like strap on bot ends. The 2 sections have no real tight fitting together as only some foam between the two and being there is nothing bolting this to the shroud over time the 2 sections are no longer mated well and sucking in hot engine bay air.

5. In testing performance between this installed and stock on the same day we found ZERO performance gains in summer weather above 75 degrees.

6. This funnel which is very low to the ground has a good chance of sucking rain water into engine causing hydrolocking.

After several hours of testing and analyzing we find this newest Vararam product belongs in this Useless Vendor section of forum. bana

Attached Files snakecharmer.jpg

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#3061 - 05/28/09 05:36 PM Re: Vararam CAI [Re: teamzr1]  
Joined: Dec 2000
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teamzr1 Offline
Owner - Pays the bills
teamzr1  Offline
Owner - Pays the bills
Lives in Engine Bay

Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 5,176
America
Being the Snake charmer was already install we tested that first ( top results) and then within 1 hour of installing stock filter setup and plugging up the radiator hole it's test was done so same weather, gas, driver, etc ( bottom results)

Notice the difference in water temps


Attached Files test1.jpgtest2.jpg

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#3091 - 06/25/09 04:02 PM Re: Vararam CAI [Re: teamzr1]  
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 5,176
teamzr1 Offline
Owner - Pays the bills
teamzr1  Offline
Owner - Pays the bills
Lives in Engine Bay

Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 5,176
America
Here is what that vendor has Corvette owners do to fit their junk product in. sex

With most of the radiator shroud cut out and there air plate the end results is air swirling and deflects air away from radiator causing water temps to be 20 plus degrees higher then when totally stock

Attached Files vararamshroud.jpg

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True Custom Performance Tuning
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