Reverie Zolder 150D Intake Fitment

[sltous]

Finished fitting the Zolder 150 intake to my car this week.  I was looking primarily to reduce noise through the foam air filter on the Caterham Roller Barrel Throttle Intake.

 

1. Does it work to reduce noise?

Firm maybe!  In testing, the intake showed a 10db drop at idle from 90db to 80db compared to no intake, with the expected return to 90db when measured in front of the opening.

 

Further, there is a clear change from intake being the loudest part of the car over 4k rpm to the  exhaust being the loudest thing over 4k rpm.

 

At highway speeds, running 4500 rpm at 80mph both the intake and foam filter setups had an indicated 103db putting the decibel meter in the passenger footwell, I have no idea if that is chassis/body panel reverberation, exhaust noise, or wind noise.

 

At non highway speeds, revving to 6700 rpm with foam filter only was an indicated 106db, I do not have the same measurement with the intake fitted but at the same 6700 rpm the exhaust noise was clearly louder than the intake noise based on my uncalibrated ear decibel meter.  Both cases I had the Raceco 7.25″ exhaust fitted.  I would assume 2-3db drop is about the maximum inside the car.  I have not tested in a driveby.

 

2. Does the Ram air effect work?

Firm probably!  At 80mph after fully coming up to temp the intake air is at the same or slightly increased pressure (increase of ~0.1psi, indicated intake pressure increase) and inlet air temperature is flat while the under bonnet temperatures increase.

 

Without the intake at 80mph after fully coming up to temperature the intake air is at reduced pressure (decrease of ~0.1psi, indicated intake pressure increase) and inlet air temperature continues to increase along with the under-bonnet temperatures.

 

These are not large effects but it is definitely a different behavior!

 

I'm not really horsepower limited (I'm mostly skill limited) so the added power was not a huge goal but it was fun to validate the marketing claims.

 

3. Does it look good?

Looks are subjective.  The bulk of the intake ends up essentially taking up the visual space that would otherwise be full of headlight bucket so it is minimally disruptive.  There sure is a lot of carbon fiber visible now.

 

4. Is it worth fitting?

Gigantic pain to install, I can't suggest this as a good idea. You have to really want the noise reduction (still too loud to drive without earplugs), really want the extra ~2-3hp at speed, really want the carbon bling, or really got in over your head (like me) and become determined to finish for the personal satisfaction.

 

I ended up cutting apart Reverie P/N R01SE0502, glued back together and patched the inside with some carbon cloth.  R01SE0502 ended tapering from 120mm to 50mm, fitted a custom aluminum backplate similar to R01SE0437 FACEPLATE adding approximately 6mm thickness bringing my total assembly to approximately a 60mm to 130mm taper.

Followed this adjustment by converting P/N R01SE0590 from PX600 to JC50 specification and then adding a second "JC50 Zolder air box carbon fibre bracket" clamp to the top surface allowing for the cutout on the bonnet to be an acceptable size while still clearing my assembly.

 

The cost of parts is very high, there is a ton of custom and stressful carbon cutting, drilling, gluing, laying up, and sanding.  Wear a really good respirator!

 

Happy to share files for my aluminum backplate design, I used an online service that cut them, bent them, and mailed them fully formed.

[Croc]

Thank you for sharing.

 

How are you doing the data logging?

[sltous]

The decibel measurements is a handheld meter set to record the max level and I can take a look at a stoplight and remember the peaks.

 

 

The rest is the MBE 9a4 ECU connected to an AIM data logger over can bus so piggybacking off the engine control sensors.