This is exactly what I was Looking for. Just purchased 3 inch intercooler pipping which should give me enough bends and pipes to cut and customize something. Regarding water, does it hit the filter in that location? It rains here in the summer pretty bad.

 

The bottom edge of my filter opening is 13" off the ground, but the piping is lower. So, a deep puddle could be a problem. Also, the OEM plastic undertray has openings where the bolts are, so water can come right up in there easily. (Look closely at the last pic and you'll see the elliptical openings.)

So, long term I planned to move the filter higher and put some rubber baffles around it to block any water splashing in. But first I got a wild hair and thought I'd try a K&N right off the turbo intake pipe (in the original Greddy filter location). Wow, I'd forgotten how loud the T518Z is! Probably the biggest benefit of a CAI like this is that it muffles the intake noises. You'll be surprised at how quiet it makes your car. (I'll be hooking my CAI back up shortly.)

 

I want to do this when I get my S/C kit

 

The *only* thing I would be careful about is the length of the intake piping versus its diameter.
I really can't say if that would be an issue in inducing a restriction. The analogy would be a small straw (like those coffee blender or cocktail straws) versus a large boba or milkshake straw.... we all know which is easier to suck thru. But I don't know how it would affect the intake, so that's why I used 3" piping and kept the length as short as possible.

It's not shown clear in my pics, but I routed the pipe from the Garrett GT30 turbo:
- Straight 3" hump hose coupler
- 90* 3" aluminum bend
- 45* 3" silicone coupler between steering rack and crossmember (I have a 11mm steering rack bumpsteer kit spacer kit I made out of aluminum)
- 45* & 90* 3" aluminum bends (welded)
- 3" AEM Dryflow filter

The last section of pipe was fabbed, two 45* bends welded but you can just use 2 sections coupled with a silicone hose.
This routing keeps the length as short as possible but you need to have the bumpsteer spacer for the 3" pipe.

For the Greddy T518z turbo:
- Greddy flanged intake pipe. This pipe is 60mm diameter (2.36") so you would have to commit to cutting it and using a coupler. I would do a 2.25" to 2.5" 90* bending reducer to a 2.5" straight pipe
- 45* 2.5" to 3" bending reducer so it fits between the steering rack and the crossmember.
- 3" 45* & 90* bends + silicone couplers
- 3" AEM Dryflow filter

Of course, you'd have to measure and mock up the bends and lenghts that would be needed.

This is a bit more work and more expensive than what Torque Obsessed did, the advantage is the shorter length of piping. Torque's setup looks to be pretty good too. Anyway just a suggestion and another way of doing it to keep in mind.

 

I used the 3" since it was the size of the turbo inlet(Just measured my current pipe).

I did see that it looks like the space is pretty tight in there to fit a 3" piping all the way to the front bumber faux. Regarding the length, are their any negative effects of it being too far away from the turbo. I know NA cars dont seem to have many problems when they add a CAI which seems to be longer then the piping we would use.

 

The shorter and bigger, the better, to an extent. That's why I went with 3" CAI piping feeding into the 2.5" Greddy intake (compensating for the additional length with larger diameter).

How much HP is yours making? That will determine the minimum CFM required, which in turn dictates the minimum pipe diameter. The CAI isn't an issue for NA cars because they're making so little power that they don't require much airflow. Ha! Kidding...

If I was keeping my Greddy kit, the next step would be to mimic Engineer X's shorter routing. (I'm planning a custom GT30R setup for Q1 next year, so I'm trying to resist further modding this kit.)

 

I have 345hp and 235tq at 9psi. Currently have a pipe, probably 1 1/2 feet long from the turbo. So it gets pretty hot. I wanted to build a setup which allows me to remove the one of the pipes giong down to the faux vent incase there is a storm to prevent any type of issues.

I also was going to cover the filter with some sort of plastic casing to prevent any spashes hitting the filter from the bottom or faux vent.

 

K&N sells a filter cover that resists water. It's like a sleeve that fits over their filters. I remember seeing it on their website, but can't recall where exactly, sorry.

 

It would only be a problem if the piping was too small.
For ~450hp you'll need around 700 CFM of air

air traveling in a pipe at more than 304mph become turbulent and that's when it would become problematic to have a small pipe.

In 2.25" piping in order to carry 700cfm of air, the air sucked in would be traveling at around 288mph so it should be ok since that's for about 450hp at the crank. (I got the pipe/CFM/air speed figures from a table in a fluid dynamics book)

 

Very nice info.