Experimenting with Intake Air Temp. Request for comments.

SouthArk370Z

Wow! Lots of great info but I don't think you understand the scope of this project. But that doesn't mean I don't appreciate the input - I find it interesting and it may come in handy later on.
The main purpose is to see if a cheap, DIY insulation job will have much of an effect on intake air temperature at the manifold. Any increase in performance will be nice, but the goal is to see if it's possible to keep AIT within "reasonable" levels with little investment of time and money. My target is ~95°F (which I believe is where the ECM starts reducing engine output) or a delta T from ambient of 3-5°F at speed and 10-15°F at a stop light.
I do not plan on using any of my temperature sensors to replace/augment the AIT sensor and the sensors will (probably) be removed at the end of the test. They are strictly for measurement/logging. I will try to insert a sensor next to the AIT sensor for comparison (might give a clue as to whether or not the measurement gets tweaked by the ECM). I plan on putting a sensor in the manifold, the entrance to the duct work, and the TB inlet - but positions may change depending on what I run into.

BTW, the sensors I ordered are waterproof DS18B20 (1-Wire digital temperature sensor/transmitter, –67°F to +257°F) with 2 meter leads. I'm not sure how well they will handle partial vacuum, but the pressure shouldn't be very low upstream of the TBs, so the manifold sensor should be the only one in any danger.
The meter/logger's fastest sample rate is 2secs/scan, but that should be more than fast enough for my purposes.

Yeah. Probably not a big heat source, but one of those "As long as I've come this far, might as well try it" things for me.
I think I can run a bypass line (I can't tell if it will hurt anything to block the flow completely, else I'd just insert a small ball valve in the line) and plug the existing piping.

I wish I could find out exactly what the ECM does with the AIT sensor data - how it may be massaged, is heat gain after the AIT calculated, assumed, or ignored. If the engineers factored in heat gain after the AIT sensor, my insulation may turn out to have an adverse effect on efficiency.

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