Thread: Sunday’s Soup- Short Ram Air Intake - Does brand Matter ? Is it worth it ?

I am looking into this for first time . I was curious If this is one of those moments where it’s all the same product with a different logo on the front or is there a certain brand of what actually have benefits ? Also is this something that is even worth spending the money on? Thanks for the feedback

There isn't any reason to change the stock air intake unless you are going to a turbo. The stock box pulls cooler air from under the headlight and isn't ingesting all the hot air from under the hood. If you feel the need to blow money on a HAI then have at it. Unless you isolate the intake charge from the rest of the underhood heat then it's a waste of money. This is one of those "moments" that will lighten your wallet and not make a bit of difference.

I picked up 8whp on the Dyno by switching from stock to a hai. I basically put the filter right on the throttle body.

There isn't much advantage to an HAI or short ram over our stock aircleaners in the '99 & newer models. The only advantage would be sound and the flow of the filter especially if the one in the stock airbox was dirty. Most of those ebay short rams come with junk filters. Plus putting hot air in a supercharged engine is not good. The only way I would do that is if you got one with a k&n or s&b filter & then fabricated a shield with some reflectix & already have a functional ram air hood. Otherwise your best bet is saving up for a cold air box such as the Wizaired CAI or fabricating a fenderwell setup

cold air intakes don't do much, the supercharger super heats the air, so the gains are negligible

Air In - Air Out

For superchargers, once you start drawing more than 3.8-3.4 pulley levels in, you want to relieve the "straw" effect as much as reasonably possible. Prior to that, yes, a clean 99+ airbox setup is sufficient for most, as mentioned.

Once you get into some upgrades with cam/headers/rockers/etc. giving you more boost, you'll want to maximize the diameter of everything ahead of the s/c rotors (see avatar image). TB diameter should get to at least 75mm and anything ahead of that should be larger, especially when it has bends (min. 4" dia. pipe to a cone filter). By the time you're making 350+whp, and get intercooled, there are many things already taking care of these minor tweaks that affect power. Doesn't hurt to toss some effort into shrouding the cone with a box, but up to you to monitor how your car's behaving with different intake temps at that point.

The shroud is overrated. The fastest times and highest dyno's have come from cars with a filter right on the TB, or none at all.