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Cold Air Intakes: A Waste of Money

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nickolaughagus

New member
Hello everyone,
I'm sure we see this a lot but I recently came across a video that stunned me. This video completely scientifically disproves Cold Air Intakes and leads me to believe that they're just junks of junk. So why are so many people convinced that they need them? Please explain what the guys in this video forgot to account for, so that I can feel good about putting a CAI on my car.
The video is called "Cold Air Intakes Mythbusted"

Cold Air Intakes Mythbusted: http://youtu.be/gCi2yo4UqPI
 


Old video is old, and you have to realize they tested that on one car. You can also go out and find Youtube videos of people just changing the intake and getting an increase on the dyno. There are far to many variables that that video doesn't go into explaining.
 
An automobile is a machine. All the parts in the machine should be formatted to work together.

People who do intakes as their first mod do it for engine noise and "throttle response". In most cases the throttle response is nothing more than a mild change for the butt dyno.

In reality, a cold air intake should be a supporting mod.

That being said, a cold air intake for a factory supercharged car is pretty pointless due to supercharger heat soak.
 
I was going to say try dynoing on a modded car once with stock intake, once with cold air intake, I bet the results would be different.
 


I just looked on YouTube and the only dyno runs before and after that I can find are those from cold air intake sellers. Lol. Some of them claim that they got an extra 27 hp from having a CAI alone

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Jannetty Racing did a dyno test of different intakes on a 100% stock 900 mile Gen 5 Camaro with the hood closed as it would be in normal driving applications.

The highest peak horsepower gain was 15.9 and 10.6 ft/lb torque.
* They note that this intake took an hour for them to install and the car was pinging due to running lean, which means it would require a tune to run properly (Read: The gains were mostly from running lean to the point of being dangerous)

https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tQetE2V6iXkPIRG35oX6CFQ&single=true&gid=1&output=html
 
I like the spreadsheet, that's pretty convincing, it's always hard to tell with car mods if it really does anything for the car. I guess I'll be on the search for the right intake!

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Closed box is the best design. I'm not sure if wizaired is still around, but people used to really like thier intakes for the 3800.
 


And some cars (3800 Firebird) have a giant muffler on the intake that sits directly behind the radiator that soaks up a boatload of heat and actually warms the incoming air, as well as a restrictor plate in the air box, and "noise canceling" fins in the airbox lid. Switching to "cold" air intake had a seriously noticeable change in acceleration, especially from a stop.
 
nickolaughagus said:
I like the spreadsheet, that's pretty convincing, it's always hard to tell with car mods if it really does anything for the car. I guess I'll be on the search for the right intake!

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Click to expand...

Make a fender well search how to make a fender well intake and click on the one that mentions cx racing
 
I lost .43 WHP installing my cold air twin induction super vortex kit.

The OP knows all.
 
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The sister company to the company I just left was developing an intake kit for the 2007+ Silverado. They made a brand new design filter, a new MAF tube, couplers, and we made a heat shield for it. Before and after dyno testing had it pick up something ridiculous like 23 hp and 42 ft lb of torque over the stock air box/filter. There was no hanky panky done either. This was a legit dyno run done on my good friends dyno.
 
So that just says that factory air boxes are poo? Did they test that compared to like an open cone like lots of people do here?

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Interesting, I still never saw how CAI were worth the money tho. While moving I never saw my IATs go 10-14 over ambient with stock box and open cone, and even with the shielding it would just get heat soaked anyway. Meh

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Russosaur said:
Interesting, I still never saw how CAI were worth the money tho. While moving I never saw my IATs go 10-14 over ambient with stock box and open cone, and even with the shielding it would just get heat soaked anyway. Meh

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Click to expand...

Each platform is different, some cars will see gains some won't. Our cars it just makes more intake noise is all.

Sent from A Galaxy Far Far Away........
 
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