I was running an Injen for the past few months. It's a great looking intake with an awsome roar. Sound I really don't need so I decided to put my modified stock intake back on the car. The mod to my stock intake is the opening of the lower resonator box, under the battery tray for another source of air. The most restrictive part of the stock intake I believe is the scoup section.

While I had everything apart I cleaned the TB, it really wasn't dirty, it had be done about 3 or 4 months ago. I also decided to clean the MAF sensor. I sprayed the intake air cleaner onto the sensor and screen and wiped down the side walls. I never touched the sensor, only sprayed it clean.

I'm not sure if it's the stock intake or the cleaning of the MAF, but my low end accelleration made a nice come back. I had read a thread a while back where somebody else reporting better power in the low end after a MAF cleaning as well.

Next time you have your intake out to clean your throttle body, give the MAF sensor a blast of cleaner as well. You might be pleasently suprised.

If anybody would like an Injen, please visit this thread.

what kind of cleaner? alcohol?

This is why you lowend came back. I bet your tip-in acceleration feels stronger too? I think the 4th gen intake just needs a little tweaking to perform. Hybrids and POP intakes seem to make around the town driveability a bit annoying (lack of initial acceleration, very noisy, heat issues) plus I haven't seen any measureable difference on the dyno or at the track between a modified stock intake and a hybrid.


Dave

I agree with you Dave. I think just giving the stock setup another source of air, (not by hacking the air box) like I did with the resonator box really is the best of both worlds. You don't lose any tip-in accelleration, as you call it, and you get maybe a slight edge up top. The car definately feels smoother overall.

Even with my hacked airbox, the motor feels significantly smoother at every single rpm. When I've sealed my airbox and run your kind of setup it's even smoother, I wonder why that is. The aftermarket intakes make the VQ a bit buzzy. It's still really smooth with a aftermarket intake, but with the hacked/OSCAI it's like glass.


Dave

I only run an open intake when it's cold out. It gets so hot and humid here that it just kills your power. I run OSCAI in the summer and a cone filter in the winter.

I am also back to (completely) stock intake w/K&N panel filter and it seems better all around than my other intakes. I am debating whether to mod the stock intake in any way. I was getting tired of the intake noise but I forgot how quite the stock intake is, I feel like I am driving an electric car

Your setup sounds like a more conservative version of the OSCAI. With this setup it seems to me that you would have the two air sources coming straight at each other causing turbulance, I don't know if this would matter though. I wonder if the lower resonator box is also there to intercept some of the dirt that comes in with the intake air.

The scoop opening looks way to small to me but they way the stock intake works so well I am starting to wonder if the engineers at Nissan did this on purpose for some reason.

NJ, how did you modify your stock air box, i saw the 1 member say you did not hack the box so exactly what did you do???

Look under your batter tray, theres a sealed resonator box under there. Take it out, you have to remove most of the stock piping to get at it. Open up the back of it by drilling holes in it. Make swiss cheese out of it with a 3/4 inch drill bit. You wind up with another source of air for the stock piping. It does not increase noise at all and I feel it allows the engine to breath just a little better when you get on it.

There are no negative effects at all with this mod and nobody will ever know anything was done to your car. You can't see or hear it.

when u initially swiss cheesed it do you believe that you gained some power? or did it feel the same as stock?

Tom,

I don't quite understand what you mean by "open up the back of it by drilling holes in it". Do you mean the top part that faces the battery tray, or would it be the front part (facing the front/headlamps/front bumper)?

Could you elaborate just a little bit more, please?

back to the MAF spray, did you just use the CRC air intake cleaner? or what exactly did you use? I might give it a try but dont want to break my MAF from wrong spray.

I cleaned mine with rubbing alcohol and a q-tip.

Just straight up rubbing alchohol or did you dilute it at all? Im gonna clear my real soon, and the TB too. Cant wait to see if theres a diff.

ardika - By the back I'm refering to the side that faces twards the fender. Directly opposite of the hole for the tube from the intake system.

This is the absolute truth. Now that the weather is cooling down again I can feel the power coming back with the Frankencar. The car is doing that insane pull from 65-110 that I remember from when I first put it in last spring. HAI's will definitely make you slow when it's hot and/or humid. When the temperature dropped this weekend after weeks of hot/humid weather I literally could not believe how much faster the car was.

I think I might start doing what you do...HAI in winter, OSCAI or njmaxseltd's intake mod during the summer. I hadn't heard about swiss cheesing the resonator, so thanks for that njmaxseltd.

I dunno. I need to put the other half of my stock airbox back in and see what's what. I'm wondering if there might even be another way to get air from somewhere higher up in the front or maybe some way of coupling the stock intake with another hose and attaching those to the stock airbox while eliminating all the twists and turns in the stock one. I like the idea of the OSCAI, but there must be a better place to mount it.

Disclaimer: I have zero familiarity with the resonator on the Max... so I could be talking out my wazoo here.

There are two resonators on my '95 Nissan Hardbody with the V6. I have removed one and I will eventually get around to removing the other one (down in the fender wall). Many people have done this modification/removal with no problems.

Is there a reason that you couldn't just remove the resonator on the Maxima?

i used strait rubbing alcahol on mine and let it dry. it got low end back, especialy from 1.5-3.

The biggest limitation to the stock intake is the air box inlet. The inlet from the snorkel is smaller than the outlet going to the throttle body. No matter how much extra air you feed the stock snorkel it will not be able to match what the throttle body is capable of sucking in (because of the size difference.)

The hacked air box is very efficient in matching what the outlet to the throttle body can suck in. You can still have it suck in cooler air by aiming it away from the engine, this is how I did mine before I went with the JWT intake. I pointed it so that it was away from the engine and would hopefully draw in some air circulating around the hood.

Ok, can someone please tell me exactly how to clean the TB and MAF, or give me a link or something. I dont feel like messin sumptin up

i have a hybrid, but still dont understand this hacked airbox thing, the one pic above i understand, but are you saying to make holes in the box underneath the battery? why not just remove it all together? I did this to my moms maxima, and it didnt have any effect good or bad on it.

http://www.motorvate.ca/mvp.php has the tb cleaning
to clean maf just put a few drops of rubbing alcahol on the sensor

ok thanks kevlo

Hi njmaxseltd, just last week i removed the tube coming from the intake scoop to the resonator box under the battery. So now there is the scoop + the hole in that tube that takes air going though the radiator to take in air and i feel like its given me more power and smoothness, although the engine is a little louder. It seemed like a pretty simple way to modify the stock airbox, but does anyone see any particular reason why this would be less effective or even harmful than swiss cheezing the resonator box?

time to clean my MAF. SO u say rubbing alcohol and a cue tip?

This is interesting since I also did the swiss cheesing my collector last week. After two weekends, knock sensor is replaced (no bleeding) and torqued to 18 lbs, changed starter (intermittent no crank problem) with a new unit, cleaned TB and MAF, reconditioned electrical connections with dielectric grease and changed mid-pipe w/Stillen with stock resonator and swiss cheesing the box underneath battery tray.

Now the car pulls really good and I could hear the "rush" of air through that box. It's like a hiss, but not terrible hiss at that.