ok i wanna get an intake but with so many choices i dont know, can anyone give me thier opinions on the intake they use
what pros
what cons of each
-defcon

 

stillen.
horsepower gain not very much. maybe 1 or 2
sound - WONDERFUL!! nice deep growl above 3K RPM
love it!!

 

K&N filter in stock air box w/4 inch tubing goin outside for CAI/ram air deal. check the homepage. and definatly do a search for this... this is one of the most commonly discussed topics

 

what about the firmfabrications.com one??

 

please, search on this. There are at least a dozen threads on this in the first few pages of this forum. Look around and make your own list and post it and then see if we agree.

thanks,

 

yah u definitly could have found many threads with touhsandsof posts on intakes if you tried at all what so ever but if it helps...
I jus got a Frankencar intake and midpipe with the Apexi filter. It sounds sweeeeeeeet. Not sure on the actual Hp since i havent dyno'ed it but i can def feel it pulling alot more after 3k. if you go to my homepage i have pics of it from the frankencar bbq.

 

What about the place racing intake. I like it and it sounds great but if you dont want to drill a whole I would go with injen. THe cost more but trust me they are great. I wish i would of bought one of them instead of place racing. The con is that they are the most expensive. But as everyone says "you get what you pay for"

 

bigdo26
what tubing did you use? is that the stuff that is made for a dryer? i was thinking of doing the same thing.
have you noticed a diffirence at all?
what do you have on the bottom? i cant tell from the picture. did you use a scoop or anything?

 

Stillen, sounds great, noticeable hp increase, easy installation, exellent quality and fit. Easy to put stock air box back on in case of warranty claims.

 

Looks like he just has that tubing down there, but as the text reads he spraypainted it black.

That's really neat--what size tubing did you use and how well does it bolt up to the stock airbox's square-ish inlet?
(well, that's a VQ35DE, not sure if its inlet is somewhat square like my '00 VQ30DE is...)

 

www.firmfabrications.com
This intake has a built in housing for the MAF sensor, so no need to add an adapter. I would recommend this over all the others, because of that feature alone. Just buy a K&N filter to go on it. The one it comes with isn't that great.

 

the tubing is just flexible dryer tubing... right aroudn 5 inches i guess in diameter, give or take. i didnt measure it. it was an almost perfect fit to the square hole in the airbox, just slightly larger. duct tape fixed that though as for where it protrudes from the bottom of the engine bay, there isnt a scoop there. the notches in the tubing allow it to stay bent and aimed to the front, which is enough scoop for me. i find that its somewhat louder than stock and i can hear it over my exhaust, which is pretty cool. nice little roar. i actually just put this on around a week ago and did a nice 300 mile highway trip this past weekend, averaging 75-80 mpha and my mileage was about 28... thats better than i've gotten previously at the same speeds, so i blame the intake the engine seems alittle more torquey as well. several people on the board have done the GAB, similar to what i've done and i believe someone dyno'd it to be similar gains as any other CAI out there

 

The two most popular intakes on this forum are the Injen CAI and the FrankenCar WAI. FirmFabrications, while not popular, is a fantastic intake.

FrankenCar= Gives the most HP, sounds incredible at WOT and gives an awesome butt dyno boost at 4k rpms. While a WAI intake, the tubing stays cool since do to it's location. The only con is that it will probably take you forever in a day to get it. Firm Fabrications should give almost identical results as the FrankenCar.

Injen= Sounds great under WOT. Good HP gains (just a few hp fewer than the FrankenCar). Looks the best of all the intakes available for the Max. Cons= Tubing get very hot and do to it's location behind the radiator, it isn't a true CAI. Nobody has reported problems caused by water, but it's always a possibility. You lose a little top end power.

Place Racing= It's a true CAI, but in all the dyno's posted on this forum still show the FrankenCar in the lead as far as HP. Cons = you have to drill a large hole in your fender!

 

Search is good..

 

I wouldn't mind having a huge ****ing ramscoop somewhere around there (preferably higher than bigdo26's location so it gets less water/etc.) with a tube going to the stock airbox w/ K&N filter.

 

i know cai is cold air intake, but wats wai and wot??

 

warm air intake

wide open throttle

 

but isnt warm not good???im confused i thought the colder the better
please fill me in here
and no nasty "go search comments" lol
-defcon

 

re: placement of the air scoop in my setup - if anyone has ideas of other places it could fit w/o engine bay surgery, lemme know. i'd like it somewhere further from the road so it wouldnt pick up so much crap. however, i couldnt come up with a better place that would require very little modification. i'm sure something else would work though... only reason i stayed away from the frankencar, etc. was the MAF problems people report all the time. something about these intakes rattle the MAF, unlike the stock rubber tubing. i've had no problems wtih mine since i got the K&N over a year ago, and my intake has worked great so far, givin better mileage, power, and effectivly clearing the road of various small objects (which have yet to blow thru the filter thankfully)

 

My question is, where's a good place to find the tubing/etc to do that kind of work?
I know I can probably get dryer tubing at Lowes or Home Depot, but for a more professional-looking solution... what kind of materials should I consider and where might I find them?

 

actually, I just thought of a good idea--
my stock intake has that wannabe "ram air" scoop in the top, and a big tube in the bottom (presumably for catching rocks/dirt/etc. which goes into that big white tank under the battery)
wonder if I could rig something up that'll connect to that bottom pipe, and have it going to a ram air scoop...
but then again that's the issue, getting a suitable location for a large ramscoop without going too low to the ground...

 

WAIs and CAIs get the same temperature air as soon as they start moving. CAIs have a slight advantage on low end and WAIs have an advantage on top end.

 

other than dryer tubing, the white plumbing tubing works as well, if you have a little more time you're willing to spend. my buddy made a CAI with this type of tubing for his old mustang and it dyno'd a decent hp gain. personally, i'm happy wtih the dryer tubing setup, as it wont break anything and was very, very easy to toss in. may not look the prettiest, but thats ok, who really looks under the hood anyways?

 

thanks y2ksesteve
i think i'll go with frankencar or firm fabrications

 

after reading alot of posts and doing some research im pretty sure that any kind of intake by itself will not increase performance very much. maybe just a couple horspower and thats not very much when you start with 222 or 250 depending on the year.
like steve said, once you are moving the temp is going to be the same if it is right in front of the throttle body or under the bumper. it is mainly done for the sound and that is why i got mine. i was disapointed when i first got my Max because it had power but didnt sound like it. the stillen intake i bought gave it the sound i wanted. now it has the sound for the power it has.
im sure this will cause a huge debate but you all have to agree. it doesnt increase performance THAT much.

 

True. Although an increase in fuel economy can be considered an advantage as well, as some have noticed...

 

and i disagree with getting BETTER fuel economy.
if more air is going in then more fuel will also be used to make the proper mix.

 

More air only goes in if you want it. You know, like full throtle. pretty much it just aspirates it better. So if you want to floor it will be able to suck in more air but for cruising it will not have to try as hard to recieve air. The throttle body will only let in as much as you want it to(within reason). In all it just helps the car breath easier.

 

more air isn't goin in when cruisin... its just easier for the engine to get the necessary air in = less strain i guess and easier to keep car goin. if more air was goin in, then more fuel would be being burnt, and therefore more power would be made... this all would lead to increased speed with the throttle in the same position. I noticed increases in MPG in my Max as well as my old car with the addition of the CAI deal. under WOT, mileage is probly worse, since more air IS getting into the engine, therefore more fuel.
also, back on my old car i also made the same scoop type deal and tried to do a calculation to figure air flow, pressure, few other things. anyone know about the rate at which air is consumed in the engines? in addition to any increased pressure caused by 75mph or so air... i know its a small pressure, but there is some. i get bored here at work and need somethin to do that uses my brain.

 

okay that all makes sense.
but all of us that have intakes know dam well that we WOT alot more then we did before.
so over all it equals out and we get the same MPG

 

I got better fuel economy in my '90 Mazda 626 after slapping in a K&N panel filter (stock replacement), but I really got consistently better fuel economy when I poured 2 tsp of Dexron III ATF in each cylinder, put new plugs/wires in, started the engine and drove a few miles 'till it stopped blowing so much white smoke
Never did a compression test afterwards or anywhere close before though, so I was never able to establish any concrete evidence that it helped compression, but that old engine had to be full of carbon

 

i've noticed about a 40 mpt increase since i've put in my k&n drop in filter... no intake or anything.. just the filter...

 

Hmm, I replaced my old dirty Genuine Nissan filter with a dry Purolator paper-type filter, and have noticed a decrease in fuel economy.
This might be the silver bullet that makes me splurge $45 for a K&N panel filter. Plus I could try the dryer hose technique without any major modification just for ****s & giggles.

 

reading about intake stuff - question about MAP sensor
i was reading stuff online and found this:
"Manifold absolute pressure sensor - Monitors the pressure of the air in the intake manifold
The amount of air being drawn into the engine is a good indication of how much power it is producing; and the more air that goes into the engine, the lower the manifold pressure, so this reading is used to gauge how much power is being produced."

Now I need some clarification... ok, so if the pressure reading is lowered, than the car thinks that it needs to inject more fuel cause the engine is pulling in more air, correct? So, if air was readily flowing into the airbox, aka Ram-air or what-have-you, then the pressure will not drop as much, right? So then the MAP sensor will not think that as much fuel is necessary, and that would therefore hinder your performance? Does then computer adjust for this eventually? I'm a tad confused...

 

That measures pressure on the engine-side of the throttle body. I'm not 100% sure of the physics behind ram-air, but consider that the stock intake IS a cheap ram-air design. That, and the system uses a MAF sensor as well, which probably has more precedence over the MAP ("BOOST") sensor as far as fuel maps.

 

ya, the MAF probably is considered more heavily than the MAP... and good point about the stock setup, didnt even think of that. If i can find the time, maybe i'll do a little dyno comparison of the ram air vs. stock vs. CAI deal. there is a dyno place all of 3 minutes away from me at work. might be worth it. anyone nkow how much dyno pulls cost??

 

I did notice a difference especially at the 4k mark. Was it night/day? I didn't notice an increase at all without the midpipe like the Stillen setup. It sounded good, but no difference. Of course not. Combine it with a few other mods and you then have a significant increase. My dyno's show a 15-20 hp increase from intake/udp/Y and B pipes.

 

ok...i think everyone is looking into this waaaay too far.

me thinks it's as simple as this:

computer recognizes how much air is coming in by way of MAF. Computer decides how much gas to inject as to always have proper air/fuel mixture. SO...

IF you have an intake, and the motor can get more air, the computer will inject more gas, and WHAMO...you have more power.

Remember....our cars are not as simple as carburated systems. With a carb system, with X amount of throttle, the engine sucks in X amount of air. It has no way to constantly regulate air/fuel mixture as our fuel injected cars do. So, with a carb system, with no adjustments to the carb, yet with running an intake, you could easily have too much air and not enough gas...

RIGHT??