Just a note: This essay is good and long, if you want immediate
pricing, skip down to the bottom of the page.

This price sheet and product description has been updated in November
1999, and reflects all the latest information on our Nissan CAI
line-up! New for 2000...we are pleased to finally have almost all of our
Nissan CAI's available in powdercoated finishes rather than the plain enamel
coating used in the past. It has long been the only area where
improvement to these intakes could be made, and now it is finally a reality.
The powdercoated finish is a baked on epoxy coating, practically
impervious to most chemicals, solvents, gasoline, oil, salt water, etc. etc.
The finish is show quality, and extremely scratch resistant. It can be
cleaned with regular soap and water, and can be polished and waxed to an
extremely glossy luster with regular automotive type waxes! The best
part is that we were able to eat the cost of the powdercoating in our
regular year end price adjustment! Most of the intakes were scheduled for
only a 2-3% increase, the cost of powdercoating would have raised this
to a 9-10% increase. By combining the powdercoating cost with the
scheduled adjustment, we kept the increases on all intakes to an average of
less than 3%!!!

Also new for 2000, we finally have caved in, and will begin accepting
Visa and MasterCard for retail sales only. (Wholesale customers may not
be eligible, because of the additional processing expense). As a
manufacturer, we never really had use for credit card processing, but as we
began accepting more and more direct orders, it became clear we were
finally going to have to accept credit cards. The terminal is operational
now.

Place Racing Inc. (PRI) began developing its exclusive line of Cold
Air Intakes (CAI's) more than six years ago, when there were absolutely
no products on the market of this nature. The very first intake we built
was for an 89 Sentra with the outdated vertical style throttle body,
almost like a carburetor. The intake consisted of twin tubes, two K&N
filters and a plenum adapter that fitted over the throttle body. Of course
the poor little Sentra had no real power and all this new plumbing
didn't make much difference, but it sure looked trick!
All you SE-R owners really have an extremely bright and talented young
man to thank. Justin Choi, came to our original shop as a high school
student, the same year we built the old Sentra twin tubes. Justin
literally bugged us month after month to design an intake system for his car.
Eventually we did fabricate several prototype units that Justin tested
for us. Some of the early photos of these prototype tubes are still
floating around. We eventually revised the original design to improve the
airflow characteristics, and later thanks to Justin's hard work and
constant promotion, he introduced us to Mike Kojima, who most SE-R owners
will recognize as the author of many Nissan related Sport Compact Car
Magazine articles. Mike at the time owned an impressive 200SX SE-R, the
subject car of many of his articles. We designed the intake for that,
and from then on, we have been in constant production of these intakes,
covering all SE-R models from 91-99, as well as SE's and later adding
the Altima intakes. Mike was also the motivating force behind the Maxima
intakes, when he brought his Infinity I30 (same engine as the Maxima)
in for prototype work. The groundwork was laid out for the current
lineup of Maxima intakes, but for some unexplained reason, even after Mike's
esteemed recommendations, the intakes just never sold. We were at the
point of actually discontinuing the Maxima lineup which at that time
only included the 95-96 applications. Brian Catts, of Cattman Performance
saved the day for all Maxima owners. He artfully promoted the intakes,
and provided the market for the later development of the complete
lineup covering a decade of Maxima's from 89-2000. To this day Brian is the
single largest purchaser of the Maxima intakes, and through his hard
work, we respond to more than half a dozen inquiries a day for Maxima
information.
The intakes are each hand built, using 3" mandrel bent mild steel
tubing. Each kit consists of an upper tube that generally has all the
proper fittings welded on to attach the OEM hoses and tubes that are found
on the original stock intake system. One of the best changes that we
made to all the Nissan intakes, was to incorporate an attachment point for
the AMB temperature sensor. In the past, we have seen other
manufacturers of intakes, just leave this out of the system or worse yet, punch a
hole on the filter top and jam it into the filter! Since we were
striving to get as much cold air as possible into the engine, the temperature
sensor was an important part of the system, and we placed them directly
onto the tubes where the sensing element would be reading the actual
temperature of the cold air running through the tube, and adjust the ECU
program to suit this cold dense air.
The way the intake works, is threefold. First off the intake improves
performance and horsepower by smoothing out the curves and restrictions
of the stock intake making it easier for the air to enter the engine.
More air always means more power. Second, the intake improves
performance and horsepower by lengthening and tuning the intake path. The tube is
designed and bent so that it provides a pathway almost 30" long! With
this length, the air inside the tube creates a ram effect that literally
forces the air into the throttle body throughout the entire RPM range,
but especially so above the resonance point of the intake. You can
actually feel and hear the resonance point between 4000-5000 rpm, and from
then on till redline it is just amazing what the intake does for these
Nissan engines! Finally, the best part of the system is the cold air!.
Cold air is far denser than hot air, which means there are more oxygen
molecules with each breath the engine takes. All internal combustion
engines always run better on a cool crisp morning. rather than on a hot
sultry day. It is bad enough that the stock intake is so restrictive,
but a good portion of the air ingested into the intake is hot engine
compartment air. Just the air alone from the radiator is heated to 160-200
degrees! Then you have the heat coming off the exhaust manifold which
can reach 500-900 degrees, and you can see that the worst place to get
air is anywhere inside the engine compartment. This is why all
aftermarket intakes that leave the filter cone inside the engine compartment,
fail to deliver the expected horsepower gain. All Nissan engines read the
temperature of the intake air, and if that air is the hot 200-300
degree engine compartment air, then the ECU is going to adjust the fuel
mixture so that less fuel goes to the injectors! Less fuel means less
horsepower!
While you cannot change the temperature of the air around us, you can
trick the engine into thinking that it is much cooler than it really
is. The Place Racing Inc. CAI locates the filter in the driver's side
fenderwell area where it receives cold air from the front grill area,
before the radiator and away from the hot exhaust! The air going into the
filter can only be as warm as the temperature outside! Based upon what
the engine is used to taking in, on an average 75 to 80 degree day, the
engine thinks it is snowing outside! The AMB sensor reads this cold air
and increases the fuel volume to match the denser cold air. The result
is instant horsepower that you can feel and hear! Not some unfounded
manufacturers claim that you never actually feel or see, this horsepower
is real. Thousands of Nissan owners have invested in the intake system,
and testimonial after testimonial can be found on the World Wide Web!
Most of these intakes will generate a minimum of 8-10 real horsepower at
the wheels! Some of the applications even generate horsepower levels up
to 12-13+ hp.
The intake creates a terrific deep growling sound when the throttle is
wide open. It is a beautiful sound to hear and feel, but it is in no
way annoying, as it is perfectly quiet when under low load or part
throttle conditions. So cruising on the freeway or around town will be just
the same, but get on that throttle, and see what happens! A great way to
test the effectiveness of the system is to install the system, drive
your car extra hard for 10 or 15 minutes until the entire engine
compartment is good and hot, then stop, turn off the engine and immediately pop
your hood and feel the intake tube. It will be nice and cool, while
everything else will be good and hot. Be careful not to burn yourself!
Like all intakes that place the filter in a position lower than stock,
there is some danger that water may be ingested into the filter and
consequently damage the engine. Driving in rain, even heavy rain is not
dangerous, however driving through deep water is. Even though the filter
inlet is about 15-18" above the ground, care must be taken if you drive
through water deeper than the lower lip of the front spoiler. If water
flows over this lip, which is generally 8" or more above the ground, it
could possibly flood the compartment where the filter is. If the area
where you drive tends to flood, then you must drive with caution. The
best bet is to move the filter back up to the engine compartment. Since
the MAF adapter is the same diameter as the filter, you can move the
filter up to the MAF with only a screwdriver. In case you ever get
stranded in a heavy downpour and you are faced with having to drive through
water that is too deep, you can always just disconnect the lower cold air
tube completely and leave the filter down where it is. Driving like
this temporarily will not harm the engine as there is not going to be a
whole lot of blowing dirt and dust when everything is soaking wet! Do
make sure that there is no loose dirt, leaves or debris around the intake
inlet though.
We only use genuine K&N filters. There are many other filter
manufacturers that sell K&N look-a-like filters, but these are not of the same
quality and flow characteristics as the genuine K&N. While the K&N
filters are almost 3 times more expensive than these cheap aftermarket
look-a-likes, we refuse to change just to save a few dollars. Sadly, even
some of the widely available POP chargers don't use a genuine K&N filter.
Don't be fooled by a lower price with the competition, insist on a
genuine K&N filter. K&N guarantees their filters for a million miles! They
recommend that you service the filter every 20-30,000 miles! The K&N
filter actually works better as it gets dirty! Since the filter is made
of gauze, coated with a special filtering oil, any dirt and dust that
adheres to the filter also becomes coated with oil, and becomes part of
the filtering element helping to trap even finer dirt particles. These
filters can be washed out and re-oiled with a special re-oiling kit
available from K&N or directly from us. They never have to be replaced!

Here is a product description and price list of all the Nissan CAI's
we currently manufacture:

The CAI kit is complete, and comes with a genuine K&N filter, both
upper and lower cold air tubes, a red powdercoat MAF adapter, all rubber
couplers and clamps, and complete installation instructions. This is the
kit that you would order if you currently do not own any type of intake
system on your vehicle now. The Non POP kit cannot be used with a POP
charger.
The POP version of our CAI kits has been discontinued.

All kits are now available in a baked on powdercoated finish in Deep
Gloss Red, Deep Gloss Blue, Bright Gloss Yellow, and a new two stage
Mirror Silver. The silver features a second clear coat finish, and is $6
more than the other colors. Each of these colors are SHOW quality! We
ship UPS, and you can prepay by credit card, or you can pay by C.O.D.
when the shipment arrives (payment must be by money order). You may order
by phone, fax, or e-mail. Indicate your vehicle Make, Model, Year, POP
or NON POP, and color of tube. All tubes are generally in stock and
take approximately 3-4 days to receive on the West Coast and 5-7 days on
the East Coast. Expedited Shipping is available. We also have new SE-R
and SE polyurethane mount systems, see below.

Applications as follows: Red, Blue Two Stage
Yellow Silver
SE-R Applications:
CAI01AG 91-93 Sentra SE-R (including NX2000) $196 $202
CAI02AG 93-94 Sentra SE-R $196 $202
CAI03AG 95-97 200SX SE-R $196 $202
CAI04AG 98-99 200SX SE-R $196 $202

SE-R MOUNT SETS NOW IN STOCK!!!!
Low Vibration Polyurethane mount kits, include the right, left, and
rear mounts, already pressed into the factory housings (core return
required) for only $189 set!!!

SE, XE and other 1.6L Applications:
CAI09AG 91-92 Sentra 1.6L (Non SE-R) $196 $202
CAI10AG 93-94 Nissan 1.6L (Non SE-R) $196 $202
CAI11AG 95-96 Nissan 1.6L (Non SE-R) $196 $202
CAI12AG 97-99 Nissan 1.6L (Non SE-R) $196 $202
CAI04AG 98+ Nissan SE (with 2.0l SE-R engine) $196 $202

Altima Applications:
CAI30AG 94-96 Altima $196 $202
CAI31AG 97-99 Altima $196 $202

Maxima Applications:
CAI14AG 89-94 Maxima V6 12v SOHC $220 $226
CAI13AG 92-94 Maxima V6 24v DOHC $220 $226
CAI15AG 95-96 Maxima $220 $226
CAI16AG 97-99 Maxima $220 $226
CAI17AG 2000 Maxima $220 $226

240SX Applications
CAI20AG 89-90 240SX SOHC $232 $238
CAI21AG 91-94 240SX DOHC $232 $238
CAI22AG 95-98 240SX DOHC $246 $252

Nissan Truck Applications
CAI40AG 93-97 Hardbody Dual Tube for 2.4l 4Cyl $357.00 $363
" " Single Tube $225.00 $231
CAI41AG 93-95 Hardbody Single Tube for 3.0l V6 $225.00 $231

 

Mr. Cattman only sells them to everyone. He never helped design them in any way. For the MAXIMA the design started with Shaun Tran. Then for the 2000 Maxima PR never had a plans to make one for a 2k Maxima till I talked with them on numrous days, LD phone calls, and found a volunteer from the CALIF area so they can design and make a INTAKE. That is how the 2k intake came about. Just wanted to make that clarification noted.

 

The article doesn't mention that Brian Catts designed it. It states that he helped provide the MARKET for them and help to push their sale. Just wanted to clear that up.

 

The intakes are each hand built, using 3" mandrel bent mild steel tubing.

Would there be any benefit (less weight) if PR made the CAI from aluminum instead of mild steel? Or is the thing really that heavy?

TIA

 

 

Couldn't you just cast it in the form you would need? I mean, Maximas already have more than enought weight in the front How much more $$ are we talking here?

 

I sold my CAI that was for a 97-99 Maxima and with the shipping box , all pipes, filter, etc. if I remember correctly weighed a little less than 10 pounds. So even if it were to be made out of aluminum it would not save that much weight.