Posted: 2/9/2004 7:28:54 AM EDT
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Does anyone have a high performace air intake on thier vechicle? Are they really worth the money? |
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If you can contain/abate the heat soak and also keep your new higher flow filter clean they can be worth it -- but only on a car that also exhausts more air... Depending on the car, you may also need to replace or adjust the MAF {or similar device} in order to keep the car from bogging down, or leaning out... They are a good part to an overall HP quest....not really worth it for a standalone addition. |
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I had one on my SS Impala, it was a ram air under the car instead of out the hood. It worked ok until something on the road it it and cracked its scoop off, it was only 4? inches from the ground. Other downside if its under the car, cant drive through deep puddles, and have to dodge them. |
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blackrifle, if you would share with us the particular application you are looking at, that would be most helpful. Generally it takes about a 15 hp gain at the crank for your "butt dyno" to notice a difference. On a little Honda 1.7 liter you won't get that much out of an intake alone, so it will be difficult to notice a difference in every day driving. On a 5.8 liter Ford V8 truck engine, a good intake might free up enough ponies to really wake up the motor. Another thing to consider is the engine's efficiency from the factory-- my old Camaro had a cast iron, early 80s production factory dual plane manifold, back when Chevys weren't making any power at all because they were struggling so hard with emissions and fuel economy. I pulled that sucker off and replaced it with an Edelbrock Performer RPM and even though it was still a dual plane intake it felt like a whole new motor, because the stocker was so horribly inefficient. What kind of engine/vehicle are you thinking of modifying? |
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Dont waste your time or money. Your talking a bunch of money for very little return. Save all the money you'd spend on chips, intakes and mufflers for good warrenteed head work. Power is made in the head. You need your heads flowed/upgraded and a full exhaust not just the muffler. If you dont want to crack open the motor throw on a little centrifugal blower from ati or powerdyne. A decent blower pushing 6psi and a full exhaust will improve power numbers a decent amount but drivability will remain streetable. It wont look like a huge amount of difference but you will certainly feel the difference through the entire powerband which is important. Peak power is good for selling civics, midrange grunt is good for winning races. |
| Oh, cool. Well, my guess is, you've already freed up the exhaust which is the real weakness in most Chevys (indeed in most engines, period), so freeing up the intake will probably help even more than it would if it was the first thing you did. The Chevy V6 engines have pretty good cylinder heads from the factory these days, and they will be able to take good advantage of intake/headers/exhaust bolt ons. Assuming you haven't turned your Silverado into a low rider (lol) it should be high enough off the ground that even a drop-down cold air setup won't have to worry too much about hydrolock issues. What kind of intakes are you considering? I would look to maximize torque rather than horsepower, your drivetrain can take it and you have alot of weight to pull around, plus its a truck and trucks carry stuff and tow stuff, so torque is the name of the game. |
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You've got a full sized pickup with a V6, what were you expecting? It's a utility grade pickup truck. Are you an auto enthusiast and like tinkering? Are you forgiving of domino effect failures/adjustments? Unless the answer is 'yes', leave it stock. Do what you want, it's yours, but my vote is to leave it alone. |
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No No. You have the 4.3. An air intake and exhuast will give you mave 5hp, not bad really. The 4.3 is an awesome engine. It's mini V8. I couldn't beleive my buddy's 98 Mountineer with a 5.0 V8 only has 10 more HP and 5 more Ft/Lbs more power then my 4.3. The RPM at those power numbers are almost identical. |
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Quoted: You've got a full sized pickup with a V6, what were you expecting? It's a utility grade pickup truck. Are you an auto enthusiast and like tinkering? Are you forgiving of domino effect failures/adjustments? Unless the answer is 'yes', leave it stock. Do what you want, it's yours, but my vote is to leave it alone. I wouldn't discount the 4.3 so quickly. The 4.3 in a S-10 has almost the same towing ability as a V8 Dodge dakota. Only off by a few houndred LBS. The dakota will beat it in the 1/4 for sure, but you'll get 25% better gas mileage in the 4.3 |
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I have K&N filters on all of my autos and a ram air system on my GTA. I highly recommend a K&N, its reusable, filter better than ANY paper filter, plus better HP and MPG due to better flow. Find out the part number for your auto and buy a new one on ebay for a fraction of the price from auto parts store. |
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Quoted: I wouldn't discount the 4.3 so quickly. The 4.3 in a S-10 has almost the same towing ability as a V8 Dodge dakota. Only off by a few houndred LBS. My thoughts are not addressing the potential of the engine, but rather the motivation for the customization. These modifications may boost ones ego or satisfaction, but they produce little utility value, especially once the cost of parts is added. Let's say he does get a whopping 10% boost in horsepower at the pavement. He's gone from 200 to 220. What does that extra 20 get you? Is it worth the cost? I bring this up simply as a counterpoint and potential reality check. |
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As has been said, if you change the out you should change the in to really see results. I'm not sure though that a louder muffler counts as changing the out. Also, if you make changes that are substantial enough to matter, you should need to retune the engine. At least with Harleys you have to rejet the carb. I drive an '01 5.4 F150, and I've been toying with the idea of an aftermarket blower too. |
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Had a Dakota v-6 that I put a better air intake system on... It really made a difference, particularly at wide open throttle (which I needed, it was a pretty heavy truck). The intake really woke that engine up. I also added a new exhaust, and the only thing I noticed different was that it was louder... I wound up ditching that truck and got a v8 Dakota. I will be adding a cold air intake soon. just my two bits jim |
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Look at it this way, torque is a measure of power at an instant. Horsepower sums up those instances into a set block of time while considering RPM. Torque is usually inversly proportional to horsepower in extreme applications. Racecars are high horsepower, low torque, and 18 wheelers are low horsepower, high torque. At a basic level, consider a piston engines stroke. The longer the stroke, the more torque. However, a long stroke will restrain an engines ability to achieve high rpm. You can do the math, but given a set crankshaft speed, the long stroke will provide a much higher piston speed. Piston speed is a limiting factor. A 1,100 cc sportbike may have 130 horsepower, but would still be considered woefully inadequate for even the most econo of econoboxes. Why? Because it has to be pushing 10,000 rpm to get that much horsepower, and has little to nothing in the 3-4,000 range. This is fine for a 500 pound bike, but a disaster of drivability in a 2,800 pound econobox. This is an oversimplification, but is reasonable. |
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Pick up a K&N air filter. They seem expensive, but since you can reuse them after cleaning and re-oiling them, they are really cheaper in the long run. Plus they flow better. If your airbox is in a good spot, you can drill it to allow more airflow into it. Just make sure you drill the holes in places that won't allow air to bypass the filter. I would also look When I bought my first Caprice 9c1 (I have 3 now) I was amazed at all the info I found. I was able to hopup my car with alot of cheap/free modifications and avoid more expensive or unnecessary stuff. |
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Haven't tried one, but Amsoil reportedly also makes an excellent aftermarket air filter. [b]More airflow[/b] is good, but so is [b]cooler air[/b]. As a rough rule of thumb, every 10 degree F. increase in intake air temperature decreases horsepower by several percent, even if you don't reduce the airflow any. I've seen folks replace their stock cold air induction systems with "high performance" filters that took air from inside the engine compartment instead – and probably ended up [i]losing[/i] some power as a consequence. |
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Absolutely NOT! The difference people "notice" is psychological...they think it makes a difference, therefore they "feel" the difference. I used to be all about racing cars, building engines etc. I had a MAC air intake on my mustang before I supercharged it... Let me tell you this from my experience: I regret every single penny I spend on that car. The custom car industry loves morons like me who spend $180 on a fucking metal tube! (which is all air intake is) No matter how much money you spend on your car, some moron will run into it sooner or later, and insurance doesn't cover any of the custom crap. Do what makes you happy though. |
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Quoted: could you explain the differance between torque and power? Torque = total rotational force Power = force applied in a unit of time Basically, torque is pulling power, HP is how fast you can apply available torque... Another key thing to remember is WHERE in an engine's operating range (measured in RPMs) these 'peak' figures are reached... For example, your average US V8 hit's it's 'peak' between 3000-5,000 RPMs. Your average small import engine hit's it's peak between 8,000-10,000 RPMs The lower the peak, the more 'pulling power' the car has... (usefull for activities where the key is getting a large mass moving (i.e. overcoming inertia). Exxamples include towing (mass = vehicle + the load), and drag racing (mass = vehicle itself)) The higher the peak, the more high-speed performance... (hence the ability of a high-RPM-peak vehicle to out-accellerate cars 'from a rolling start' that would blow it away in a drag race (with both masses allready moving, the torque factor becomes less important then HP)).... |
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Man, if you are going to post all that then you might was well toss in the fact that the torque and horsepower dyno chart lines always cross at 5252 rpms... Quoted: Quoted: could you explain the differance between torque and power? Torque = total rotational force Power = force applied in a unit of time Basically, torque is pulling power, HP is how fast you can apply available torque... Another key thing to remember is WHERE in an engine's operating range (measured in RPMs) these 'peak' figures are reached... For example, your average US V8 hit's it's 'peak' between 3000-5,000 RPMs. Your average small import engine hit's it's peak between 8,000-10,000 RPMs The lower the peak, the more 'pulling power' the car has... (usefull for activities where the key is getting a large mass moving (i.e. overcoming inertia). Exxamples include towing (mass = vehicle + the load), and drag racing (mass = vehicle itself)) The higher the peak, the more high-speed performance... (hence the ability of a high-RPM-peak vehicle to out-accellerate cars 'from a rolling start' that would blow it away in a drag race (with both masses allready moving, the torque factor becomes less important then HP)).... |
| My bro-in-law tweaked his exhaust with better flowing mufflers, K&N filter system, Got a little better pick-up and better sound, no real increase in mileage, figgured it never came close to paying for itself becaust he hardly ever got any use out of the performance increase. |
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Quoted: Quoted: My K&N FIPK airbox did produce a significant increase in power. It was worth the money. checked on a dyno? got the printouts to show us? No, I can feel it. No, thats not in my head either. I have a LONG driveway. I run roughly a 1/4 along it, between two certain telephone poles. When I passed #2 with the CAI I was going a few MPH faster. |
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Re: KN products... 1) The 'cone' or 'pod' filters are wothless except on bikes 2) The 'factory-replacement' lets a little more air thru, is recyclable, and is worth it on larger motors (V8s)... On small cars, you won't see much difference... 3) FIPK = re-designed aftermarket intake system. Never had one, but presumably there is some flow increase 4) All 'flow increase' gadgets are worthless if your exhaust is operating at capacity... Your engine is essentially an air pump: if the output is plugged up the input will not take in any more (regardless of how wide open it is)... |
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Ok, here's my 2 cents In the above statement Dave-A is right. your motor is 'basically' a fancy air pump. BUT! An air pump needs two things to make it perform well. 1. Move lots of air in at the fastest rate possible. 2. Move air out at the fastest rate possible. Now, the 'High performance air intake' is only one part of the system. Lets assume you install said air intake and it magically lets in 1000 times more air than the stock unit. Now, you may or may not feel any difference. But just because you let in 1000 times more air, you also need to remove (exhaust system) 1000 times more air. Or at least something close to that. Just about the simplest way to 'open up' your exhaust system is to punch the kitty [:)] You will probably sacrifice some low end power but the trade is more mid range power and a heckuva lot more top end. But then of course if you do both the intake and kitty punch. you will now have a 'bottleneck' in your intake manifold or your heads, or valves, or cam lift/duration, combustion chamber volume, or throttle body. So, of course you'll need to change all of that too! [:)] Horsepower addiction is not unlike black rifle disease! |
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Here are some mods in order of credit card damage: - Inflate tires to max comfortable psi = free, 10% mpg, 0 HP - Underdrive pulleys = U$200, +0mpg, +5-10HP. - Dual catback exhaust = U$300, +0.5mpg, 5-10HP. - FIPK intake with K&N filter = U$60-300, +0mpg, 5-10HP. - Computer chip = U$350, +0.5mpg, 15-20HP. - Electric Fans = U$375, +1.5mpg, 10-15HP. - Rearend gear change = U$600-1200, +0.5mpg, 0HP but better acceleration. - Supercharger = U$2000-5000, -2mpg, 50+HP. - Race engine and tranny = U$5000-15000, -5mpg, 100-300HP. - Buying a truck with a big V8 in the first place = priceless. In any case, with the possible exception of electric fans, you will never 'make' money with mods. The fans will pay for themselves after 6 years in fuelcosts. The computer chip increases gas milage and 'feels' like it adds the most kick but you need to run premium 92+ fuel with it. Fritz -who has a truck with a big V8 AND a lot of mods. :-) |
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Hmmmn, let's see. My 2003 Nissan Xterra SE-S/C with 3.3L V6 Engine has the Eaton Supercharger, K&N FIPK Intake, and a Dynomax Cat Back Exhaust. I like the aggressive sound my truck makes and I can take off on other Xterra's. Does a high performance intake work? I believe so but only as part of a system of other upgrades. |
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I have a supercharger on my 4Runner, and a friend has one on his. He put a K&N FIPK setup on his at 120 bucks, and lost 10 hp and 10 ft pounds of torque at the rear wheels when he dyno'ed it over a stock air filter. I put a Amsoil stock replacement in mine at 45 bucks, and picked up 10 rear wheel hourse, but lost a few ft pounds of torque. I'd go with an Amsoil replacement filter. www.Amsoil.com Jay |
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"Truckin" magazine had an article where they put a K&N FIPK system on a newer model chevy truck. It was either a 4.3L or 5.3L (don't remember) but they dyno'd it before and after and it gained 13 HP. no other mods at the time. I'd like to get the K&N FIPK just for the sound when you stand on it.[:D] I've got a K&N filter in stock airbox (2002 Silverado 5.3) and it sounds cool TO ME! COZ |