cold air intake qiestion

You will gain little performance benefit if any from an overpriced tube and oil gauze filter kit. If this junk ricer kit exits in or around one of the wheel wells, then yes, more water will get in the intake than with the OE setup. On the bright side, nothing short of full submersion will cause a full gulp of water to make its way into the engine, so there is no significant danger of rod damage ever occuring. I will say, the more chrome and polished aluminum you can stuff under a hood, the cooler the underhood neon lighting looks.

I was going to because it would have been sound advice, but now I will not. Please, aim for all of the casual water you can manage.

Toyota MDT in MO

Hey, MDT, I added a mandrel-bent tube and 'high performance' filter to my '95 Tercel, and what I *DID* get was more responsive throttle response, especially right off the line, and an additional 5MPG, from 38 to 43-45 combined MPG.

That, and a "giant sucking sound" from under the hood! ;)

But mine stayed inside the engine compartment, with the end of the filter pointing to the openeing in the fender where the air came into the stock airbox.

The cold air intake will boost power, but not mileage very much. It boosts power because cold air is denser. Power from an engine of a given displacement is proportional to weight of fuel air mixture inducted, not its volume. There would be a small change in ratios of pressures (higher compression pressure) that would be a small increase in efficiency, but only at full throttle operation. Unless you drive wide open for long periods, you will never operate in the range where this effect will do much.

Actually, same thing with power. Unless you are racing, you will never notice a small change in wide open throttle power. If you are talking about a competition vehicle, that is something else.

A change (lowering) of air density is the equivalent of having the throttle backed off just a smidgen.

Boost in noise, not in power. The psychological effect of the noise is such that many convince themselves there is a power increase. When you look at the highly sophsiticated engineering that today's vehicle manufacturer's come up with to maximize fuel mileage it is absurd to think that they would throw any of it away with an inadequate intake system.

Well we recently diagnosed a Mitsubish Eclipse with a destroyed engine from driving through water with an aftermarket intake. Insurance guy said he sees it on Hondas regularly.

Don

Blowing your engine with water is a real threat.

Jeep mistakenly put a ram air system on some Wranglers that picks up right below the headlight on top of the bumper. If they hit a puddle that splashes over the bumper, it goes Gulp, Bang!

Someone has given you the correct advice about puddles it would seem...

Mike

FWIW, on my Trans Am, replacing the stock intake lid with an aftermarket one has been shown to worth 5-10hp. That may not be much, and would probably be only about 2-5hp on a smaller engine like a Civic, but for racing purposes, any +hp is ok with me.

If you're wondering why GM could do such a crappy job with all the engineering resources they have, it's a simple one - noise regs for new car companies don't apply to the aftermarket. The stock LS1 intake lid and ductwork has a big resonator attached to it that the aftermarket ones dispense with, and the "mouth" going to the TB is reworked to line up better.

My car ran a best of 13.367 before the lid, and a best of 13.116 after the lid. No other mods. (13.367 @ 103.376mph, 1.974 60' and 13.116 @ 105.246mph, 1.915 60')

The aftermarket lid also meant I didn't have to cut up a factory lid when installing the nitrous kit. :) (which dropped my ET to a 12.18 @ 112 and killed the stock clutch.)

The OP is still stuck driving a Civic tho. ;)

Ray

The cold air intake probably won't make much difference; all cars have had such a setup for 20 years or so. They may not suck air thru the hood but they do have some kind of system where it gets cool air rather than the hot engine bay air.

Some of the "cold air kits" I have seen actually take the air directly thru the air cleaner inside the engine compartment when the manufacturer originally had the intake plumbed for cool outside air intake. I fail to see how it can make that much difference when the ECM considers air mass and temperature. I did find a majot improvement in a couple of puffed engines when the CAT was moved from the intake manifold to the air cleaner housing. It appears the compressed air in the manifold was a lot warmer than that in the air cleaner housing resulting in it leaning out the mix a bit. According to the dyno on the last one, that change alone with the blower was worth about 14 HP at the rear wheels but, only mid range starting about 3500 rpm to top end.

Lugnut

These gadgets do two things. First of all, they route the intake to a place where it can get cold and more dense air. Secondly, they use a lower resistance air filter. Both of these are good things.

BUT, you need to look at the air filter and baffling they use. Some of them use reusable oiled filters which have very high flow, but poorer filtration than the stock filter. Some of them don't have a lot of baffling to block water.

If they are properly designed, the filter will keep water from getting into the engine. If they are poorly designed, the filter won't keep water OR dirt from getting into the engine. And a lot of the ones out there are poorly designed.

--scott

And if you over-oil the filter, kiss your MAF goodby.