BradleeD

I want an intake so bad I can taste it. However I need this baby to run for a long time. I put about 1000 miles on it a week. What kind of wear and tear should I expect with an intake? Please advise

autox17

It really depends on how you maintain it as well as if it is a short ram or a CAI (Cold Air Intake). The only two possible ways that I could see that you could cause damage would be to:

A.) Suck up enough water through the CAI to cause Hydo-lock (water entering the combustion chamber and f'ing things up.

B.) Not cleaning the filter regularly could possibly allow dirt to be sucked up into the engine.

Now, saying that, I've had a CAI on my Civic for the better part of 200K miles and haven't had a single problem.

acfanatic

I'm in VA and you never really know what the weather is going to be like here. I don't want to have to remove components from my intake every time it rains. Is this really a problem with the CIA? Could I avoid that with the short ram intake? What is its performance compared to the CAI?

vwong

A week after I drove my Prelude off the dealer's lot, I swapped out the stock intake to a SRI. Then about 20k miles later, I swapped the SRI to a CAI. And now the car has almost 120k miles, the car is still running strong.

Dan Martin

Unless you are driving in water over the hood of your car, a short ram intake will never suck water. On the other hand, a CAI will only suck water if you have standing water up to your bumper.

I've never seen dynos done to compare SRI to CAI but I imagine that you would suck a little more hot air with the SRI and thus make less power. SRI is usually louder too.

acfanatic

So, this is just to cover their ass in the rare cases of hydro-lock?

"A note regarding Cold Air Intake systems and Cold Air Extensions:
*Injen Technology Cold Air Intake Systems should be removed in any wet climates or on any wet roads or highways. Failure to comply with the above warnings may cause water to be absorbed into the engine through the filter causing serious damage to your motor. Injen Technology Co., Ltd. assumes no liability for damages toy your motor due to water entering your engine through the Injen intake system. Although a bypass valve may be used on most systems, it will void warranty and the C.A.R.B. EO# at this time."

Dan Martin

I think that's more to cover their ass then anything else but it's certainly possible to injest water with a CAI. Unlikely but possible.
If you're worried about it, go for SRI instead or the Comptech icebox.

acfanatic

How is the Ice Box different?

vwong

If you have standing water all the way up to your bumper, the Comptech icebox is no different than any CAI. It'll still suck water up.

Dan Martin

It funtions the same way as the OEM air intake so you're absolutely correct.

Dan Martin

http://solar.innercite.com/comptech/330135.html

It has an airbox similar to the OEM air intake that will allow water to flow back down the pipe provided it's not completely submerged in water.

fdl

What about winter driving with a CAI. I'm wondering if driving through deep slush, etc might send water/slush forcefully into the intake.

Dan Martin

I think that it's more likely that the filter would get clogged than anything else. Personally I would go with the SRI or the icebox setup with the amount of snow we get. It just doesn't seem like a good idea to have the filter right in the path of all the snow and dirt like on the Injen or K&N setups. I don't think that the engine would injest the slush but the filters would get really dirty in a hurry.

fdl

Unless you convert to SRI just for the winter. Not sure how much work is involved in switching back and forth.

xizor

just bought an injen intake here in VA, and the odd weather does make me a lil bit wary. nice thing about the injen is it can be a SRI/CAI although i'm sure its a PITA to switch. But at least your bases are covered.

STC

iTrader: (1)

Why do u want an intake for? You wont get any incredible gains, so whats the point?

BradleeD

I wasnt necessarily looking for incredible gains, just gains. Do you have any suggestions? Or for that matter have any idea what the TSX runs on the dyno with intake and/or exhaust?

acfanatic

Yeah....what would be the best after-market mod to get the highest gain? I don't really want loud exhaust, but I want to pick up a little more HP. People have suggested intake, pullies, and headers.

xizor

my roommate just changed his pullies on his prelude, but we couldn't find any produced for the TSX. Are there any out there?

acfanatic

Don't know. This was just general advice from my brother. He just changed all the pullies on his '91 Integra and said he had good results. I haven't actually started shopping yet.

Jab31169

12HP/10TQ is pretty good for an $180 intake.

fdl

CAI + Hondata (when its available). Good gains, while keep the stock look/sound.

BradleeD

Thanks for the dyno chart. I just hope thats not for a TSX. I would like to think I'm pushin more than 170 or so horses at 7000+ rpms. I appreciate everybodies comments. Keep em comming

yrbzephyr

That dyno is for a TSX. We have 200hp at the flywheel, but after drivetrain loss, it's about 170. The Temple of VTEC states that we may have something closer to 210 at the flywheel according to ther dyno run.

http://www.vtec.net/articles/view-ar...&page_number=4

So, with an intake, could we tell all our friends that our cars put out 220+ hp now?

xizor

Is there any benefits of a Hondata ECU over tuning w/ a VAFC? The ECU sounds like vaporware, and the flexibility of a VAFC is pretty impressive.

*edit* did a search and saw that the Hondata ECU can the fuel limiter, redline etc.

But the VAFC still sounds like it gives most of the advantages an ECU does, for cheaper. Is the tradeoff worth it?

Dan Martin

I think most of the gains from the hondata ECU upgrade will come from changing the vtec engagement point. Can the VAFC change vtec settings?

xizor

I checked out my roommate's VAFC in his Prelude and he can change his VTEC engagement point every 100 RPM's. I think he dropped his from 5400 to 5200.

BradleeD

This might be a stupid question but I am going to ask anyway. What is an VAFC and what does it do?

xizor

VAFC stands for Vtec Air Flow Control, its basically a computer that taps into the signals going in and out of your ECU chip. It can change when your Vtec kicks in, the air/fuel mixture etc.

One benefit of dynamically tuning your engine is because if you add an intake, your mixture will be air-rich since the ECU wont compensate with more fuel. w/ the VAFC you can change your mixture to be near perfect ratio (14.7)

Run it with a dyno and wideband and you can adjust your fuel mixture to run more effecientyly and get some more HP outta it.

*edit* link w/ description

TinkySD

The single most important thing you get with the hondata reflash that you don't with a v-afc is the ability to adjust cam angle on the i-vtec system.

xizor

I'm guessing the Hondata Vtec does that for the iVtec in the RSX?

Dan Martin

What does cam angle have to do with the ECU? Aren't cams machined to a specific angle for intake and exhaust?

xizor

that's the point of vtec, original vtec had 2 different cam settings based on the RPM. iVtec does one up by adjusting the cam slightly at low RPM's and kicks in different cam settings at high RPM (ie: 6200rpm for us).

I guess the Hondata ECU will adjust the cams at lower RPM's better.

fdl

How much horse do you think you have at the wheels? 170 is about right.

JTso

iTrader: (2)

FYI... The ECU does adjust the A/F to keep it to 14.7:1 using its build-in programs called the Short Term Fuel Trim (STFT) and Long Term Fuel Trim (LTFT) depending on the output of the O2 sensor and various sensor inputs such as Intake Air Temp (IAT) and Engine Coolant Temp (ECT). Here are some good info explaining how it works. Btw, the LTFT for the TSX is about 10% too rich.

STC

iTrader: (1)

thats not from an intake alone is it?
if it is pls tell me which one is it.

Jab31169

Injen...and yes...it is just an intake