ok, this is something that i have been wondering because I don't want to pay over 2 bills for an intake. i just dont think it's worth it.... because.....

to me, there are only 2 types of intakes. cold air and short ram. thats it. even then, its not that much of a difference because most of your time driving, air will be constantly flowing through your engine compartment and it wont make much of a temp change. i don't care about the brand name either. its still the same air you're sucking in. the only difference you may want to consider is getting a good filter. other then that. its a metal tube attached to your throttle body and a filter.

now i can prolly go to home depot and easily construct one out of pvc piping but that is

G H E T T O

so, now, i'm asking you. does anyone notice a generic intake that is already made for another vehicle that has approximiately the same shape as for our TL. whether it be short ram or cold air, i don't really care at this point.

 

u can prolly go to a machine show and get them to bend a pipe for ur car...sorry i dont know much about TL intakes. Theres no point of getting a short ram intake with no sort of heat shield... either ur car sucks in slow but semi cold air (stock air box) or it sucks in hot but relatively fast air (intake w. no shield) and honestly, perfromance wise, its not going to help you much but ur gas milage might go up. When i first had a short ram intake with no shield i honestly didnt see any difference other than sound of car.

an intake is not just a metal tube with filter...after market companys actually add as many bends and turns to actually allow a better tunneling of air into the hose to create like a tornado effect thus an increase and steady flow of air...thats why some short ram intakes have a pipe with a slight turn or bend on them....thats why people just dont attach the filter directly to the throttle, intake manifold, or MAF (mass air flow sensor).

I dont exactly know how your intake is set up, But i prefer short ram intakes so that i dont flood my engine on rainy nights. Id recomend a K&N filter with a heat shield. Good luck with everything
-ALex

 

dont be cheap. you spend that much money on a car and want to try to make a intake? sorry just my

 

You get what you pay for in terms of quality, R&D, and asthetics.

 

if you actually read the thread, i didnt say i was going to make an intake. i said that it was ghetto to do that. thats my on your comment

 

my main issue is that there is a mark-up on the price for the TL intake because it is so new. other cars that have been around for awhile that have the same relative shape can be used in our vehicles.

im not saying get crappy quality to save money, but you can save some cash with getting an intake that has been out for awhile. i don't feel like paying for the mark-up. if you do, its all good, its your cash, you can do what you please.

 

The TL has a CAI already - and short rams usually are just a K&N or other gauze filter on a tube - the K&N may remove some intake restriction, but at a price (poor filtering). And the HP claimed by the mfr includes any gain from the K&N - that should be weighted out IMO, to see what the ram provides intrinsically. Also, they likely never test with the hood closed, and after some stop and go traffic - short rams for the TL put the intake air at the high point of the engine bay (just below the hood), so they suck hot air in.

True CAI's may provide some ponies, but I'd like to see an independent test done under idetical conditions, which is hard to do as there are many variables. Hondas are notoriously susceptible to high ECT's - they dial back the spark maps very quickly, esp in car with high compression ratio. Detonation is anathema to long engine life. Ultimate Lurker at Temple of VTEC has done some great work on topic.

Also, the TL has a tuned intake system, using Helmholtz principles to tune the intake air resonance. An aftermarket CAI is not tuned to that system. As to the R&D, I know how many of those companies do it - they have a set system with 90% of the "research" boilerplate - the R&D is almost completely centered around the bends. And aluminum is more susceptible to heat soak than the plastic OE system, although the effects are pretty insignificant, given the air volume vs. surface area of these systems. Still.......

So while I am not doing "armchair engineering" and dismissing the aftermarket devices offhandedly, I would like to see more science. Muscle Mustangs and Fast Fords did a pretty good job looking at the CAI's for the supercharged 2003 Cobras - the one I had on my car was an 8" long AFE filter (www.afefilters.com) with a simple plastic "L-shield" and a machined aluminum mounting plate. It was one of the top performers. The R&D? - an engineer at a Unilever soap plant designed it in his head, and then had the shield and bracket made up - he (6'8" Rick) had the good sense to stipulate leaving the mesh screen on the MAF, which most CAI R&D giants (sarcasm not to be ignored) remove "because it is restrictive", not understanding that the screen helps produce laminar airflow in front of the MAF, keeping it from doing the mad lean/enrich, lean/enrich cha-cha, which causes surging and the PCM backing off timing.

On most Asian-inspired cars, these gizmos produce some honkin' sounds, make for some nice hissing off-idle, and a few ponies up top where it does the least good; do it for bling-bling, but I would like to see some bona fide testing, and what the A/F curve looks like - no ripples please.

RR.

 

I agree with the honkin' sounds comment. I don't think it's a good match for this car - IMO.

 

it's not ghetto or cheap to build your own.

some AL tubing and a TIG welder does wonders. i have a ESAB 161 welder and i like to fabricate items from time-to-time.

 

I'd wait for the Comptech Icebox

 

Go on ebay. they have a fairly cheap one i believe under 80 dollars. it'll be a lot easier than tryin to fit another car's CAI into your TL..