I see dozens of threads about guys wanting to spend hundreds of dollars for a cold air intake system when we already have CAI on the TL. I don't understand.
Do Ingen and the others relocate the intake to a higher pressure zone on the car? I don't think so. So the only gain can be from a less restrictive inlet ducting, but I've looked at our inlet configuration: I didn't spend a lot of time studying it, but it didn't look bad; so a few bucks on a few smoother fittings could fix any short comings there.
Maybe the inlet filter is a little less restrictive, but as the engineering manager of a company that designs engine filtration systems I can tell you that less restriction will usually come at the expense of filter efficiency. Not necessarilly a good trade off for my money.
I can see an after market CAI for the majority of cars that don't have them as original equipment, but it sure seems like a waste of money on the 3rd gen. TL.
Flame away guys.

 

I've often wondered about this too. And I agree with you. From what I can tell, most of the car is desinged very well including the intake and engine. This is probably why it is taking so long for the competing CAI's to come out ... they're probably trying to figure out how to make it better.

Anyway, I won't be putting one on my car I'll save the money for something else.

Get out your fire extenguisher I wonder how posts there will be before the match lights.

 

No flames from me. But I think these aftermarket CAI systems do have a great benefit; however, it is for the manufacturer not the consumer. That being said, I think these systems produce a sound that is somehow satisfying to some folks, and that may be their greatest consumer benefit. Make room in the asbestos or nomex tent.

 

So far no has jumped up to say they gained 10 HP at the wheels and cut .5 seconds off their 0-60 time. I fully suspect that someone will but I design this stuff all day long and I've got a pretty good idea what gains can be found in our stock system and it's not much. Take your spare tire and jack out of the trunk and you'll gain as much performance increase for free.
Thanks for the support guys!
To those who will say "Ingen (or K&N, or whoever) dyno tested and got.......hp increase at the wheels" I will say this, "Dynos are very inaccurate creatures and can give you anywhere from 2 to 5% variation an succesive runs on the same car" Factor in weather changes and you could pick up 10 whp on the TL and never change a thing.
If I owned a company who's success is predicated on increasing performance I believe I might take advantage of the idiosyncrisis of dynomometers in my testing as well.

 

I dont "need" one, but im sure the top benefit of a aftermarket cai is the sound. and what is 4-5 hp really gonna do for you? rather spend the $$$ on some subs

 

I bought a CAI for my TL a few months ago...didnt really care one way or the other about. My shop gets cost on K&N, might as well...I guess because I can. Im not looking for any performance increases or HP bumps. The sound is a little annoying, I guess I'm just lazy and dont feel like uninstalling it. I figure, what the hell, its already in there, didnt cost a lot, makes some peopel go wow when they see it. I wouldnt rec. getting one, however, if cost is a factor in your decision and you have your eye on something else that actually does something for the car.

 

The answer is simple:

The J32 in VTEC + CAI= One Sweet Roar

 

To rontatuaf;

Good points and thanks for your input. My prior car, a 2002 Altima SE, had a very restrictive intake system as installed from the factory. The outtermost portion of the intake was misunderstood my a lot of people as a "ram air" design and I can tell you, it was not. And it only had about 6 cubic inches of a long, retanglar shaped opening (roughly 3/4 x 9 inches) to feed 214 cubic inches of V6 engine. That plus three resonators and some God-awful turns and curves to pass through before the air hit the throttle body. Most of the guys on the website were installing InJens or AEMs, but I went a different route after quite a bit of thought and reading. I installed a short, straight shot intake, erroneously called a warm air intake, from Frankencar using the Apexi cone shaped "Power Intake" dry element filter. I say erroneously called warm air filter because the area in the engine bay where this intake was fitted was actually quite cool. Before I installed the intake I took temperature readings under real driving conditions and found that this area was hardly any warmer than the ambient temperature outside of the car. And since the design of the intake was short and straight, not only did I gain horsepower (around 13-14 to the wheels), but torque increased across the power band as well.

With this said, I have spent a little time examining the area between the throttle body and the air filter housing in our TLs and it looks like a similar intake design could fit quite nicely there. However, I also believe the air in that are will be a little warmed than the outside, but this could be offset by the greater efficiency of the intake design.

In any case, I looks like the real impediment in our intake is in two places: the filter housing and the end of the intake tube, which is actually in the engine bay and not outside of it! It's located right in front of the battery so technically, our TLs DO NOT have CAI systems at all, but rather WAI since the definition of a CAI is one which collects air from outside of the engine bay.. and ours doesn't fit this definition. Plus the end of this tube has a shielding cover about 1.5 to 2 inches over it to keep things from falling into the tube.

So based on this, I suspect there are some ponies to be released with a decent intake design, but I don't expect we'll see as many as were exposed with quality intakes installed in the Altima V6 cars simply because our stock setup is better than what was being shipped with the Altima SEs.

As for exhaust improvements, I also had a full Mossy catback exhaust system installed on my Altima SE to compliment the intake.. and it most certainly did. Lastly, I installed an Unorthodox Racing underdrive pulley which made a slight difference.. but just slight. The real mods were the intake and exhaust and the car came alive with these to the tune of real, felt changes. One of the enthusiast websites was doing incremental mods on the Altima and the Mossy catback gained 20.4 HP and 22.7 lb/ft of torque to the wheels. They didn't trust this dyno (tey had never used it before) so they took the car to the one they had been using for the previous mods and recorded a real world 12 HP and 10 lb/ft gain.. still decent and this was on top of the intake mod.

I have a friend who made very similar mods as mine, plus he installed HotShot headers and had his timing bumped three degrees. He had his Altima dynoed at 244 HP and 244 lb/ft of torque. I can attest to the performance of his car, having ridden in it several times. It was quick!

However with the TL, it looks like the exhaust is already pretty good.. in terms of resonators and mufflers. They look as though none are of a reverse flow design. The biggest dam in the systems is the Y pipe exiting the manifolds. I don't think a lot of extra power is going to be found here, either.


Comments and opinions are certainly welcome.

 

there isnt even one being sold by comptech..... but ingen i think is claiming a 6-8 hp increase from what i heard, hey its more than 5!!!

________________
tip the scales!!!
04' acura anthricite tl navi/5at
96' toyo landcrusier
03' suburban z71

 

Comptech says they are working on an Ice Box for the 3rd gen TL

 

Nobody has posted back to back stock verses aftermarket CAI dyno plots for this car yet on this site. The stock CAI will work as the car moves down the road, though it may ingest some engine compartment air at idle due to the system's vacuum brake.

The main benefit of aftermarket CAI for the TL is the sound difference to those desiring more noise.

 

Not back-to-back dynos, but Aegir (one of our A-TL members) has posted a few threads on the Injen. In comparison to his almost stock TL, the Injen gained him 8 whp.

I know, I know, there could be variations in the weather, etc. etc...just wanted to point it out.

 

Why wonder about it? If it's really bugging you, get one and find out. It'll be louder. You'll pick up a few horsepower and maybe convince yourself that you can actually feel a difference. You may like it or you may hate it. You may end up pulling it off and selling it to someone else to play with - but at least you'll know and you won't have to wonder.

 

I look at the CAI mod as any other mod, more or less. Some people spend thousands of dollars on their wheels for what, looks, maybe a little performance if the overall weight is dropped? People can complain about every aspect of something that does not come with the car from the factory, either it needs to be improved (as the aspec suspension has been) or it should be left alone (CAI for example). Regardless of your opinion there are people, including myself, who will spend money on different things. My goal was not to make my TL 1/5 of a second faster down the quarter mile stretch, but to just have something different. As I mentioned yesterday, I'm too lazy to remove the intake b/c the whine is a little much, but I did the mod because I could. You can bitch about those who put wheels, who put spoilers, who put a number of other things which do very little to increase the capability of the car. Everyone has their point of view on a mod, which is fine, but this "waste of money for nothing" idea is not limited solely to CAI's. There migth be too much hype surrounding the dyno numbers, and that one design will blow another out of the water, but when it comes down to it, mods are out there for looks or to slightly change something already on the car.

 

Why not take the crap out of the trunk AND get a CAI? That's how people think. Every little bit counts when you are at the track.

 

I own a 04 WDP TL and i would never bother using it on a track simply put i just dont think it is fast enough(not enough torque), my old 00 audi s4, now that was worthy of the track. I for one did not buy the TL for racing purposes rather it is a beautiful, comfortable luxury/sport sedan. For the speed and fun i have a Suzuki gsxr750. That gives me all the speed and adrenaline i can handle. I say get some nice wheels, maybe a TV and a PS2 and just stay pimpin. But I would get a CAI for the sound b/c this TL is so quiet i could fall asleep if i didnt have music on

 

when ur car is totally stock, the CAI pretty much doubles - triples ur engine sound

so ur car will sound like a beast :P

 

Fact > opinion.
Find a friend who has either INJEN or AEM CAI installed and test drive it. You never know unless you've actually driven, sat-in, or raced against one. My friend Joey has a stock TL, and ran against mine. Perhaps it's bad shifting, but Mine did edge alittle.

 

Manufacturers Do not make a CAI systems unless its on a real sports car because its more of a liability issue to them.

First of most of the air boxes are designed to QUIET the car down for luxury. Face it.... Most people/ PUblic dont care about intakes or anything. They only care if the car performs well and gets them places. AFTERMARKET Intakes are loud and not cost effecient for manufacturer.

Liability issues.... if ACURA/HONDA came out with Injen style CAI as OEM equipment... then what would happen if you go through a big puddle and hydrolock the engine..... WHICH is a very well known fact that its possible. They would have to fix engines left and right. Since people dont avoid puddles as they should.
Short ram intakes are good for low end cai for top end. short rams usually can get the air in the engine much quicker then cai since there is less piping for air to travel. Cai's usually do better in winter months...since the air is much colder outside and you almost ramin it in that you get that gain more so then in winter.

Filter wise.... K&N filters are way better then OEM paper crap. I use to take out my K&N filter on my Prelude and clean it 2x a year. All it took was a few hours and you done. Much cheaper then getting a new one from a dealer.

The biggest reason why there is soo much aftermarket stuff... is because people do not want to be Uniform. they want to be different... individuality. PLus they want more then what someone else has.

 

is there much difference between in sound between cai and short ram.

im really only looking for sound not so much for the hp gains but wanna go the safe way!!

 

go with short ram. sound a bit louder and you wont have to worry about drivinh in the rain.

 

i agree, totally. the stock "cai" that is in there are just airboxes linked together that end up getting air down low............ mas restrictionado..... better airflow with the injen/aem intake.

getting the short ram wouldnt be that bad either cept the cai looks better, and obviously draws the cooler air. the rain issue is not really a problem... its tucked away inside the bumper far enough where it wont draw in water unless u drive through a pond-sized puddle! but anyways, im TOTALLY satisfied with my injen cai, and it was well worth the "few hundred bucks"

 

I installed CAI on most of my previous rides, since they all had restrictive air systems, most took the air from the engine compartment, so that was my reason like I said on another thread https://acurazine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=110471
But in researching this vehicle I noticed that it already came with one cold air system ....not as fancy as a polished tube but IMHO will do the job of getting cold air into the intake manifold from outside the engine compartment, meaning not warm or hot air.....and one more thing about Dynos and CAI's...don't CAI systems need the car in motion to get the fullest benefit, therefore the data from a stationary vehicle ( Dyno) would not be so accurate....

 

A CAI is just one of the 3 main things you do when you buy a car... it should be a written rule

Change the intake, cat-back exhaust, and headers which in our case i heard something about them being permanentlyattatched to the engine
The ROAR of my AEM is sick
my 3rd gear must hate me

mostly us younger guys that probably had a hooked up honda or integra or are more into the import tunning scene would buy a CAI.
for us it's a must... at least for me it is...

 

I like the sound... Plus I am a HP addict. I like chump changin every lil bit of HP into my
TL. Plus it gives the ShOK and AWE effect when you open up the hood.

 

that 300-400 bucks in his wallet prolly slowed him down a bit