Does the motor benefit enough from a CAI to risk sucking up water. I've been looking at the K&Nfipk but its like 250 bucks shipped. I can get a regular K&N CAI for about 150. Well I'm wondering if it is worth the loot for the name brand or should I just go with a ebay brand? Then do I go short ram or CAI? Thanks guys

 

The car is an 02 es auto trans

 

Never had trouble sucking water with my CAI even driving in ice and snow slush. In my opinion I would go with the CAI.

 

I have a CAI and i never sucked up any water. just dont drive into deep puddles.
I believe you can get an air bypass valve, i think thats what its called.

 

ok unless you drive into a puddle or a body of water that is deeper than the height from the ground to the top of the CAI filter(the highest point of it), there is no way you could possibly hydrolock (suck up water) your engine..... if you are that worried about it AEM makes what they call a "bypass valve" that you insert before the Throttle body and CAI pipe that is made out of a type of foam so that in the rare case you oh lets say try to ford a river, it will suck air through that valve instead of the filter..... hope that helps

 

with the 2nd gen and the way its set up their is no difference between the short and cold. becouse both are cold, one gets it from under the dam and the other gets it from the gap in the hood.

 

I have a K&N cai and it comes with a cover that goes over the filter to prevent water from splashing onto the filter...Also if you go with K&N you cannot put a Air bypass valve on b/c it voids the warranty, or so I was told when I emailed K&N.

As for sucking up water I have not had any problems with mine and I live out in the middle of no-where, and I have hit some big puddles... So in my opinion since the cai is cheaper I would just go with that.

 

Most air bypass valves like the one AEM sells are not that efficient unless conditions are right. Furthermore, you can buy the same rubber piece, same exact make and size, in the plumbing section of most hardware stores for a whopping $3.Most bypasses aremade to be mounted horizontal or at an angle (not perfectly vertical)... this gives the water a place to collect itself on the deepest edges of the angles in the bypass valve while the air flows through the center of the valve. The water thencan either drain back down the pipe and through the filter at lower RPMs, or escape through a small hole drilled into the bottom of those ridges at lower RPMs. Other than that, they don't do much help.

Like everyone else said, unless you drive head-on into a foot or two of standing water, you probably won't need to worry about it. Besides, a bypass valve won't prevent hydrolock at all in that situation anyway. Bypass valves are really just a $$$-getting excuse for those naive guys who think that driving their cars while raining outside could somehowinitiate a nuclear explosion. You get the idea...

 

i have tryed both cai and ram air, and i think the ram gives you a little more low rpm power, but from what i have noticed the cai gets far better high end power and maybe even better gas mileage(the caiis a little more laggy at low rpm's though compared to the ram air but the cai makes up for it in high rpm's). I have switched back and forth many times and i would recommend the cai. I just feel like the power drops off on the ram air as the rpm's get higher so i stay with the cai. (just my opinion)

 

once the engine heats up any benefits you get from a ram air become non existant. The benifit of a true CAI comes when the engine is hot and the intake is getting as much fresh air as possible.

I say true CAI FTW!!!

If anything and your worried, don't drive over menacing puddles!! I have had mine for over a year now and not even so much as a problem... and it percipitates like non other(with no place to o because this state doesn't know what "drainage" means... *sigh*).

K&N
AEM
Injen

those are the brands you should look into for CAI's.