K&N FIPK with a 6x9 round filter...

 

The gains from aftermarket CAI's are so small
that if you compare them to a new factory paper air filter
it is hard to measure the acceleration gain.

If instead you spend your money on
cylinder head porting,
an aftermarket EFI computer like the FAST/MegaSquirt/Motec,
or even a simple oil windage tray.....
you will get seven times or more horsepower for each $ spent.

No auto manufacturer has ever found that an aftermarket style CAI improves MPG in a careful test.

If you don't trust Dodge on this....look at Honda/BMW/Porsche.

Think back.
You have never seen an advertisement on TV or in a magazine where any automaker has said:
"This year's model has a new design air intake that improves MPG"

And that is not to say that automakers are not trying out new air intake designs to tweak out a bit more horsepower at high speed and high rpm.
Look at these BMW or Infiniti designs meant for 150 mph+ cruise on the German autobahn:

http://www.seriouswheels.com/2006/20...t-1024x768.htm

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do.../photoId=31246

The truth is your vehicle can't reach the 150 mph speeds where Ram Air can give cost effective gains.

Spend your money where it will make good gains.

 

HankL, you just answered my next question. Whats wrong with the factory intake?[sm=dontgetit.gif]

Adrian

 

Well there's nothing "wrong" with it at all. But alot of people want to put "performance" parts on their truck, and they either have limited mechanical ability, or limited funds to work with, so they bolt on a bunch of cheap **** that doesn't really do anything. Instead of getting headers, or stroker kits,having their throttle bodies bored out, or lower gears... you have throttle body spacers, 180 degree thermostats, and cold air intakes made out of PVC pipe from home depot.

On another note I have noticed the round air cleaner nets more performance gains than a K&N (which my friend has on his ram, although his is only a 318 so maybe that's the reason) and they also look a hell of alot better.

As for the Ram air box, there are a few people on this site of have them and are quite happy with them. Mopowar comes to mind.

 

what often gets missed in these threads is that if you do more mods to your induction track you'll get more out of your CAI... Mine flows an aweful lot when compared to the stock box. when I put the stock box on for whatever reason, it's like my truck has a cold... cant breath and it is very noticeable.

 

I just find it a little silly that people are downplaying doing a good thing for an engine. Buying a cold air intake kit is not a cheap thing, at all actually. In fact most people never get around to getting them because they are so much money. A cold air intake, if properly backed up with other modifications, sets you aside from the pack. I plan to installed headers with a 3" y-pipe, a performance chip and the list goes on. Nobody hear can say that a stock airbox outperforms a performance agenda intake system. I'm not here to save gas, or get better mpg lol, i want performance, even if it means 10mpg as opposed to my already ****ty 12mpg. No offense, but i think its the people who didnt want to spend the big bucks on the cold air intakes ones are the ones saying cold air intake kits are crap and a cheap mod to do to your vehicle, and that an air hat is better. Theres just no way an airhat is better, it;s sitting right on top f the engine, completely susceptible to the hot air! Granted it prob. outperforms the stock airbox, but it's just not my bag, id like a kit, and they do increase h/p, every vehgicle i'veput one on it boosted it...hmm. im not mad by the way, this is a good conversation

 

the ram air box is a good alternative to the CAI... encloses the air filter on top of the TB and allows you to feed cool air from the front of the motor.

http://www.ramairbox.com/

 

Supposedly someone found a ram airbox on here like that one, but it seals better. At least I think I read that somewhere. I forget what the name of it was though.

 

If you put in a new thermostat
would you put a piece of tape over the dashboard temperature gauge
so that you could not ever see it?

Well, doing that makes as much sense
as putting on a new air intake
and never reading the MAP and IAT sensors.

Why is it important to put aftermarket CAI's to good tests?

Because the suppliers will make aftermarket items that sell !

If we keep buying junk
they will keep selling junk
there will even be a 'race to the bottom'
like you see on eBay
with even cheaper and shoddy stuff that does nothing but make noise.

If we do good tests and spread the word over the internet about bad products, then suppliers of bad products will suffer and suppliers of good products will prosper.

Stand for truth.
Stand for good testing.
Help newbie Dodge owners avoid getting hurt
and a side effect will be that you get better stuff to buy.

 

Let me throw in my 2 cents on this. I understand why everyone wants a CAI, and the concept makes sense, but it is my opinion that on these Magnum engines, they are close to worthless. This is due to the keg barrel intake design that our trucks have. Sorry for the length on this, but I have been thinking about this stuff for some time, and studying the intake for awhile, and this is what I have come up with.

A kegger is designed to provide increased low end torque by allowing more air to be available on "standby" in the plenum for use as soon as the throttle is pressed. On other intake designs, air has to be pulled in from outside the TB when the throttle is pressed because they do not have a large plenum volume. So your low end power is not as good because the air is not available quick enough when you first get on the gas (this is why people who switch to the M1 intake say they lost their low end torque). So with our kegger intake design, air gets pulled into the plenum, then into the runner, then into the cylinder. If your runners are designed correctly, they contain the exact amount of air (or close to it) you need to fill a cylinder on a single intake stroke. That means that while that air is in the runner about to be used, the rest of the air is just hanging out inside the plenum space, heating up. Most other performance intakes (take the M1 again for example) do not have a large plenum, so instead of having this "standby" air, each stroke is more or less pulling the air it needs directly into the cylinder from the throttle body, not from the air in the plenum. The M1 intake is designed to improve flow into the cylinder by speeding up the time it takes for air to get from the air cleaner/TB into the cylinder. Here, a colder air charge would probably be more noticable. But when your intake is designed to pull air in and store it while air is being used in the runners first, the chances of that air maintaining a cold charge decrease in my opinion. That really defeats the purpose of a CAI.

Secondly, the belly pan of the kegger intake is a plate of steel that sits right above the lifter valley. Since it is being splashed by super hot oil from the underside, that plate heats up to very hot temperatures. The intake runners (in their stock length) sit just centimeters above that steel belly pan. So as the air comes down into the plenum and fills down on that belly pan, it is going to be heated up very quickly. The temperature of the air being pulled into the runners because of this has got to be extrememly high, and I seriously doubt a CAI is going to make any difference in this. That belly pan is just too hot to keep a cold air charge cold after it has entered the intake and is waiting to enter the runners.

I also believe the designs of most CAI are only good for intakes like the M1 that are constantly pulling smaller amounts of air in from the air cleaner assembly and have no substantial plenum volume to maintain. But on a large plenum designed intake like these kegger intakes, you need an air cleaner assembly that can not only flow enough air to feed the cylinders, but also completly fill up the rest of the plenum so that it the plenum is ready to provide good air flow into the cylinders for the next intake stroke. If it can't keep the plenum full, then each intake stroke is going to be lacking the air it needs to make sufficent power. Just looking at the designs of most CAI's, with there small single tube size and long distances to the filter, I find it hard to believe that on each intake stroke, there is enough air sitting in the CAI tube to completly fill up the plenum again. Keep this in mind: even if the filter you have on the end of that tube can flow 1000cfm, doesn't mean the tube can flow that. This is why I feel the round filter design and the ram air box design works so well. The amount of air they can feed directly into the plenum is far greater, and I believe it can keep the entire plenum full better then a CAI can. This is why they perform better then a CAI (in my opinion) even though the air they are pulling in might be slightly hotter.

This is just my opinion on stuff from trying many different air intake designs (one home made, one Airaid, one K&N FIPK, and now round filter design), and studying the kegger intake and runner design. I can't scientifically prove most of what I just said, so take from it what you want.