Airaid Intake System?
#1
01-30-2006, 04:00 PM
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Airaid Intake System?
Do any of you guys have the "Airaid" air intake/filter system? Any thoughts positive or negative? Increase gas mileage or not? Increase power or not? I noticed from the pictures that it basically comes straight off the side of the tb and stops out in space, instead of like the K&N that goes to the fenderwell in the front. How hard would it be to modify an Airaid to go farther to the front where the "better air" is? Any thoughts from you please post......
#2
01-30-2006, 06:16 PM
Record Breaker
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RE: Airaid Intake System?
um from what i've seen people tend to stay away from airaid... you have to mod them no matter what. remember this the stock air intake is already taking in outside air where as the airaid would be pulling it from the inside next to the hot hot hot hot hot hot hot, can i say it again, hot exaust mainfold.
though thinking about it, it probably would be easy to mod just gotta get the right size tubing and clamps. probably like 50 bucks at nappa or local hardware place.
though thinking about it, it probably would be easy to mod just gotta get the right size tubing and clamps. probably like 50 bucks at nappa or local hardware place.
#3
01-30-2006, 11:59 PM
Grand Champion
RE: Airaid Intake System?
I had one on for 5 months. I had to custom build a heat shield because it literally sits inches above the exhaust manifold. It was hard to seal on the TB, always seemed like it wanted to leak. I think it is due to the weight of the metal tube and that there was no supporting connections to hold it up. When I took it off (after only 5 months), there was rust on the inside of the tube from condensation. That rust is already past the filter--scary. I would highly recommend avoiding it if possible.
#5
01-31-2006, 12:17 AM
RE: Airaid Intake System?
I have an Airaid on mine, I put a 90' elbow on it and a piece of PVC and wrapped entire unit with steamline wrap (shiny) and notched my flap beside the radiator. Total cost for everything 219.00 (got airaid off of ebay pretty cheap) and change and it looks cool. Friend of mine has a Ram Quadcab, and a K&N FIPK, it looks cool also but his filter got hot, probably because it sits in that box beside the radiator, he notched his flap like I had and now his filter stays cool. I also didnt like the K&N because of all the relocation u have to do but thats just me, just seems cluttered. And mine came with supports to hold it up and in place, has a nice snug fit to the TB never any problems and its been about a year.
#6
01-31-2006, 04:06 AM
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#7
01-31-2006, 10:38 AM
RE: Airaid Intake System?
avoid the Airraid
----
This post has more information rather than less.
It is designed to give you tools to spend money effectively.
If you have already made a purchase
there is a chance that reading this
may make you unhappy or emotional.
Don't blame the aftermarket air intake for not giving you a MPG increase.
There has been lots of careful scientific testing of all kinds of air intakes
and the result is that they neither increase/decrease MPG on gasoline engines.
But you can also reliably predict that if 100 customers buy an air intake that
DOES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
and then these customers check their next tank to see if it improves MPG,
then 50 of these customers will see an improvement,
50 customers will see a decrease,
and ONLY if you could collect and average all 100 of the next tanks
of gasolines would you find a true average of zero.
If less restrictive air inlet system improved MPG,
after the last 20 yrs of C.A.F.E.
(Corporate Average Fuel Economy)
government MPG standards,
you would now see massive air intakes with 2 foot high by 4 foot wide
openings - even on the smallest 4 cyl compact.
Honda in a spirit of fierce pride, told its student engineers to do everything
possible on the Insight Hybrid to get the greatest possible MPG - they were
in a competition with Audi CEO and Porsche's grandson Ferdinand Piech
who was having his engineers build the A3
aluminum body/3 cyl diesel as the world's highest MPG car.
Honda used every known trick in the gasoline engineering book to get over 70
MPG to beat Audi's fuel economy of 3 liters per 100 km on diesel. Notice that
Honda was starting out about 20% behind because they were trying to make a
gasoline engine powered vehicle beat a diesel power vehicle for 'world
bragging rights.'
Go look at the air intake of a Honda Insight.
What do you see?
If you don't want to trust just the Honda,
go check out the Toyota Prius, Lexus 400H and Ford Escape Hybrid air intakes.
See a trend?
Check out the 2006 Corvette Z06 air intake for a 'ram air' design on a
vehicle that can reach 'only' 198 mph. You can bet several engineers
spent hours trying to tweak this inlet to get an extra 2 mph.
It would be easy to do a RELIABLE test of any two air intakes at the
dragstrip.
The way to do it would be to get two nearly identical trucks. They don't
have to be exactly identical but the closer the better.
The two trucks would line up against each other at least 4 times and
preferably 8 or more.
The first half of the runs one truck would have the air intake
and the other would have the stock air intake. After each pass
the drivers swap trucks. Then for the second half of the passes
the two trucks would swap intakes.
In making comparisons it is better to look at terminal speed rather than ET,
but subtracting 60 foot times from ET and comparing those is worthwhile too.
If the air intake really makes a average gain in terminal speed on both trucks
when installed that is pretty reasonable proof.
You might ask yourself:
Why doesn't each air intake maker hire an independent lab to do this and
verify that their intake is superior?
If you do 20 runs instead of 8,
and if the air intake makes a gain in terminal speed on 19 of those 20 runs,
then you are approaching the kind of proof scientists and MD's are supposed to
have before they 'publish' a fact in a magazine.
They wouldn't even have to hire a 'lab'.
Two of the following 'straight shooting' automotive writers (James Dulley,
Dan Neil, Steve Dulich, Rick Ehrenberg) have records that prove their
opinions can't be bought and could probably be paid a nominal
fee & travel expenses to face off against one another in a test.
A side benefit of the above test is that you could also settle bets as to
which of the two drivers was better, which can be fun. Killing two birds with
the same stone, so to speak.
A properly designed air intake can give modest increases of torque and
horsepower at wide open throttle - but sometimes this comes at the cost of
increased noise or filters that get clogged with bugs and dirt faster.
If you are willing to tolerate more noise, in nearly every case you can
build a better air intake than you can buy.
This post has a Part II about the cheapest way to test any air intake.
Don't want to do testing and want a shortcut toward an effective
air intake?
Well, in a nutshell just remount your stock air box so that it will suck air
out of the cavity behind the firewall and below the windshield where your air
vents presently get their air. This spot will give you cooler air, higher
pressure air, and it will not pickup bugs/road grit as badly as an inlet near
the front grill.
Why didn't your vehicle suck air from this spot in the first place?
Because with the interior cab air vent inlets there it allows A LOT of NOISE
to go into the vehicle's cabin.
As a matter of fact, most aftermarket air intakes
JUST MAKE EXTRA NOISE.
This extra noise convinces most owners
that they are making more horsepower - no kidding.
If you read enough auto postings you come to the conclusion that many young
owners are really after 'Excitement' not true vehicle performance you
can time with a stopwatch. The loud mufflers, the loud stereos, the
vibrations of hard shock absorbers, the unstable feeling while driving high
lifted suspensions - it is really more about excitement than performance. Note
many of these same vehicle owners are heavy players of video games.
In addition to the spot at the base of the windshield, at the front of the
radiator grille, and - surprise - a scoop at the top of the tire in the fender
interior are spots where high velocity air can be converted to high pressure.
Notice that I have NOT said to rely on dyno testing of air intakes...I have
said do road tests.
Why?
Because you can't really test an aftermarket air intake system on a dyno where
the vehicle is not moving and an electric fan is blowing air at the radiator.
This makes it SO EASY TO CHEAT that you can make any air intake show a HP
increase on the dyno graph. Don't trust any dyno graph that claims to show an
aftermarket air intake horsepower gain. Realistic airflow around the vehicle
is critical to seeing whether it really works.
Note that KN Filters lists how independent laboratories verify their air
flow claims and their performance claims, but there is not a link to where an
independent lab has verified any MPG improvement claim. That is because the
engineers at KN Filters know that any MPG gain or loss that a customer reports
is really just 'random variation.' But that does not keep KN from quotes such
as 'Customers report 1-2 better MPG.' Note how that is 'literally true' but
not 'scientifically valid.' Those are known as 'Weasel Words' in the
advertising trade.
http://www.knfilters.com/testmethod.htm
http://www.knfilters.com/powertesting.htm
Even with all the warnings about how easy it is to cheat or make mistakes in
dyno testing, this series of posts by Dodge 5.7 Hemi owners is worth reading.
Note how well the stock air inlet system worked.
http://www.lxforums.com/board/showthread.php?t=14140
For examples about how one lone automotive enthusiast went about (imperfectly)
doing some home air filter element testing similar to that described above, go
to this link:
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/airfilter/airtest2.htm
If you have read this far and presently think that the author
'Hates Cold Air Intakes' or thinks not a single one provides any gain
you have misunderstood and are urge to reconsider.
The author would also like to state for the record that if the maker
of any aftermarket air intake would run the 'Two Truck Test'
described and publish the result - then this FAQ would name that
air intake and describe it as 'Better Tested than its Competitors'.
----
This post has more information rather than less.
It is designed to give you tools to spend money effectively.
If you have already made a purchase
there is a chance that reading this
may make you unhappy or emotional.
Don't blame the aftermarket air intake for not giving you a MPG increase.
There has been lots of careful scientific testing of all kinds of air intakes
and the result is that they neither increase/decrease MPG on gasoline engines.
But you can also reliably predict that if 100 customers buy an air intake that
DOES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
and then these customers check their next tank to see if it improves MPG,
then 50 of these customers will see an improvement,
50 customers will see a decrease,
and ONLY if you could collect and average all 100 of the next tanks
of gasolines would you find a true average of zero.
If less restrictive air inlet system improved MPG,
after the last 20 yrs of C.A.F.E.
(Corporate Average Fuel Economy)
government MPG standards,
you would now see massive air intakes with 2 foot high by 4 foot wide
openings - even on the smallest 4 cyl compact.
Honda in a spirit of fierce pride, told its student engineers to do everything
possible on the Insight Hybrid to get the greatest possible MPG - they were
in a competition with Audi CEO and Porsche's grandson Ferdinand Piech
who was having his engineers build the A3
aluminum body/3 cyl diesel as the world's highest MPG car.
Honda used every known trick in the gasoline engineering book to get over 70
MPG to beat Audi's fuel economy of 3 liters per 100 km on diesel. Notice that
Honda was starting out about 20% behind because they were trying to make a
gasoline engine powered vehicle beat a diesel power vehicle for 'world
bragging rights.'
Go look at the air intake of a Honda Insight.
What do you see?
If you don't want to trust just the Honda,
go check out the Toyota Prius, Lexus 400H and Ford Escape Hybrid air intakes.
See a trend?
Check out the 2006 Corvette Z06 air intake for a 'ram air' design on a
vehicle that can reach 'only' 198 mph. You can bet several engineers
spent hours trying to tweak this inlet to get an extra 2 mph.
It would be easy to do a RELIABLE test of any two air intakes at the
dragstrip.
The way to do it would be to get two nearly identical trucks. They don't
have to be exactly identical but the closer the better.
The two trucks would line up against each other at least 4 times and
preferably 8 or more.
The first half of the runs one truck would have the air intake
and the other would have the stock air intake. After each pass
the drivers swap trucks. Then for the second half of the passes
the two trucks would swap intakes.
In making comparisons it is better to look at terminal speed rather than ET,
but subtracting 60 foot times from ET and comparing those is worthwhile too.
If the air intake really makes a average gain in terminal speed on both trucks
when installed that is pretty reasonable proof.
You might ask yourself:
Why doesn't each air intake maker hire an independent lab to do this and
verify that their intake is superior?
If you do 20 runs instead of 8,
and if the air intake makes a gain in terminal speed on 19 of those 20 runs,
then you are approaching the kind of proof scientists and MD's are supposed to
have before they 'publish' a fact in a magazine.
They wouldn't even have to hire a 'lab'.
Two of the following 'straight shooting' automotive writers (James Dulley,
Dan Neil, Steve Dulich, Rick Ehrenberg) have records that prove their
opinions can't be bought and could probably be paid a nominal
fee & travel expenses to face off against one another in a test.
A side benefit of the above test is that you could also settle bets as to
which of the two drivers was better, which can be fun. Killing two birds with
the same stone, so to speak.
A properly designed air intake can give modest increases of torque and
horsepower at wide open throttle - but sometimes this comes at the cost of
increased noise or filters that get clogged with bugs and dirt faster.
If you are willing to tolerate more noise, in nearly every case you can
build a better air intake than you can buy.
This post has a Part II about the cheapest way to test any air intake.
Don't want to do testing and want a shortcut toward an effective
air intake?
Well, in a nutshell just remount your stock air box so that it will suck air
out of the cavity behind the firewall and below the windshield where your air
vents presently get their air. This spot will give you cooler air, higher
pressure air, and it will not pickup bugs/road grit as badly as an inlet near
the front grill.
Why didn't your vehicle suck air from this spot in the first place?
Because with the interior cab air vent inlets there it allows A LOT of NOISE
to go into the vehicle's cabin.
As a matter of fact, most aftermarket air intakes
JUST MAKE EXTRA NOISE.
This extra noise convinces most owners
that they are making more horsepower - no kidding.
If you read enough auto postings you come to the conclusion that many young
owners are really after 'Excitement' not true vehicle performance you
can time with a stopwatch. The loud mufflers, the loud stereos, the
vibrations of hard shock absorbers, the unstable feeling while driving high
lifted suspensions - it is really more about excitement than performance. Note
many of these same vehicle owners are heavy players of video games.
In addition to the spot at the base of the windshield, at the front of the
radiator grille, and - surprise - a scoop at the top of the tire in the fender
interior are spots where high velocity air can be converted to high pressure.
Notice that I have NOT said to rely on dyno testing of air intakes...I have
said do road tests.
Why?
Because you can't really test an aftermarket air intake system on a dyno where
the vehicle is not moving and an electric fan is blowing air at the radiator.
This makes it SO EASY TO CHEAT that you can make any air intake show a HP
increase on the dyno graph. Don't trust any dyno graph that claims to show an
aftermarket air intake horsepower gain. Realistic airflow around the vehicle
is critical to seeing whether it really works.
Note that KN Filters lists how independent laboratories verify their air
flow claims and their performance claims, but there is not a link to where an
independent lab has verified any MPG improvement claim. That is because the
engineers at KN Filters know that any MPG gain or loss that a customer reports
is really just 'random variation.' But that does not keep KN from quotes such
as 'Customers report 1-2 better MPG.' Note how that is 'literally true' but
not 'scientifically valid.' Those are known as 'Weasel Words' in the
advertising trade.
http://www.knfilters.com/testmethod.htm
http://www.knfilters.com/powertesting.htm
Even with all the warnings about how easy it is to cheat or make mistakes in
dyno testing, this series of posts by Dodge 5.7 Hemi owners is worth reading.
Note how well the stock air inlet system worked.
http://www.lxforums.com/board/showthread.php?t=14140
For examples about how one lone automotive enthusiast went about (imperfectly)
doing some home air filter element testing similar to that described above, go
to this link:
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/airfilter/airtest2.htm
If you have read this far and presently think that the author
'Hates Cold Air Intakes' or thinks not a single one provides any gain
you have misunderstood and are urge to reconsider.
The author would also like to state for the record that if the maker
of any aftermarket air intake would run the 'Two Truck Test'
described and publish the result - then this FAQ would name that
air intake and describe it as 'Better Tested than its Competitors'.
Trending Topics
#8
01-31-2006, 02:37 PM
RE: Airaid Intake System?
^^^^ does this mean avoid ALL Air Intakes, or just the AirRaid? I think it would have been a little more appropriate to have summarized your post or linked to the other one you copied and pasted that from.
To contribute something to the post: go with the K&N or similar, as they draw from outside the engine bay. Colder air means more oxygen, etc, etc, etc. I've explained this before and I feel like I'm repeating myself. heh. Good luck with your results, you'll at least get a quicker ride even if you don't get better mileage out of it. Besides, wasn't half the point of the Ram to be a little north of quiet to begin with?
To contribute something to the post: go with the K&N or similar, as they draw from outside the engine bay. Colder air means more oxygen, etc, etc, etc. I've explained this before and I feel like I'm repeating myself. heh. Good luck with your results, you'll at least get a quicker ride even if you don't get better mileage out of it. Besides, wasn't half the point of the Ram to be a little north of quiet to begin with?
#9
01-31-2006, 02:49 PM
RE: Airaid Intake System?
What are there - perhaps two dozen different aftermarket air intakes?
And add to that
- you could get an official Dodge air intake off a 1992-1999 Dodge Van
because they are slightly different and
- maybe even more interesting
- you could get an official
Dodge re-designed air intake for a Magnum 5.9V8
installed in the 3rd gen 2003-2004 Rams
and modify it slightly.
People may not agree on many things
but I think all can agree that with
more than 20 choices
half will be above average
half will be below average
avoid the Airaid
my opinion is that it is below average.
And add to that
- you could get an official Dodge air intake off a 1992-1999 Dodge Van
because they are slightly different and
- maybe even more interesting
- you could get an official
Dodge re-designed air intake for a Magnum 5.9V8
installed in the 3rd gen 2003-2004 Rams
and modify it slightly.
People may not agree on many things
but I think all can agree that with
more than 20 choices
half will be above average
half will be below average
avoid the Airaid
my opinion is that it is below average.
#10
01-31-2006, 03:44 PM
Grand Champion
RE: Airaid Intake System?
I noticed that in my most recent Performance Products magazine, all the new Airaid kits utilize plastic tubes like K&N, no more metal like the one I bought about 2 years ago that rusted in only 5 months. I still say avoid them. They are also the maker of the infamous Poweraid throttle body spacer. That is a worthless product, but they market it like the miracle cure for power and gas mileage. What a bunch of crap. I rank them up there with the guys who make the Tornado fuel saver.
They'll be trying to sell you blinker fluid next, claiming 15-20 hp gain from it too. [&:]
They'll be trying to sell you blinker fluid next, claiming 15-20 hp gain from it too. [&:]