will I notice much difference by adding a cold air intake to my 3.7 automatic. thanks

 

Probably not a lot. You may notice a bit more power at highway speeds, but thats about it. Anything more will probably just be the placebo effect.

 

youll love all the twigs and leaves in the tube.

 

I actually noticed more top end power. It does not do anything below 2K. Intake, exhaust, e-fan all have noticeable gains for the 3.7L. The hypertech is my next purchase.

 

You will love the way it sounds though.

 

^This

 

With CAI, you can get 0-10hp improvement, but I doubt you can get the maximum. Installing a good exhaust system plus CAI can definitely provide a noticeable improvement.

 

I would attribute most of that to the exhaust and maybe a little to the CAI (these hp increases are usually authored by the CAI manufacturers and have little to do with fact or tests). Comparing cost to performance, you get a lot more "bang for buck" from the exhaust. If you want to check out what a CAI would do for you, make your own for just a few dollars using ABS drain pipe & connectors, add a cone filter & see if you can notice any change (don't use flexible "accordion" style tube/hose - the ridges cause a lot of turbulence & greatly reduce the useable air flow diameter). The one thing a CAI really does, is to give you better access to your engine.

 

And, unless the filter is routed outside the engine compartment somehow, it is not truly a "cold" ait intake. Just a low restriction intake.

 

The restriction is usually all that the aftermarket kits will give you, aside from a bit of a heat shield. It's fairly easy to "overthink" a cold air solution, I've seen quite a number of fabrications with cumbersome heat shields, insulated sleeves, etc., but if the vehicle is moving, the air in the engine bay gets changed very quickly and if you bring the intake (filter) close to the front (you can even use the same hole in the inner fender that the OEM air box uses), you'll be pulling in air at ambient temperature when moving at any reasonable speed. When you're stationary or moving very slowly, the intake tube can heat up from radiated engine heat and pass this on to the air coming through (this won't be much since the air travels through that tube at quite a velocity). Overcoming the radiated heat issue is fairly simple with material that doesn't absorb heat well, and that's why I use ABS drain pipe, it's thick and it's an insulator. A small heat shield between the filter and the engine will also help (I posted some pictures of one of my "creations" that I use on my old Jeep somewhere on this forum & also on the jeep forum - this has both the ABS pipe and filter heat shield).