hi all, im considering doing the homemade cold air intake. whats the pros and cons of having a cai?

thanks

 

Not really a con IMO. I had an ebay one for years and recently did my own CAI here some time back. No con to it. I like my new one better though.

 

All pros ma man.

 

You can do a search on this and read for days.

While JUST adding a CAI doesn't benefit you much, it certainly has no glaring negatives. It can amplify the sounds of the EGR when you remove the restrictive "Hemi Hat" and with more air, you may bring in more contaminants that will eventually make it into your oil, but unless you choose a really crappy filter, not enough to cause concern. With a REALLY efficient CAI, one that takes all it's air from outside of the engine bay (ie. Vararam) the significantly cooler air will be more dense and the PCM will adjust by dumping more fuel into it, making more power at the expense of less fuel economy. But even in this extreme case, we are talking tenths of a mile per gallon here.

Now add some mods that need more air to achieve their maximum potential and the CAI really starts to show benefits.

 

I think of a CAI s more of a support mod, with just the CAI you wont notice to much other than a slight change in tone on the exhaust and a little louder up front, with it combined with exhaust it will give it a better tone and a little more umph but still nothing to write home about, add a tuner and you will start noticing it more and more, add more engine mods like cam, headers, heads and you will see bigger gains allowing the engine to breath easier.

 

ok thanks everyone

 

ive looked at building a cai and using a cone filter, but my current setup witha drop in k&n is givning me a issue when i pull off the throttle body its full of air filter oil and really dirty, and cai's use the same oil to recharge them right? any ideas on preventing or at least not making them so dirty. or is this the nature of the beast?

 

It sounds like you are over-oiling the filter. This is not a good thing for sensors. Follow the directions on the filter oil container and use just enough oil to change the color of the filter. Let the lightly-oiled filter sit for a little while so the oil can disperse more evenly over the filter material. If you just drench it with oil and install it, the excess oil gets sucked into the throttle body. This should be avoided.

 

ah good advice ok cool thanks

 

This is why a LOT of people are going to the newer, premium dry filters. It used to be that to get the flow of an oiled filter, a dry filter sacrificed a lot of filtering, but not so much anymore. Dry filters using newer technology from companies like Amsoil and AEM flow as well as the "tried and true" oiled filters without sacrificing filtering capabilities.

The plus is the only maintenance is to clean them once in a while, no fear of under or over oiling them if you don't have experience doing so.

I have K&Ns in everything I own right down to my ATV, and have been cleaning and oiling these types of filters since the late '80s. But if I was gonna buy one today, I'd use one of the premium dry filters...