Okay I've searched and read and read. So here we go, I like free mods or diy stuff. rather then paying 90$ for the airaid tube, I want to keep my stock "hemi hat" and make a smother tube running from it to the modified stock box. I like the way the hemi hat looks. I plan to remove the lil curved square tube from the intake side of the airbox and make a larger hole in it's place, not sure I will make a larger tube or not. Will prolly buy a amsoil paper filter next, and I intend to port and polish the throttle body while I'm in there.

Here is why. On my cam only ls1 z28 I bought a airlid, and a k&n filter.. Dynoed the car and saw .8 hp difference which could have been anything.. After opening up the holes in the bottom of the lid, removing all baffling with a grinder and porting/ polishing the TB, and removing the filter all together, we saw a avg gain of 6.2 rwhp. With the stock fram filter in place it was a 5.9 avg, with the brand new k&n it was 5.8 avg. I posted all this a few years back on ls1 tech. Bottom line, friend had a dyno shop back home and we were bored on a rainy day. I took the k&n out of my truck and camaro and thru them away lol.

Suggestions? comments? Basically gonna get a amsoil filter, port the tb, rework the box and the tube. And call it a day.

 

Are you going to lower the box? The outlet of the Hemi hat is lower than that box and requires the S bend in the factory tube. I see no noticeable difference between the Hemi hat and my Airaid MIT tube. Just a little louder at WOT, but not a lot. I use a K&N drop-in filter.
K&N states a 8hp increase with their CAI. Definitely not worth $300!! I don't think you will see any major gains either way, but if you have access to a dyno, then I would be curious to see what gains you do get.

 

I am very curious to see the results. I too also like the hemi hat, seems to clean things up a bit.

 

keep thinking the ls1 and the hemi are the same engine..or for that matter the truck and the z28..if you don't really care about performance then keep the hemi hat on cuz it looks good to you. dyno's don't mean squat... compare track times to see how well it performs..

 

Oh I care about performance.. Just not about waisting money. I am all about going fast with the least amount of mods possible.. I have one of the fastest cam only camaros in the country.. 10.90s with just a cam boltons and weight reduction is no easy task with a ls1.

So I'm just trying to apply some of what I learned from nodding my car to my truck. That consist of two things, weight reduction is the single greatest mod you will ever do. Every single pound counts. Secondly, free mods and custom stuff you can do urself often works just as good as 2-300$ parts you can order with a well known sticker on them.

I'm am curious if anyone modded their stock airbox ect? Really can't see this motor in stock form benefiting much from a cai, so why waste 2-300$. Really the stock intake setup is one of the better ones I've seen.

 

Infact I may just try the amsoil filter and port and polish the tb. From looking the truck over, the most potential I see for improvement is the stock y pipe and muffler. Wow that thing is really small.. May run something custom from right behind the cats back to a better flowing muffler. I already took off the resonator and extra pipe, and the spare tire, guarantee that weight reduction will improve the trucks times as much or more than a cai.

 

Y pipe is pinched for sure...I went through the evolution of dyi intake...then cheap ebay one..then spent the money on a real cai and my times began to drop drastically... took me many years to get my 05 quadcab from 16's to 12's (with 200k on odo on original engine block)





and since you do care about performance..seriously, lose the hemi hat..

 

I did mine custom as well...

 

There is a complete and custom CAI in the classifieds for sale right now for cheap.

 

Not so much custom since i copied someone else.