So I got my spectre intake that I ordered from airram.com today and started putting it on and ran into a pretty big problem. The aluminum intake tube was more than 2 inches short of reaching the throttle body no matter how I turned it inside the heatshield. This intake is the newer one where the mounting bracket is on the bottom of the tube, not the side. I bent the bracket and ended up having to cut a 2 inch length of pvc and use an additional coupling to get it all together. I have just contacted Nick about this and hope to hear back soon, I guess maybe spectre screwed up the fab on my tube. Here are some pics of it with the arrow pointing to the pvc which is mostly covered by the couplings, the jet stage one, and power wire.

 

ummm...that sucks.

u did what should've been done. they probably did screw up the fab on your intake...or forgot to give you something that resembles your pvc pipeo..like a rubber bot or something.

 

I don't know I have read other people say they will send you another tube no problem. The worst part about all of it is that I felt no gain on the butt dyno from the intake. If anyone is interested in the spectre intake take a look at this http://www.autopartswarehouse.com/details/QQDodgeQQRam_1500QQKool_VueQQCold_Air_IntakeQQ2003 2004QQKV4401181K.html
and compare it to this http://airram.com/product.php?catego...&productid=736
They look identical other than the tube being backwards on the Kool Vue one and it's $100 less. Hopefully by paying more I will get good customer service from spectre.

Update: I got an email from Nick and he told me I should be able to get it matched up without the pvc, so I went back at it. Eventually I got it matched up pretty close to the throttle body after bending the mounting bracket all around, but still not close enough for a good fit with the supplied coupler. So I went to home depot and picked up a 3" to 3" fernco plumbing coupler and it hooked up really well. As for the Kool Vue intake Nick said it was made out of thinner material and that is why it is so much cheaper. If anyone wants to buy one I'll measure the thickness on my tube and we can compare to see if there really is a difference.

 

what about the stock "coupler" that's on the back of the resonator? were u supposed to use that in the installation of the spectre?

 

No the stock coupler doesn't really help. I used it before in between the TB and pvc, you can see it in my pics. The way I have it now just has the throttle body straight to the fernco coupler I got at home depot then to the intake tube. I think the main reason it wouldn't ever match up close to the throttle body was the mounting bracket on the tube. The bracket hits the heatshield so you can't move the intake tube any closer to the TB.

 

that's kinda dumb. return it...lol...seriously