I see a lot of people here have CAI systems on their trucks. I'm not gonna ask which is best because I'm sure the answers will be whichever one you happen to have. I'm just wondering if they are worth it, and why? I have heard everything from "they are a waste of money if that's all you are going to do" to "I wouldn't ever not have one". Can you actually feel any real gains? I mean feel, as in the old "butt dyno", not a printout from a machine. And/or do you see any fuel economy difference at all? And would one help with towing power/acceleration at all? I have a 30 ft. RV that I tow 5 or 6 times a year and it might weigh between 6 and 7 thousand pounds or so depending on how far and how long I'm going for. Would be nice to be able to get up to speed a little faster than I can now.

 

There is no such thing as a "best CAI." A CAI is a tube with a filter stuck on the end of it. A tube is a tube, it's pretty hard to **** up a piece of pipe. The key part of your air intake is the filter, you could fab up a few pieces of PVC and stick a K&N filter on it and you'd have a perfectly good CAI. That said, a CAI alone is not a worthwhile mod. The benefits of a CAI come into play because it works with other mods such as tuner, throttle body, exhaust, engine work, etc.

 

You would need exhaust headers, cat-back exhaust, along rwith the CAI to really benefit from it. Sucking in alot of air, but not expelling it fast enough will bog the engine down,
FF

 

+2 When you get you exhaust done and a cai, you will start to notice minimal gains, add a tuner, THEN you will start to feel it

 

Okay, so the cat-back is on the way but I doubt I'll put a lot more money into a 6 year old truck even with only 65k miles. It does the job now or I wouldn't have kept it this long. I have a K&N drop-in filter. Is the general consensus that I'd be just as well off to keep what I've got then?

 

Unless you're going to drop the money on a tuner, which is well worth it. $300 for a superchips is the best bang for the buck mod. And you're intake is fine, if you want to free up airflow, you could remove the hemi hat and run a tube from the airbox to the TB, thus eliminating the restrictive part of the system and getting all the benefits of a CAI.

 

Definitely consider the tuner even without the CAI! It has so many features and benefits. You will love it for towing and daily driving!

 

I had a CAI and went back to my stock airbox - I was losing some low-end torque. But that's just me and I have a 2008 4.7. Maybe the Hemi reacts differently.

 

I'd love to see a dyno of your truck with and without the CAI. I have NEVER seen a CAI by itself relieve enough backpressure to cause any measurable loss of low end.

I removed the cats when I put my long tube headers in and thought I lost some low end from the CAI, header, cat back combo. To the point I paid a shop to cut and weld my headers back in (to damn lazy to get back under and do it myself after spending close to 8 hours under there)!

More I think about it though, I don't think I lost any low end, I just think the mid & high gains made it feel like I lost low end.

The butt dyno lies!!!


Back to the OP:

With no other mods of any kind, yeah I think a high quality drop in is just as good, even with the restrictive "Hemi Hat". Like others have stated, a CAI is one of those mods that "wake up" other mods. In some cases one is necessary. The cam that is sitting in my garage waitin' for my broke and lazy a$$ to install it states that a CAI and headers are required for optimum benefits...

 

That's not true at all. I agree that most CAIs are just a filter on a stick, but the BFI and Vararam are different. Ask anyone who owns a BFI if they have anything negative to say about it performance wise. I've had a mopar CAI, K&N cai, and a BFI. BFI had deffinitley noticable differeces.

You may say the BFI is just another intake for air, but its not. The BFI is a funnel, going from a 6'' intake to a 3'' tube for the TB. It's like water, when you go from a wide opening to a smaller one, pressure is greater. It actually shoves air into your engine where as a normal CAI just brings in what the engine can pull in on its own. Anyone with a wideband check you A/F with your run of the mill intake, then with a BFI. You'll see improvement.

If the performance isn't enough, then quality construction and customer service should be.

- Unconditional Guarantee - if you don't like it (within the first 30 days of ownership), we'll take it back.
- Warranty - Lifetime on the both the filter and the intake
- Build quality - this cant be overlooked, an engine bay is an extreme environment - one that will torture lesser plastic intakes and poorly constructed filters
- Ours may not be your first intake but it will probably be your last.
- Choice of options both no charge and additional charge, allows for the customer to tailor the intake to exactly what suits there desires

There's only two CAIs i'd ever pay money for again, and it's the BFI and Vararam; and using toilet pipe for performance gains is about as ghetto as 40" wheels.