Should I Bed-Line my CAI?
 

A few weeks back the welded mount (where the intake tube mounts to the body of my truck with a bolt) of my AEM Brute Force Intake snapped clean in half (the weld) while off roading apparently. I only found this out recently. So today I had it welded up and it's just fine.

But now I wonder, to prevent this from happening again, should I spray-on bedline my intake? (Minus where the filter meets the tube and where the tube meets the throttle-body)

My reasoning is that maybe it won't break again due to the stretching properties of the liner which will hold the parts together. I also think maybe there's a chance of the intake air temp decreasing, which I know is a good thing.

I just wonder if the bedliner will hold up to the heat.

What do you think?

i don't see why it wouldn't hold up to the heat there are a ton a plastic parts under the hood that don't melt so bed liner should be just fine.

I think bedliner would be fine but you could use exhaust wrap and it would work better. the bedliner is really SO thin that I dont think it would end up helping that much

It's the vibrations of the truck that snapped it. Seen it on a few of intakes that friends have. You should have brazed it back together instead of welding it. Welds are strong, but hard and rigid. Odds are either it'll snap again just off the weld or the weld will crack. Brazing uses a bronze rod which is a very soft, malleable metal. It will give and is not prone to cracking.

You could have also just ditched that mount and used a 3" pipe bracket, secured to one of the existing holes in the side of the engine bay with at least a grade 5 bolt. I repaired Pyros thisaway and it's held for a couple years now where his original methode to secure it (same as yours) cracked and broke within a year of his installing it.


As far as painting it, you can use Plasti-Dip, the synthetic rubber is both a sound deadening material and an insulator.

Great Ideas as usual. I'm just looking into a way of not letting it break again. And, as I have already welded it, do any of you suggest the bedliner or something else that will help to hold it together so it won't snap again? I was only on some washboards. :D

bedliner spray isn't going to have enough strengthening porperties to hold what are your trying to do. It certainly isn't stronger than a weld!

It's "stretching" properties as you suggest would actually cause it to do the same breaking situation under the same conditions. It's counterintuitive from what you suggest or think. You would want a strenthening property such as epoxy.

As for the cooling capabilities, I doubt generic bedliner or plastidip will help at all, if not actually keep the tube hotter for longer due to it's molecular structure. it's nothing like Line-X that has Dupont and kevlar mixed in. It's simply a rubber coating which holds onto heat longer than you would with a bare intake. Atleast that's how i would percieve it as being.

I think all the CAI with that design either have broken or will break, that includes the "MOPAR" that costs a lot more and is the same thing.

Most guys wind up jury rigging something with a spring involved, to allow for some movement in the CAI, to allow for the engine torque.

I'll see what I can do. I was planning on using the bedliner as something to hold it together even if the metal breaks.

Any suggestions though on something similar that I could put around it to hold it together?

Ziptie's. They are my bestest of friends even over Duct tape.:D

We painted CwboyJohnny's home made with black Plasti when we made it, I dunno if it made any real difference in inside temps, but it didn't cost much more than black spray paint and gave his CAI a nice, flat black, rubberized look to it.
No, I don't think the bed liner or Plasti will help hold it together if the vibrations are severe enough to crack metal.