Chrome Intake
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Chrome Intake
Does anyone have the a cold air intake made by "ChromeIntake"? Im looking at these on ebay, and they are really cheap compared to a K&N system. Im just affraid that it wont be as good as a K&N system.
Some of these CAI's even come with a K&N filter.
If i go with the cheap version, will i be wishing I'd paid a lot more for the name brand?
Some of these CAI's even come with a K&N filter.
If i go with the cheap version, will i be wishing I'd paid a lot more for the name brand?
All Star
Joined: Nov 2005
Posts: 878
Likes: 0
From: Ann Arbor, MI
RE: Chrome Intake
I don't know the brand, but I bought a cheapy ebay CAI last fall. It's also chrome, and came with the filter. Mine went from the TB to the radiator. I only used the first pipe so that I could keep the salt away from filter this winter. It really makes the inside of the truck sound mean when you get on the throttle. The best part, is that it has zero drone on the highway. I also noticed 1-2 mpg better after I installed it. Paid under $70 (shipped) for mine. I wouldn't worry about the quality being bad, or less then K&N CAI's. It all comes down the quality of the filter. Just don't get one of those that attaches to the Intake plenum box (says 'Hemi' on it). Get one that connects directly to the Throttle body. I figure you'll get the best performance out of it that way. The plenum is just to make the interior less noisy.
All Star
Joined: Nov 2005
Posts: 878
Likes: 0
From: Ann Arbor, MI
RE: Chrome Intake
I had to look it up on ebay, but it is the same brand you are looking at. "Chrome intake".
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/K-N-0...2130QQtcZphoto
Thats the same one I bought. I'm happy with it. However I didn't use the whole kit. I'm just using the first pipe, with the filter on the end of it. I figure the air in the winter is cold enough, that I'm not worried about the engine warming it up, hahaha.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/K-N-0...2130QQtcZphoto
Thats the same one I bought. I'm happy with it. However I didn't use the whole kit. I'm just using the first pipe, with the filter on the end of it. I figure the air in the winter is cold enough, that I'm not worried about the engine warming it up, hahaha.
Champion
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 3,313
Likes: 8
RE: Chrome Intake
Buyer Beware.
There has been lots of careful scientific testing of all kinds of air intakes
and the result is that they neither increase/decrease MPG on gasoline engines.
But you can also reliably predict that if 100 customers buy an air intake that
DOES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
and then these customers check their next tank to see if it improves MPG,
then 50 of these customers will see an improvement,
50 customers will see a decrease,
and ONLY if you could collect and average all 100 of the next tanks
of gasolines would you find a true average of zero.
If less restrictive air inlet system improved MPG,
after the last 20 yrs of C.A.F.E.
(Corporate Average Fuel Economy)
government MPG standards,
you would now see massive air intakes with 2 foot high by 4 foot wide
openings - even on the smallest 4 cyl compact.
Honda in a spirit of fierce pride, told its student engineers to do everything
possible on the Insight Hybrid to get the greatest possible MPG - they were
in a competition with Audi CEO and Porsche's grandson Ferdinand Piech
who was having his engineers build the A3
aluminum body/3 cyl diesel as the world's highest MPG car.
Honda used every known trick in the gasoline engineering book to get over 70
MPG to beat Audi's fuel economy of 3 liters per 100 km on diesel. Notice that
Honda was starting out about 20% behind because they were trying to make a
gasoline engine powered vehicle beat a diesel power vehicle for 'world
bragging rights.'
Go look at the air intake of a Honda Insight.
What do you see?
If you don't want to trust just the Honda,
go check out the Toyota Prius, Lexus 400H and Ford Escape Hybrid air intakes.
See a trend?
Check out the 2006 Corvette Z06 air intake for a 'ram air' design on a
vehicle that can reach 'only' 198 mph. You can bet several engineers
spent hours trying to tweak this inlet to get an extra 2 mph.
It would be easy to do a RELIABLE test of any two air intakes at the
dragstrip.
The way to do it would be to get two nearly identical trucks. They don't
have to be exactly identical but the closer the better.
The two trucks would line up against each other at least 4 times and
preferably 8 or more.
The first half of the runs one truck would have the air intake
and the other would have the stock air intake. After each pass
the drivers swap trucks. Then for the second half of the passes
the two trucks would swap intakes.
In making comparisons it is better to look at terminal speed rather than ET,
but subtracting 60 foot times from ET and comparing those is worthwhile too.
If the air intake really makes a average gain in terminal speed on both trucks
when installed that is pretty reasonable proof.
You might ask yourself:
Why doesn't each air intake maker hire an independent lab to do this and
verify that their intake is superior?
If you do 20 runs instead of 8,
and if the air intake makes a gain in terminal speed on 19 of those 20 runs,
then you are approaching the kind of proof scientists and MD's are supposed to
have before they 'publish' a fact in a magazine.
They wouldn't even have to hire a 'lab'.
Two of the following 'straight shooting' automotive writers (James Dulley,
Dan Neil, Steve Dulich, Rick Ehrenberg) have records that prove their
opinions can't be bought and could probably be paid a nominal
fee & travel expenses to face off against one another in a test.
A side benefit of the above test is that you could also settle bets as to
which of the two drivers was better, which can be fun. Killing two birds with
the same stone, so to speak.
A properly designed air intake can give modest increases of torque and
horsepower at wide open throttle - but sometimes this comes at the cost of
increased noise or filters that get clogged with bugs and dirt faster.
If you are willing to tolerate more noise, in nearly every case you can
build a better air intake than you can buy.
This post has a Part II about the cheapest way to test any air intake.
Don't want to do testing and want a shortcut toward an effective
air intake?
Well, in a nutshell just remount your stock air box so that it will suck air
out of the cavity behind the firewall and below the windshield where your air
vents presently get their air. This spot will give you cooler air, higher
pressure air, and it will not pickup bugs/road grit as badly as an inlet near
the front grill.
Why didn't your vehicle suck air from this spot in the first place?
Because with the interior cab air vent inlets there it allows A LOT of NOISE
to go into the vehicle's cabin.
As a matter of fact, most aftermarket air intakes
JUST MAKE EXTRA NOISE.
This extra noise convinces most owners
that they are making more horsepower - no kidding.
If you read enough auto postings you come to the conclusion that many young
owners are really after 'Excitement' not true vehicle performance you
can time with a stopwatch. The loud mufflers, the loud stereos, the
vibrations of hard shock absorbers, the unstable feeling while driving high
lifted suspensions - it is really more about excitement than performance. Note
many of these same vehicle owners are heavy players of video games.
In addition to the spot at the base of the windshield, at the front of the
radiator grille, and - surprise - a scoop at the top of the tire in the fender
interior are spots where high velocity air can be converted to high pressure.
Notice that I have NOT said to rely on dyno testing of air intakes...I have
said do road tests.
Why?
Because you can't really test an aftermarket air intake system on a dyno where
the vehicle is not moving and an electric fan is blowing air at the radiator.
This makes it SO EASY TO CHEAT that you can make any air intake show a HP
increase on the dyno graph. Don't trust any dyno graph that claims to show an
aftermarket air intake horsepower gain. Realistic airflow around the vehicle
is critical to seeing whether it really works.
Note that KN Filters lists how independent laboratories verify their air
flow claims and their performance claims, but there is not a link to where an
independent lab has verified any MPG improvement claim. That is because the
engineers at KN Filters know that any MPG gain or loss that a customer reports
is really just 'random variation.' But that does not keep KN from quotes such
as 'Customers report 1-2 better MPG.' Note how that is 'literally true' but
not 'scientifically valid.' Those are known as 'Weasel Words' in the
advertising trade.
http://www.knfilters.com/testmethod.htm
http://www.knfilters.com/powertesting.htm
Even with all the warnings about how easy it is to cheat or make mistakes in
dyno testing, this series of posts by Dodge 5.7 Hemi owners is worth reading.
Note how well the stock air inlet system worked.
http://www.lxforums.com/board/showthread.php?t=14140
For examples about how one lone automotive enthusiast went about (imperfectly)
doing some home air filter element testing similar to that described above, go
to this link:
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/airfilter/airtest2.htm
If you have read this far and presently think that the author
'Hates Cold Air Intakes' or thinks not a single one provides any gain
you have misunderstood and are urge to reconsider.
The author would also like to state for the record that if the maker
of any aftermarket air intake would run the 'Two Truck Test'
described and publish the result - then this FAQ would name that
air intake and describe it as 'Better Tested than its Competitors'.
There has been lots of careful scientific testing of all kinds of air intakes
and the result is that they neither increase/decrease MPG on gasoline engines.
But you can also reliably predict that if 100 customers buy an air intake that
DOES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING
and then these customers check their next tank to see if it improves MPG,
then 50 of these customers will see an improvement,
50 customers will see a decrease,
and ONLY if you could collect and average all 100 of the next tanks
of gasolines would you find a true average of zero.
If less restrictive air inlet system improved MPG,
after the last 20 yrs of C.A.F.E.
(Corporate Average Fuel Economy)
government MPG standards,
you would now see massive air intakes with 2 foot high by 4 foot wide
openings - even on the smallest 4 cyl compact.
Honda in a spirit of fierce pride, told its student engineers to do everything
possible on the Insight Hybrid to get the greatest possible MPG - they were
in a competition with Audi CEO and Porsche's grandson Ferdinand Piech
who was having his engineers build the A3
aluminum body/3 cyl diesel as the world's highest MPG car.
Honda used every known trick in the gasoline engineering book to get over 70
MPG to beat Audi's fuel economy of 3 liters per 100 km on diesel. Notice that
Honda was starting out about 20% behind because they were trying to make a
gasoline engine powered vehicle beat a diesel power vehicle for 'world
bragging rights.'
Go look at the air intake of a Honda Insight.
What do you see?
If you don't want to trust just the Honda,
go check out the Toyota Prius, Lexus 400H and Ford Escape Hybrid air intakes.
See a trend?
Check out the 2006 Corvette Z06 air intake for a 'ram air' design on a
vehicle that can reach 'only' 198 mph. You can bet several engineers
spent hours trying to tweak this inlet to get an extra 2 mph.
It would be easy to do a RELIABLE test of any two air intakes at the
dragstrip.
The way to do it would be to get two nearly identical trucks. They don't
have to be exactly identical but the closer the better.
The two trucks would line up against each other at least 4 times and
preferably 8 or more.
The first half of the runs one truck would have the air intake
and the other would have the stock air intake. After each pass
the drivers swap trucks. Then for the second half of the passes
the two trucks would swap intakes.
In making comparisons it is better to look at terminal speed rather than ET,
but subtracting 60 foot times from ET and comparing those is worthwhile too.
If the air intake really makes a average gain in terminal speed on both trucks
when installed that is pretty reasonable proof.
You might ask yourself:
Why doesn't each air intake maker hire an independent lab to do this and
verify that their intake is superior?
If you do 20 runs instead of 8,
and if the air intake makes a gain in terminal speed on 19 of those 20 runs,
then you are approaching the kind of proof scientists and MD's are supposed to
have before they 'publish' a fact in a magazine.
They wouldn't even have to hire a 'lab'.
Two of the following 'straight shooting' automotive writers (James Dulley,
Dan Neil, Steve Dulich, Rick Ehrenberg) have records that prove their
opinions can't be bought and could probably be paid a nominal
fee & travel expenses to face off against one another in a test.
A side benefit of the above test is that you could also settle bets as to
which of the two drivers was better, which can be fun. Killing two birds with
the same stone, so to speak.
A properly designed air intake can give modest increases of torque and
horsepower at wide open throttle - but sometimes this comes at the cost of
increased noise or filters that get clogged with bugs and dirt faster.
If you are willing to tolerate more noise, in nearly every case you can
build a better air intake than you can buy.
This post has a Part II about the cheapest way to test any air intake.
Don't want to do testing and want a shortcut toward an effective
air intake?
Well, in a nutshell just remount your stock air box so that it will suck air
out of the cavity behind the firewall and below the windshield where your air
vents presently get their air. This spot will give you cooler air, higher
pressure air, and it will not pickup bugs/road grit as badly as an inlet near
the front grill.
Why didn't your vehicle suck air from this spot in the first place?
Because with the interior cab air vent inlets there it allows A LOT of NOISE
to go into the vehicle's cabin.
As a matter of fact, most aftermarket air intakes
JUST MAKE EXTRA NOISE.
This extra noise convinces most owners
that they are making more horsepower - no kidding.
If you read enough auto postings you come to the conclusion that many young
owners are really after 'Excitement' not true vehicle performance you
can time with a stopwatch. The loud mufflers, the loud stereos, the
vibrations of hard shock absorbers, the unstable feeling while driving high
lifted suspensions - it is really more about excitement than performance. Note
many of these same vehicle owners are heavy players of video games.
In addition to the spot at the base of the windshield, at the front of the
radiator grille, and - surprise - a scoop at the top of the tire in the fender
interior are spots where high velocity air can be converted to high pressure.
Notice that I have NOT said to rely on dyno testing of air intakes...I have
said do road tests.
Why?
Because you can't really test an aftermarket air intake system on a dyno where
the vehicle is not moving and an electric fan is blowing air at the radiator.
This makes it SO EASY TO CHEAT that you can make any air intake show a HP
increase on the dyno graph. Don't trust any dyno graph that claims to show an
aftermarket air intake horsepower gain. Realistic airflow around the vehicle
is critical to seeing whether it really works.
Note that KN Filters lists how independent laboratories verify their air
flow claims and their performance claims, but there is not a link to where an
independent lab has verified any MPG improvement claim. That is because the
engineers at KN Filters know that any MPG gain or loss that a customer reports
is really just 'random variation.' But that does not keep KN from quotes such
as 'Customers report 1-2 better MPG.' Note how that is 'literally true' but
not 'scientifically valid.' Those are known as 'Weasel Words' in the
advertising trade.
http://www.knfilters.com/testmethod.htm
http://www.knfilters.com/powertesting.htm
Even with all the warnings about how easy it is to cheat or make mistakes in
dyno testing, this series of posts by Dodge 5.7 Hemi owners is worth reading.
Note how well the stock air inlet system worked.
http://www.lxforums.com/board/showthread.php?t=14140
For examples about how one lone automotive enthusiast went about (imperfectly)
doing some home air filter element testing similar to that described above, go
to this link:
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/airfilter/airtest2.htm
If you have read this far and presently think that the author
'Hates Cold Air Intakes' or thinks not a single one provides any gain
you have misunderstood and are urge to reconsider.
The author would also like to state for the record that if the maker
of any aftermarket air intake would run the 'Two Truck Test'
described and publish the result - then this FAQ would name that
air intake and describe it as 'Better Tested than its Competitors'.
Veteran
Joined: Aug 2005
Posts: 356
Likes: 0
From: Southeast Ga. USA
RE: Chrome Intake
I got my intake off of eBay from Intake Power (Intake_Power@yahoo.com). Only $70.00 delivered w/ the 6" K & N cone filter. I did notice a nice air sucking sound, not sure about the increase of the MPG yet. I just installed a Flowmaster “Super 40†dual exhaust last night too. So I need to do some research on the performance and MPG thing.
The only thing I didn't like was that the rubber connecting ring that you connect up the tube to the Throttle body (TB) with has too large an inside diameter. I had to use a rubber sealing tape you can get from Home Depot or Lowe's, it's a type that stretches and sticks to it's self but you can pull it away from it's self too.
I had to wrap the TB a few times to increase the outside diameter of the TB. There is also no way to support the tube it just hangs off the end of the TB by the connector. I left the bracket that holds the old intake and air box because I’m building out of aluminum stock a bracket to support the tube in the middle/towards the other end of the intake which will attach to it. I’ll post before and after pictures after I build it. You will need to make a heat shield though. I'm constructing a Air Ram style air scoop too. I'm back and my wife knows where I'm at too by being outside working on my "Brandi"
Stay Cool H-
The only thing I didn't like was that the rubber connecting ring that you connect up the tube to the Throttle body (TB) with has too large an inside diameter. I had to use a rubber sealing tape you can get from Home Depot or Lowe's, it's a type that stretches and sticks to it's self but you can pull it away from it's self too.
I had to wrap the TB a few times to increase the outside diameter of the TB. There is also no way to support the tube it just hangs off the end of the TB by the connector. I left the bracket that holds the old intake and air box because I’m building out of aluminum stock a bracket to support the tube in the middle/towards the other end of the intake which will attach to it. I’ll post before and after pictures after I build it. You will need to make a heat shield though. I'm constructing a Air Ram style air scoop too. I'm back and my wife knows where I'm at too by being outside working on my "Brandi"
Stay Cool H-
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RE: Chrome Intake
the heat shield....is that the box that you see around the K&N air filters? How important is it for me to build one on the CAI that I order off of Ebay? What material should I construct it out of?
All Star
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 981
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RE: Chrome Intake
No offense Hank, but how old are you? 60? You must be to have the patience to write all that. 
Just kidding, thanks for the info. I have watched MotorSports and other tv programs that have modded vehicles and included air intakes. I watched one where they took a 05 mustang and added horses after installing a K&N CAI. So you are saying that those tv shows lie? I can understand the tornado infomercials lying to sell their product, but why would independent shows? Oh maybe they are sponsors. Kinda like every single image in this site.
I personally dont have one. Been thinking about it since Mopar sells one too. Maybe they sell trucks with stock intakes so you can buy their expensive intakes. Just like they sell trucks with manual window roll when they could sell them with power windows but make the buyer pay more if they want more features. I havent done that extensive research to tell you if cai's can really save and increase or not. It all just sounds like a conspiracy theory. Are there aliens in Area 51?
Just kidding, thanks for the info. I have watched MotorSports and other tv programs that have modded vehicles and included air intakes. I watched one where they took a 05 mustang and added horses after installing a K&N CAI. So you are saying that those tv shows lie? I can understand the tornado infomercials lying to sell their product, but why would independent shows? Oh maybe they are sponsors. Kinda like every single image in this site.
I personally dont have one. Been thinking about it since Mopar sells one too. Maybe they sell trucks with stock intakes so you can buy their expensive intakes. Just like they sell trucks with manual window roll when they could sell them with power windows but make the buyer pay more if they want more features. I havent done that extensive research to tell you if cai's can really save and increase or not. It all just sounds like a conspiracy theory. Are there aliens in Area 51?