I am new to whole idea of performance parts upgrades. I was wanting to start with a cold air intake for my 2009 Ram 1500, 5.7 Hemi. I have heard that both K&N and Airaid are good choices. Thought I would post this first to get get advice and maybe other options. Looking for best product for best price. Any advice will help.

 

I just installed the mopar intake over the weekend...It's a nice, clean factory looking install. I don't know the numbers on it, but WOW !!! The sound is great, has a throaty rumble when you get on the gas; The truck seems to have alot more pick up from a dead stop. Might be just the sound. Anyways, I did alot of research and finally found a great deal on the mopar one on ebay. I was about to buy the Airaid, before stumbling on the Mopar.

 

was it $357?? cheapest i've seen, probably gonna get one if that dealer puts another one on....

 

I went Airaid and like it. Easy clean install also. Mopar would be nice because you are just that much safer with Mopar stuff if anything ever comes up, but I liked the design of the Airaid better. Consider this though, for the price you may be better off just putting a K&N drop in performance filter. Our trucks intakes already pull air in from outside the engine bay so it is technically a cold air as stock. Then you get a good breathing system for your truck and have some cash to spend on something else cool...like exhaust.

 

Waste of good money.Truck has a pretty decent cold flow intake on it already. All a CAI does is make more noise and LESS filtering.Someone just did a tread on this.Less then a 10 h.p. gain and less filtering over stock filter.Not worth the trade off in my book.Same with a drop-in.

 

X2...Waste of money unless you really want the noise it makes

 

$300 plus to maker noise.Don't think so.

 

Lots of opinions here on CAI's so here's my take :

The MOPAR one ( a rebranded AEM ) advertises +8 HP increase, hardly worth the investment if you classify purchasing a CAI as a performance mod. The K&N is around the +15 HP range and cheaper. The Airaid's air duct does not completely align with the cutout in the fender and it's not the same cutout shape, rectangle on the Airaid box, square on the stock box. ( I know this because I had one ).

The dealers in our area are fair about performance mod's, they won't cover a claim if it is proven that the performance mod caused it and service mgr from both have stated they do not recall any issues with the Ram's and any CAI's.

I would go with the K&N.

 

Madmax...I paid $132.00 for mine on ebay. I did a search for the part# and found one that way. If you do the regular Mopar Cai....you get all the regular listings. I lucked out I guess. I agree with everyone also though. I would have never paid the full price of close to $400.00; Just not that important enough to drop that kind of money on. I got it from a company called NPC. I think they do closeouts and such. If you are going with Mopar...It does look really nice and the install is cake. The instructions that come with it are very good.

 

i just bought my K&N the other night, and it should be here some time this week. We will see how it goes. I want the noise, and I def want the added power (however small it may be).