Looking for CAI product reviews.

[allwheeldriving]

so ive saved my pennies and the times coming to order a cai intake for my 99 legacy. yes ive read about the possibility of it screwing with the maf sensor and i dont want to hear "you should just do the hybrid instead, its much safer" yes i know it has the possibility of running lean. i want your thoughts on YOUR cai if your running one, if your friend had a friend that had problems im not interested. if YOU personally had problems please let me know, if YOU noticed power gains, or losses let me know. sorry if im coming across as an asshat by the way im wording this but im just trying to get a first person opinion on their thoughts from people that have actually ran a cai. im really a nice person i promise :roll:

[anothernord]

"Running lean" is super arbitrary. The ECU is a closed loop fueling system, so I won't ever just "run lean" like some old carburetor.

I ran the cone filter SRI for the longest time, and I would say that the minimal gains weren't worth the trouble and money.

[bulldozer24]

^ this is true, if you want an intake buy the ebay one and do the hybrid intake. with the cone filter i lost a lot of low end power and used a ton of gas. save the cone filters for the turbo cars.

[harrymaneuvers]

I just put on the 95-96 intake tube in place on my factory one with the second airbox behind the plenum. It was less than $20 and seems to have given me a slight increase in low end torque.

It also made 4k+ RPM's more throaty from the engine... I could definatly hear the intake compared to the prior one.


I already had removed my silencer box and have a K&N drop in in the airbox by the fender. I have put about 200 miles on the car since the last ECU reset.

[Wiscon_Mark]

On a non-turbo engine, it makes zero difference unless the engine is modified heavily to take advantage of extra airflow. The stock intake simply isn't the choke point in your engine for flow. I went back to stock - it performs absolutely the same, with less noise. Win-win.

I'm going to rename your thread title since it's a little misleading.

[harrymaneuvers]

I have to disagree with you on this one...

Although the difference is barely noticeable... it is noticeable.


After driving my car 100k miles over the last 5 years... I at least think that I have a pretty good feel for my car and engine. Smashing on the accelorator from a stop light used to produce an initial jump that would last until about 3300 RPM. At which point you could feel the car hit a flat spot in the power band.


Now my car runs and pulls straight through the 3k and 4k RPM range as if it cannot wait to get to 6k. No more noticeable flat spot.

[Wiscon_Mark]

Considering your engine is different than mine in nearly every way except displacement, I'll go with that.

Each engine design (especially heads) will make a difference in this respect. I believe the PhaseII EJ22 has better flowing heads (and made more HP) than the phaseI so it may make a larger difference.

That being said, it's like throwing rocks at a tank in terms of performance. An intake is going to produce more noise than results (by itself).

I would just prefer someone spent their hard earned pennies on something that will make a bigger difference, that's all.

[LGT Kirby]

I had the Cusco CAI on my GT. Lost low end power and threw codes every once in a while. I ended up doing a hybrid build and called it good.

The product was decent. It worked, but it didnt really fit so to say. I had issues getting it to come from the intake and to meet up with the maf and then connect that to the tube down in the fender. It rubbed up against the hood, so lost some paint on the CAI there. Also the pipe down in the fender was just rattling around, I noticed this before putting my fender liner back in, so I had to fasten it to the inner fender so it wouldnt move. Another con was the connectors (the rubber FMIC type) were really really tight, especially since the unit didn't have much play in the first place. The fender pipe connected to the MAF right inside the inner fender hole (from where you remove the intake box) and it is thing gauge metal there. I figured it would eventually rub/cut its way through, so I had to slice some rubber hose in half (length wise) and I lined the hole with it. My biggest issue with this CAI was now all the connectors on the intake tuve itself were welded on. One of them, the connector that goes to the biggest tube (forgot where that one goes too...) was basically just a metal nipple with a rubber piece actually holding it to the intake tube. That eventually managed to find its way out of the tube, and once its out, it was a pain to put back in, plus it just fell out yet again.

Overall, not worth the money, and I wouldn't suggest it to even my enemies.

https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2012/02/072-1.jpg

https://sl-i.net/FORUM/images/imported/2010/07/081-1.jpg

Do the $20 thing, and get creative. Maybe throw a heat shield in there and you'll have a work of art.

[harrymaneuvers]

Rather than a CAI on the WRX... I am going to go with a silencer delete and call it a day:

http://www.infamousperformance.net/serv ... STi/Detail (http://www.infamousperformance.net/servlet/the-906/Subaru-WRX-%26-STi/Detail)

[Garrison]

Rather than a CAI on the WRX... I am going to go with a silencer delete and call it a day:

http://www.infamousperformance.net/serv ... STi/Detail (http://www.infamousperformance.net/servlet/the-906/Subaru-WRX-%26-STi/Detail)

Don't you dare spend money on that thing. You can make that at home, with your oem piece of isht snorkel and a soldering iron.

I wouldn't recommend that ^^ to my enemies.

Back on topic:
I too ran an SRI, both turbo and non-turbo. In both cases the intake noise grows considerably. There is absolutely zero gain in performance in NA over the stock intake. Seriously, keep the airbox, shorten the snorkus, do the $20 junkyard intake and call it a day until you build something that's hungry enough for more air.

[Baddog]

Any point to run an aftermarket intake on an EJ22 with

Full UEL Header Back (2.25) No cats
220 Cams
Grimmspeed LW Pulley
Grimmspeed Phenolic spacers

Not really THAT much. Just curious.

[Garrison]

Not really, no. If you were to do porting/hi-comp/turbo build then it would benefit from a CAI but even then isn't necessary. You're looking at a minimal gain, if any at all with the mods you've listed.

Edit: 220 is the torque grind, right?
You might experience a slightly broader powerband with the CAI. My bet would be that (at the extent of a lot of intake noise) that you would also get a marginal bump in midrange power out of the mod. And by marginal I mean less than or equal to 5hp.

[allwheeldriving]

well for a $100 i think im gunna go for it, do my best not to break anything removing the stock air boxes in case i want to play around with a hybrid later or go back completely stock

[Reason]

I had stock, removed air box with a cone filter, short ram and CAI. Out of all of them my car ran best with CAI. I even switch to SRI to test my theory and my car ran like shit. I have yet to run a hybrid intake. But I have all the parts I need to do it when I do my swap. But if anyone thinks their car is a beast with just a cone filter or SRI couldn't be more wrong. Sucking up hot air doesn't give you power.

Like Mark said with the different engines you will get different results, but SRI are useless....

[allwheeldriving]

Yea never really understood the use of a short ram. And finally someone saying to do cai I thought that would never happen.