Alright, I've seen like 10 of these topics in like 3 days and I'm sick of the debate. Here is TPR's actual dyno backed report on CAI systems vs Short Ram systems. Okay so maybe this isn't the final word, but at least it's better than your arbitrary AEM IS THE BEST OMG OMG crap

http://www.tprmag.com/issue/1/1_challenge.shtml

Mods perhaps link this in the Essential Prelude Links thread or something

 

Thanks, I'm tired of looking at all the posts too. OMG! I get 1 more HP at 4000 rpm than you!
My weapon-r intake is the best intake in the world!!!

 

Good read, thanks for the link

 

a quick look at the peak power indicates that the SRI's had about a 2hp-3hp advantage over the CAI's in their applicaton.

 

great post

 

Personally I don't agree with their testing procedure. First they're resetting the ECU after every intake, which I guess establishes a baseline, but doesn't reflect real world performance. As when you start the car and run it the ECU will make a STFT adjustments within the first 20 minutes of driving. Each intake will not vary this by very much, but resetting it just causes the car to run pig ritch and at the safest settings possible before the ECU tunes that excessivness out.

The entire open hood vs closed hood debate is up in question here. As unless you're able to get 70-100 mph winds (very few dynos have this capability) going at the dyno facility and the amount of time that the hood is closed it's a moot point. Again just not testing against real world conditions. As the majority of the time on the dyno the hood will be open. There just isn't time for the underhood temps to build as they're just doing 3rd or 4th gear pulls. Thus the differences between the CAI and short ram will be minimal in these tests. If you're able to hold the car at say 40-50 mph for 2 minutes and then do the dyno pull with varying wind speed then you'd be able to get some real results about real world performance. However, in this test, the hood being open or closed shouldn't make any difference thus showing the benifits of the CAI to be muted greatly.

In the end it's basically been agreed that the short ram yeilds better throttle response and high end. The CAI allows for slightly better mid end and colder air during driving. To get the best of both worlds you make a sealed box around your short ram intake that only has an opening into where the resonator resided.

But if you take away from anything from this test you should see that just bolting on an intake, regardless of type, will not make a huge difference in the choices that you have. But once you start doing the rest of the system, that's where you'll start to see your gains as all you're doing is making a freer flowing path in. The paths out (header and exhaust) are still choked and the gains won't be seen. This is the same reason why companies CAN advertise 15+ whp gains as with a car that has a much more efficient exhaust system (we'll say open custom header) bolting on an intake of any type can yeild those kind of gains as the system is improved greatly.


Modified by TimeRacer at 6:38 PM 3/7/2005

 

i dunno, i thought the disparity between AEM's v2 testing and TPR's was interesting...raises a few questions either way

 

In case any one hadn't noticed, at the top of both result sets it says DO NOT COMPARE THE TWO RESULT SETS (Cold air results to short ram results and vice versa)

 

wonder what that means

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by monalisa overdrive &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i dunno, i thought the disparity between AEM's v2 testing and TPR's was interesting...raises a few questions either way </TD></TR></TABLE>

Just out of curiosity but why? Each manufacturer will test their product in optimal conditions for their product. All AEM did was install their intake correctly (as noted in TPR's notes) and did maintence on the car. Sure you can't compare the numbers directly, but you can never do that on a different dyno in different conditions.

I find it amazing how very few people who want to understand how a good intake system works and the physics/math behind it vs the # of people that just want to "this one is better cuz I have it." The charachteristics of each type of intake has been around for years, and isn't going to change much as the designs haven't changed. AEM's v2 idea allows the intake to see itself as more of a short ram style in the regard to tip in throttle. Same with the J's racing intake. Do some reasearch on the topic and you'll find out a lot more than speculating at random dynos of each intake.

 

im with timeracer on this one


i was having the same thoughts as i read that website.