Well I am trying to build up my SOHC Civic and people say starting out with cold air intake is the way to do it. For I have really no knowledge on the subject and I was wondering if you guys could help me out. Should I go out and blow 150-200 for the AEM or just get the Ebay brand for 70$ shipped? Is their really that much of a difference..? Sorry guys if I seem dumb its just im kind of car illiterate and I want to get into the whole civic scene...
BTW: I searched the forums for related topics none quite sounded like mine so plz dont flame me

 

most cold airs are all the same in gain, juss diff. brand names,. One thing that might have a differece, is wether it is coated or not. whoah check out my sig. peace

 

I'd go with the cheap one and buy a good K&N for it. They tend to come with **** filters.

 

Both works pretty much the same. Brand names have CARB# and generic doesn't.

 

Is legality an issue for you?

 

ehhh outrun ?

 

I had my original AEM and i got 122 to the wheels on my SOHC. and my buddy had the exact same mods cept he had the Arospeed intake and he got 121. so id go for something cheaper. if legality is an issue for you id get something with a CARB approval

 

by legality you mean like race track legal?? i dont understand...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 2slow2curious &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">by legality you mean like race track legal?? i dont understand... </TD></TR></TABLE>

no they mean street legal if it doesnt have a CARB# its for "off road" use only if it has a number then you wont run into any problems with law enforcement

 

ohh is that how it works...it dont really matter i live in a small town and some of the cops down here wudnt even know how to pop the hood....

 

These guys are talking about emissions, and it's really only a BIG deal in cali. Believe me, you would know about strict emissions if you had them in your area. I have a generic/no name intake w/K&N filter and I am very pleased with it. And to be honest, I had the no name filter on there for awhile as well and didnt notice any change in any aspect when I put the k&n on.

 

There really is no difference in the intakes. I think that the only real difference is whether or not you're actually getting Cold Air into the intake. Like my GF's intake, she's running a generic pipe from Autozone and my old bimmer filter I had lying around, then I directly connected a cool air duct to underneath her bumper to actually get cold air. That's what you really need to be concerned about.

 

you may want to check out the fake j's racing intake instead. I ordered mine for 57 shipped from sportautolife.com I am gonna swap out my current aem cold air intake for this and see which one is better. The j's is suppost to have much better throttle response and low to midrange power.

 

Actually, there's performance differences (couple of hp or so) but you'd have to do tests to see the difference. But it's probably not worth it to do the tests because the differences aren't significant for daily driving etc. But if you want to know, I've done many dyno and 1/4 mile runs on two Civics with D16Z6/manual transmissions. Both put down 107hp to the wheels and both were consistently within .2 seconds of each other in the 1/4 mile and within .5mph in trap speed. One was a 94 EX coupe while the other was a 95 Si hatch.

On multiple dyno tests run on different days, the Iceman "short ram" setup put out 3hp peak, but it was all over 5500rpm, with no loss or difference below that. With the Iceman "CAI" setup, the peak hp did not change! However, there was a peak gain of 6hp at 4400rpm.

The AEM CAI one-piece put out 2hp peak. Disappointingly, it lossed 1-2hp below 3500rpm.

On the track, there were significant improvments (in tenths of a second so don't expect major improvements!). On the street, it didn't matter. You couldn't really tell just by driving around.

 

the funny thing is the generic c.a.i's will pass emissions in california, but they don't have the carb #'s. I have been in the racing scene for a while but law enforcement is now pulling over cars for their aggregious under the hood growl" so it's a trade off. If you get pulled over it's great to have that lil number. You may never get pulled over, but it's just not worth the chance...cops can be real a holes.... especially when i was caught racing my 2000 6 speed formula firebird with 410 hp at the wheels all motor...

 

You should be fine with a generic intake. Just add a K&N filter. And I see you're in Florida, we have no emissions testing, so you are fine.

 

yeah tampa bay area...thx guys ill guess ill look at some of the generics with the K&N filter..