OK.. this totally baffles my mind since AEM and most performance articles I've seen, claim that AEM makes the best performing intakes (including short-rams) out there.

Here is a picture of the 3" chrome pipe and filter that I bought for under $80.00. I was unhappy with it only because it wasn't CARB legal, and it didn't have a nice mounting bracket like the AEM and others. Other than that, it performed well... especially after I took the stock box and resonator out and replaced it with a dryer hose to my front air dam. My high end power increased considerably (in conjunction with the DC header and RS*R exhaust that I already had).

Recently I purchased a nice polished AEM intake to replace it. It came with great instructions, and hardware to mount the intake, as well as the CARB sticker. The pipe is very well constructed and fits the car perfectly. After resetting the battery, I went out to test it. I was astonished to discover that my throttle response was noticeably less, and my high end power above 5000rpm was very weak. Acceleration performance was greatly diminished... it felt like the car was being choked.

I didn't believe this was possible, so I tried using my older filter on the AEM pipe to see if the difference in filter designs was to blame. When I did this, there was little or no change in performance. I reset my battery again and swapped in the old intake pipe again and it was like driving a different car! The high end power was back to normal and the thottle response was much better. The change was like night and day. I continued to test both configurations and even swapped the filters, and each time the same thing happened.

My theory is that the larger intake piping on the generic chrome pipe (3" compared to AEM's 2.5"), as well as the fact that the AEM pipe is bent at a sharper angle than the generic pipe might have a great effect on the air flow characteristics, and thus performance of the intake. This reminded me of an article I read about the J's Racing short ram intake that has the huge tsuchinoko intake chamber. Somehow this increases throttle response, but I don't know the technical details.

Please help me come to terms with this... I have to return or sell my AEM intake now

Here is a picture of my generic chrome pipe:







[Modified by 94integrals, 11:09 PM 9/3/2002]

 

It's tough to compare the two when there is such a big difference in the pipe diameters. I'm really not surprised.

 

just sell both and buy a CAI.

 

did you buy the Short ram for the LS nonvtec ? that has smaller pipe diameter than the Vtec piping ... i just ordered the Nteg Vtec short ram for my LS

also did you properly reset the ECU ? ECU definately needs to recalibrate itself




[Modified by zilverz, 12:32 AM 9/4/2002]

 

I also have a generic 3" diameter short ram (about $30 on eBay). Mine only has one bend instead of two, but it's not a very sharp angle at all. I had to make a custom mount for it out of aluminum starter shims, which works a million times better than the mounting stuff it came with. Combined with my header and exhaust, it performs well for a LS with I/H/E on both the dyno and in a race. I also have some PVC to the front air dam, which helps out on the highway and keeps things a bit cooler too. I think the good performance of the cheap intake is due to the large diameter. It should have a good supply of filtered air in the tube and the silicon reducer should help the flow velocity; not as good as a true tapered intake, but certainly not bad either.

All the morons used to say intakes needed to be some overpriced brand name to be any good, and I've always aruged with that, but it looks like more and more people are finally seeing the truth. I can hardly wait for the truth about performance exhausts to come out...

 

Read the Article in team-integra.net about resetting computer, there are other things that you need to do to perform a reset. further than that, The CAI intake form AEM gives me a very good performance on my GSR.
You might wanna try, resetting it properly, with the AEM intake, also the AEM air intake will be much cooler than the other one you have.

 

after i fitted my cheapo ebay intake pipe, i reset the ecu by pulling the neg terminal from the battery and let it sit for 15 min and then reconnected it, and started the car and let it idle for 10 minutes, i found the car had several flat spots low down where the car just bogged from total lack of power. So i took out the ecu totally (well just unplugged it) and let it sit for an hour then reconnected it and started the car up and let idle for 10-15 minutes, then drove it...the difference was amazing, the flat spots were gone and it pulled strong from low down. I dont know if pulling the ecu relay/fuse works any better, but from now on i'm just going to disconnect the ecu totally as this seems to work miles better for me!