I couldnt see spending 160 before shipping for a better intake.
Earlier you folk could remember me wanting to buy a used RA airbox assembly... Well, I found a gentleman in Canada who sold me his for 40 shipped. I got from the TB to the where the cold air intake hits the box.

I bought a 2.5" to 3" coupler and a cheap AutoZone 3" cotton element and 3" exhuast tube. I am debating on getting a K&N or HKS element in a 2.5" inlet with about a 5" length. I dont like the extra bend the rubber hose takes as the element needs too much length.



The first step was to very carefully remove the MAF tube from the spare airbox. I used a hand held saw and worked very slowly and then finished it up with a sander to smooth out the tube end. When removing the screws from the original airbox on the MAF, I worked very deliberately and patient so as not to ruin the assembly. One screw already had some oxidation on it and stuck pretty good. I sprayed these screws with a lubricant before putting the new assembly together.
Assembly was very easy with attention to future re-assembly incase I need warranty work. You can see by the clips still on the MAF wires. I left the cold air intake installed in hopes that I will gain some benefit from it.

Assembly:

Very basically: stock rubber hose from MAF to TB. 2.5" coupler will fit a little tight on the MAF tube but does fit. Cut off a 2.5" section of 3" pipe and put it into the 3" side of the coupler. Attach the Filter to the 3" pipe.

I used some black wire to hold up the assembly so it wouldnt hit the master cylinder for the brakes and then another to keep the element against the front of the airbox.


Cost to date is 70 bucks.

 

feel any differences?

 

that was smart but as you notice that when the hood is shut that you are not really getting as much air like that, thats why i made something similar to that but its called GRunit. some of ya might have heard of it but i have a ramp that goes straight to my filter. so that faster i go the more air shoots up the ramp and i get faster. way better than any intake

 

There is more than enough air there. The air will be warmer than I like, but there is plenty. Do you think there is a vacuum under the hood in such a manner as to cause a deficiency? The air should be sucked out from under the hood and pulled under the car, but it is replaced with air from all kinds of places...

and unless your GRunit is a sealed unit, all your doing is causing more turbulence.

 

im not causing nothing, im just slamming more air into my CAI which increases my power. but you have a nice design and ill roll with mine but as long as we are both making power than there shouldn't be any problem

 

Looks good lightfighter.


speed_demon why do you have the spiral maxs still in there....... They don't do anything but restrict flow.

 

naw, its not restricting anything, i gained from it.

 

...l....o.....l.....

 

Thats a smart idea man. A little ghetto rigged but smart. . . lol

 

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There's plenty air under the hood. Hot air, but plenty of it. As a matter of fact, the filter is probably not getting that much from the old assembly now...

But you should still gain a bit (4-5 HP?) at higher RPM. What I'm worried about is that with this setup you might loose more in low end torque that you can gain in high RPM HP. I guess it all depends how you normally drive the car. For example, I think this would be a really bad mod for the drag stip... but you might enjoy a bit more passing grunt on the highway.

Anyway, thanks for posting... you gave me some ideas of my own. I too am not willing to shell out 250$CAN (200$US) on a CAI. I've been playing with the idea of attempting something with the stock tube myself... but I'm still not quite sure how I want do go about doing it as of now.

But one really great thing about attempting that mod: you don't have much to loose, especially if you can source a discarded part from someone else's RA!

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i think that it is a good design, especially for reassembling quickly for a dealer visit!