So my goal here is not to dump on HM and their airbox, but I wanted to see if anyone else had a similar experience with their airbox.

That engine bay is already really tight and trying to get that box in there just doesn't seem right. I ended up having to trim the hoses they included to get things aligned reasonably, but the box itself it problematic.

The box squeezes right up against a lot of wiring, and the filter & MAF sensor seem to barely fit inside (hit the top a little bit). Also, when I put the intake guide on and secure it with the factory clips (that scope deal) it pushes/deforms the sheet metal box. The result is you cannot get the top on. I left off the factory clips which honestly seems fine, but I need to confirm with HM.

It all just doesn't fit that well in my honest opinion. I don't think I'd blame HM in this respect, but that space is just so tight, you don't seem to be able to fit anything in there very well.

One last note: HM, you need to secure the nuts for the box top better. One of mine is now spinning loose, and I can only imagine what will happen over the life of the box. I am going to reinforce mine with some JB weld, but needless to say I am not happy about even having to do this on something that cost this much.

Anyone else? Thoughts, comments?

 

Hmmm I just ordered the intake not the box... I hope the intake performs well =/

 

how did you install the air box? you need to loosen the intake and all other clamps then install.

 

Keep us posted, I was considering buying the box later on.

 

I ordered the box and intake as one so I installed them at the same time. However, I have been able to install/remove the box without move the intake. The filter itself also comes out easily for cleaning without messing with anything.

It's that the fitment is so damn tight, and the fact that the intake guide in the front of the engine bay (that brings in cold air) won't clip in really bothers me. I am going to take a second look at it today and make sure nothing is weird.

One install not for everyone - pay close attention to the bracket location for the box, the screw holes you use to attach the bracket is not the same as where the original airbox bracket was, it's actually further back. Look at the instructions pictures and you will see what I mean.

I'm definitely considering returning it unless HM can give me some tips to make it all fit right. Obviously the screw hole not being welded properly (causing it to spin when I put the screw in) is one of my biggest issues right now.

 

(Disclaimer - this is just a post about my overall experience. I am hoping to get some constructive comments on all of this, and follow up by contacting HM for their input and hopefully resolve the below. Clearly this may be something specific to my experience, or an error on my part - I cannot give any concrete results until I speak to HM further about the things I found).

Okay all, I wanted to post some pictures of the "final" install - meaning, final until I talk to HM and decide what to do with this thing.

First, let's start with an overall picture of what it looks like installed. Notice the tight tight fit here, which is primarily constrained by the wires towards the rear of the box in the engine bay.



I struggled to even get the top on here. Unfortunately, the box deforms quite easily, so you cannot really push things around/in-to-place too much. Once the box is deformed, the top won't go on.

You will also notice below, at the very bottom of the picture, that you cannot secure the intake guide (cold-air intake portion) using the factor bolt locations. Luckily it gets held pretty well when the hood is closed by the pole and hood itself. I chose to secure it with some velcro also, but I don't think its needed. However, I cannot tell if HM intended this or what...it seems way too far off to be some minor alignment issue - either I did something drastically wrong of HM's final product is off in terms of size.



Also, if you see below, I added some felt padding in one location because the box was right up against the engine bay / frame pillars. So I was concerned about rubbing wearing away the actual sheet metal of the box over time. The felt padding is so thin I do not believe it caused any fitment issues, and is a good idea if you intend to keep this box for any length of time.



Now, for an idea of the fit and why its so tight, take a look at the two next pictures. This shows the "wire traffic jam" behind the airbox which restricts how much you can adjust the fit, as well as the zip-tie job I had to do just to make it even fit.



Now, here is the zip-tie job I did to get some of the wires out of the way to even make it fit!



Now for actual function - I have never seen the AEM box, but I am wondering if it is the same as the HM box in that its questionable where enough "suction" can be induced to actually pull air through the cold air guide in the front bumped. If you look below, the major issue is the large hole where the intake pipe enters the box. The gap is large enough that I am not sure that you will ever get enough suction by the engine to pull air from the front bumper guide rather than from this hole (i.e. engine bay). I won't comment further than that because I simply do not know - I would be interested in doing some testing to see. Can someone comment if the AEM design is similar or if it creates a more air-tight box that is more likely to pull from the front bumper?



Additionally, I removed the foam padding from the factory airbox, and applied it to the intake guide that leads to the front bumper. I found this was quite easy to do and at least created more a seal at that point, even if the rest of the box had cracks/holes (NOTE: regarding the fit of this guide and the factory holes/plugs - removing this padding did not allow me to fit it to these holes, although it did seem closer, but forcing it to match the hole locations deformed the box enough that the top would not go on!).



And now for the bad bolt hole. Pretty much the first time I threaded this (without the top cover, I just wanted to make sure everything threaded okay first...) the bolt began to spin, making it impossible to get the screw in. The bolt holes themselves seem like simple holes in the sheet metal with "lipped bolts" that drop in there. I am not sure if HM welded these in there, and its simply a bad weld, or if they were glued in with some type of adhesive. Regardless, I am extremely concerned that other holes with experience the same problem in the future, which poses a HUGE problem. Keep in mind you are supposed to clean the filter every 10K miles, so I am not sure if the bolts will hold after a couple of cleanings. I really believe this is a major weak point in the design. (Note: I did try some JB weld on it, but without removing the entire box, there is no real way to fix this).



Finally, notice the blow off valve. The HM pictures make it look like it sits straight up. In reality, if you look at the factory hoses you will see a bend that makes the blow off valve sit straight up on a factory car. On the HM provided hoses, it is actually tilted off to the side. I ended up cutting these two silicon hoses to a proper length so that the blow off valve was out of the way of the airbox itself, as well as make it sit up as straight as possible. I would definitely plan this if you are installing it yourself, the length of the hoses straight from HM needs to be adjusted if you want any kind of a good fit.




So, all in all, I would say I am not totally happy with the fitment and design of the box. Again, I'm not bashing HM here, I realize this kind of thing takes a lot of time and engineering to make, and its hardly ever perfect. In the end, I would recommend people wait to see if HM re-designs the box, or at least really consider how badly you want an airbox. Again, I somewhat question how much cold air this will actually pull given the large holes where the intake pipe enters the airbox.

As for sound/performance - it sounds cool with the box and you get a slight blowoff valve sound, but nothing super noticeable. With the top off you can very much hear the blowoff valve and a sucking sound from the intake, which again is nice and I enjoyed. However, I noticed no improvement in performance from this, and I would say it should be part of a total modification plan - by itself it will not give you any noticeable gains.

I would love other people's comments or thoughts here. I posted this as a point of discussion, not to bash HM or convince others to not buy the product. This was just my experience after spending half a day installing the intake and my impressions of it all.

 

Sorry to hear about your problems, like you said, give them a call and see what they say. I picked mine up Friday and installed it without any issues.

 

Any tips then? I mean, it went flawless or what? I guess I am surprised to hear that given how far off the fit of mine is...

 

All, just an update:

I talked to Adam at HM who was super helpful and talked through things with me. We decided the best thing for me to do was send the box in and have them fix the bolt hole, and I would send some pictures as well to help show more details.

Hopefully its a minor oversight on my part and they see something I did wrong.