Aftermarket Air Intakes/Airboxes - Beneficial or Placebo?

[shifted]

Fellas,

Just wondering with aftermarket setups - have they made a noticeable power gain for your vehicle? Or was it more a placebo effect due to the sound they make?

I've recently changed mine from a stock setup with TRD filter to an aftermarket ARC airbox, and though I think there is a difference, others mention it may in fact not be doing anything more than what the stock box did initially or possibly could do worse (more hot air coming in than cold).

Just gauging opinions.


Cheers,

Paul

[magic1]

buy a dyno and check. all cars are different

[Z2TT]

Every Car Varies.

If the Factory Air filter is restrictive for the Motor it's on, then a higher flowing one will give more power

If the Factory Air filter flows enough for the Motor it's running on, then a higher flowing one will not give more power.

If your car is stock and the factory air filter flows enough, but if you modify the car e.g increasing Boost, then the factory Air Filter may not flow enough.

[Alt_F4]

As above, if the stock box was restrictive, then you should be up overall... otherwise you're just sucking hot air for no increase in flow which means you'll go backwards overall.

[Evoboycorey]

I changed my stock filter to an aftermarket in my 8mr. Not much noticeable change. Then 6 months later changed to an ARC induction box and I noticed better spool down low (hit full boost 1.6bar about 200rpm lower) and about 2x intake noise :p

[jez321]

Look in youtube for a vid by mightycarmods named cold air intakes myths busted or something like that. They test a r34 gt-t on a dyno with a range or difrent CAI's might be of use to you but from the vid it seems to give results that match what was said above as i think the car is pretty standard

[Madhav]

Was on the dyno at T & R green and they thought my blitz pod filter looked restrictive so the pulled the whole thing off and at about 22psi we gained about 25hp. The design looked restrictive and turned out to be true.

See original restriction here: http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll300/fairytickles/8b5b8685.jpg

And after we modified it here: http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll300/fairytickles/photo_zpse16ad24e.jpg

Still not perfect but big improvement.

[shifted]

I changed my stock filter to an aftermarket in my 8mr. Not much noticeable change. Then 6 months later changed to an ARC induction box and I noticed better spool down low (hit full boost 1.6bar about 200rpm lower) and about 2x intake noise :p

Oh man, I love the noise it makes. I feel it makes a difference personally, and am keen to do a dyno run to see to be honest. I might need to.