Best Cold Air

I know this is getting to be a topic beaten into the ground, but what is the "best" cold air intake for a 5.3 Silverado? I have an 06 CrewCab 4x4 with a "functional" ram air hood, stock intake and custom exhaust. Shopping around, I'm finding K&N to be about $200 and some better than $500. Is the $500 better and giving more performance or are you paying extra just because they claim HP gains that you're not really going to see?

I have no problem paying top dollar, but kind of expect a better product in doing so. My main interest is to get that throaty sound when you romp on the gas and thrilled if I get a performance increase that's actually noticeable. Those expensive ones are claiming 20 HP+ at the wheels and I find that very hard to believe. I don't want to save money on the cheapo either and end up 100% disappointed! I'm not needing extra performance, but figure the truck looks the part and now it's time to have a little fun with it.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

I know this is getting to be a topic beaten into the ground, but what is the "best" cold air intake for a 5.3 Silverado? I have an 06 CrewCab 4x4 with a "functional" ram air hood, stock intake and custom exhaust. Shopping around, I'm finding K&N to be about $200 and some better than $500. Is the $500 better and giving more performance or are you paying extra just because they claim HP gains that you're not really going to see?

I have no problem paying top dollar, but kind of expect a better product in doing so. My main interest is to get that throaty sound when you romp on the gas and thrilled if I get a performance increase that's actually noticeable. Those expensive ones are claiming 20 HP+ at the wheels and I find that very hard to believe. I don't want to save money on the cheapo either and end up 100% disappointed! I'm not needing extra performance, but figure the truck looks the part and now it's time to have a little fun with it.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

the best one is the one that came with your vehicle !

these companies are scaming by making these false claims..

the best one is the one that came with your vehicle !

these companies are scaming by making these false claims..

Right on there J-Cat.

Wow... that is surprising. Most of my experience is with older VW's and even a home fabricated tube with a cone filter makes a huge difference in sound and power, but we're also talking a 4 cylinder where even 5 HP feels big.

I did this ram air hood a few years back. The instructions and tech both explained that you just cut a hole in your airbox and drop a different filter in the top. The assumption being that the rubber around the filter would act as a seal to the hood. Now my common sense says that you either need to keep the original filter in place or a lot of crud would pass into the intake and running 2 filters sounds pretty restrictive. Again, not looking for real power out of this but also no point in having the look without the function to back it up.... don't want to be one of the guys that has a 4" exhaust tip clamped onto a stock exhaust!

I'm really looking more for the throaty sound at the motor, just not anything that's going to restrict power. I would go a little more extreme on performance parts, but seems like short of chipping it, there's not much you can do with these 5.3's unless you want to get internal.

Wow... that is surprising. Most of my experience is with older VW's and even a home fabricated tube with a cone filter makes a huge difference in sound and power, but we're also talking a 4 cylinder where even 5 HP feels big.

I did this ram air hood a few years back. The instructions and tech both explained that you just cut a hole in your airbox and drop a different filter in the top. The assumption being that the rubber around the filter would act as a seal to the hood. Now my common sense says that you either need to keep the original filter in place or a lot of crud would pass into the intake and running 2 filters sounds pretty restrictive. Again, not looking for real power out of this but also no point in having the look without the function to back it up.... don't want to be one of the guys that has a 4" exhaust tip clamped onto a stock exhaust!


I'm really looking more for the throaty sound at the motor, just not anything that's going to restrict power. I would go a little more extreme on performance parts, but seems like short of chipping it, there's not much you can do with these 5.3's unless you want to get internal.

If you take the time to read thru the forums with these vehicles you will find many have spent a lot of money on these so called power increasing devices ...they wasted their money ..some had to remove all modifications , because it ran worse and MPG went down ...

the exhaust on these is properly sized for these engines ...unlike the other truck's being produced ..

I know this is getting to be a topic beaten into the ground, but what is the "best" cold air intake for a 5.3 Silverado? I have an 06 CrewCab 4x4 with a "functional" ram air hood, stock intake and custom exhaust. Shopping around, I'm finding K&N to be about $200 and some better than $500. Is the $500 better and giving more performance or are you paying extra just because they claim HP gains that you're not really going to see?

I have no problem paying top dollar, but kind of expect a better product in doing so. My main interest is to get that throaty sound when you romp on the gas and thrilled if I get a performance increase that's actually noticeable. Those expensive ones are claiming 20 HP+ at the wheels and I find that very hard to believe. I don't want to save money on the cheapo either and end up 100% disappointed! I'm not needing extra performance, but figure the truck looks the part and now it's time to have a little fun with it.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

wet (oiled) air filters from cold air intakes can contaminate maf sensors. I've seen on a daily basis many destroyed nissan maf and at $400 each, a costly mistake. chevy's maf seem to hold up better...some older products have burn off circuits. If you like a throaty exhaust note try a magna flow exhaust...they are quiet for normal driving (I hate droning exhaust) but sound good when you stomp on it.

That's kind of why I'm on here asking the question(s). I see no point in spending good money on things that do nothing or decrease the driveability of the truck. I remember doing an exhaust on a VW once and probably lost 10 HP and a ton of torque.... but that was a $100 mistake. These newer trucks have less you can tweak and just about any part is $500+. Might as well get the insight before I have a box of parts on Ebay! I've never been a huge fan or believer in bolt on performance, but I have seen little $50 tweaks make a HUGE difference in my smaller toys.

Currently my silverado has a custom dual exhaust with a series 50 performance muffler. Sounds great. Not too loud and a nice low rumble, but my complaint is when I get into the pedal... you can hear the whine of the motor in the cab over the exhaust. In past experiences, any "open" air filter like a cold air system deepened the sound of the actual motor.

As I said, just time to start having a little fun with the truck and want to wait for the internal mods until I actually need to replace the motor.

dont' think they make much difference at all on a stock engine.

I bought an AIRAID from autoanything.com a few years back. It was fairly inexpensive, as I hooked it up to my stock air box. I did change out the filter with a True Flow air filter, mainly because of a longer service life. If you look closely at all of the power claims, you will see that the "extra" power is not gained until way up in the power band, much higher than most of us will ever see. That being said, it did make the intake noise more pronounced, which is fine with some of us. As for other gains, I really couldn't tell a difference. I think that back in the old days, you could switch from stock to after market and see major improvements. The manufacturers have done a lot of homework in optimizing things, so you don't see any real gains until you start breaking into the engine internals. Anyway, just my two cents!