Ebay air intake..pros & cons

I'm in the middle of deciding whether or not to get an ebay intake as opposed to a name brand (ie. aem, injen, etc). I heard that it does the same as those big names. Pros and Cons of ebay air intake if you know any.

Fittings fittings fittings :biggrin: There are numerous advantages to the name brand ones (powder coating, guaranteed fit to engine bay, etc.) The fact is, that you get a setup designed to your car's specs. The AEM system has a great "soft mount" design, involving a piece welded right to the pipe, and a rubber booted screw (to combat vibration) that bolts right into one of the holes left vacant by the stock airbox removal. Those generic Ebay kits usually employ a more slipshod clamp setup that can come loose and vibrate. Spend the extra on the name brand intakes -- it's worth it. (BTW I got my AEM SR intake for $45 on Ebay, so you can find them for not much more than the generic setups, if you wanna hunt for it.)

well yea that guy is pretty much right. performance wise is pretty much the same for all. as long as ur engine can breathe more than the stock intake then its all good. The problem i had w/ my generic intake was the vacuum hose that i needed to connect. the hose inlet on my intake was pretty big so when i tried to put it on it would just rip the stock hose and if i were to use the supplied one... it would be way too big and slip off. u can find ways to custom that tho.

My .02:
Performance wise they are pretty similar, ebay intakes do not come with CARB stickers, unless you live in Cali, this shouldn't matter. You may have some fitment issues, but I got mine off ebay and it works fine, I have no complaints. I think it really depends on the type of person you are. If you want only the best for your car, then get the name brand, I personally wanted to save the money, I got a custom built exhaust and ebay intake, and name brand headers. I had more fitment issues with the name brand headers, then the exhaust or intake. My friend got all name brand in the same exact car, and it does no better than mine. So it is all a matter of personal preference.

i purchased a "no-name" brand intake from ebay for a pretty cheap price, it sounds great, and it went straight in and fit great, except for one bracket that i had to bend and twist in order to fit it to my car--not a big deal--so i say if you can find a cheap name-brand, go for it, otherwise you wont be disappointed with an ebay brand

I also got my intake off of eBay for really cheap. I know a lot of people who even make their own. In my opinion, the filter is the most important part, and if you buy the majority of the intake off of eBay (just make sure it's made for your engine) and get a K&N or something instead of the crappy filter that they usually come with, it should be pretty comparable to the name brand intakes.

Oh, yeah, be prepared to make a few simple mods -- I have a 99 v6 coupe and the only thing I had to do was reroute the coolant line (i.e. get a longer hose) and buy an extra hose clamp. $3.72. Whoop-de!

i know one of you guys mentioned power coated ones like aem help the vibration. does that make a real big difference??? i would think not but...

No, any vibration hassles are mainly due to issues with fitting the hardware in: the more brackets, extra metal, and extra clamps you have to use, the more of a chance you (may) have issues with vibration (not too much of a concern as long as you periodically check that everything's tight.) The reason for the powder coating, is to help keep down the internal heat of the intake pipe itslef -- an uncoated pipe will get hotter, thereby heating up the air flowing through it, and negating any advantage to sucking in cold(er) air, although the volume of the air will remain unchanged. This won't be as much of a concern when using a Short Ram design, since most of the air it's sucking is from the hot engine bay anyways. But with a CAI, you want to keep that cooler external air as cold as possible. Hence, the advantage to having that powder coating on the pipe.