Cold Air on 98-00 Elantra?

I am curious if anybody has installed a cold air intake on a 98-00 Elantra. I see all these cheap ones on Ebay, and they look pretty tempting. What was the installation like, any problems with the installation, and any problems with the car's driveability afterwards?

my friend just installed one of the cheapy on his 2005 elantra .was not hard to do just took off air box and put in new pipes with the maf sensor in between the two pipes then the air cleaner i am not sure how it is on the old eltras but his was pretty easy. says cars has a throatyer sound to it has not effected drivabilty. the only problem seems to be when he goes to start the car with remote starter it take two tries to get it started. dont know how it was before he put on the air intake.

I tried posting yesterday but the site was not kind. I built one for my 1998 Neon (DOHC and MTX) out of 2" PVC (I painted it) and a K&N filter. The big thing is to get the filter out of the engine compartment since the engine generates a lot of hot air . If you buy on on EBay be sure that the one you buy takes the filter out of the engine compartment or yu will be throwing money away. Also, metal will absorb heat so try and get one or make one out of some composite like plastic or PVC.

Thanks for the idea. I'll have to build one over Christmas. Yet another question: how worried should I be about hydrolock?

Thanks for the idea. I'll have to build one over Christmas. Yet another question: how worried should I be about hydrolock?

Not to worry, just keep the filter above the axle level ( I have mine right behind the front grill). You would have to really submerge the filter to hydro lock, and I have had mine on my car for seven years and no problems and I live in S.E. Virgina right along the hurricane track for many storms.

i am also thinking about purchasing one of the cheap ones off ebay for my 1999 elantra (2 liter, 4-cylinder). they are substantially less than AEM, although i know AEM is supposedly one of the best brands out there. can anyone shed some light on the accuracy of that statement? if the cheaper units have comparable performance i'd definitely like to save some cash and pick one up.

also, how important is the mass airflow sensor? is this something you have to purchase in addition to the cold air intake? what does it do exactly? i can't recall if the AEM cold air intake i had on my honda accord had one of these on it or not.

i have a 1990 honda accord w/ an AEM cold air intake that i paid like $250 for about 7 years ago or so. my friend helped me install it and it took about 2 hours cuz we ran into some difficulty but normally it would take an hour maybe. i definitely noticed an increase in HP and acceleration. the only negative affects were an annoying hissing noise and the car seemed to idle at about 1.5 RPM while stopped. people told me this is normal but i've also been in other cars where this affect is much less noticeable. so i'd like to know if anyone here has experienced this really loud hissing and high idle speed.

oh yeah, i was worried about hydrolock with my honda but i never had one problem with it. we hardly get any rain here in san diego (it is raining heavily today, though) and i've hit some sketchy corners/huge puddles without any hydrolock. all i would do is let off the gas whilst driving through any sketchy puddles and wait to accelerate after clearin' 'em.

i am also thinking about purchasing one of the cheap ones off ebay for my 1999 elantra (2 liter, 4-cylinder). they are substantially less than AEM, although i know AEM is supposedly one of the best brands out there. can anyone shed some light on the accuracy of that statement? if the cheaper units have comparable performance i'd definitely like to save some cash and pick one up.

also, how important is the mass airflow sensor? is this something you have to purchase in addition to the cold air intake? what does it do exactly? i can't recall if the AEM cold air intake i had on my honda accord had one of these on it or not.

i have a 1990 honda accord w/ an AEM cold air intake that i paid like $250 for about 7 years ago or so. my friend helped me install it and it took about 2 hours cuz we ran into some difficulty but normally it would take an hour maybe. i definitely noticed an increase in HP and acceleration. the only negative affects were an annoying hissing noise and the car seemed to idle at about 1.5 RPM while stopped. people told me this is normal but i've also been in other cars where this affect is much less noticeable. so i'd like to know if anyone here has experienced this really loud hissing and high idle speed.

oh yeah, i was worried about hydrolock with my honda but i never had one problem with it. we hardly get any rain here in san diego (it is raining heavily today, though) and i've hit some sketchy corners/huge puddles without any hydrolock. all i would do is let off the gas whilst driving through any sketchy puddles and wait to accelerate after clearin' 'em.

AEM's CAI's are no better or worse than the ones available for a fraction of the price on ebay really. The only difference is that the AEM ones come with a C.A.R.B certificate sticker which means they are smog legal, but not necessarily any more legal or illegal to have on the car for normal driving.

If you're worried about hydrolock go purchase AEM's bypass valve and you'll be fine assuming you are using a CAI. If you're choosing to use a shortram intake, which I don't recommend because that still sucks in the hot engine compartment air the bypass valve isn't needed.

The MAF sensor is only something you should worry about if your car already has one. I believe on the '03 or '04 Elantras there is one which will have to be relocated onto the CAI.

If you want further reading go here http://www.elantraxd.com/? and look around the forum for a stickied thread.