CAI vs. Short Ram.

My first purchase for my car was an AEM short ram intake. I do read up on a lot of things before I buy them and I noticed several sources stating that shorts actually lost power when the engine became hot.

I thought "well...its cool were I live, and it out -weighs hydrolock" So I went ahead and got it.

It looked cool, it sounded cool. It made power on cool nights....but in the day time, when it was nice and warm.....might as well have dropped 100 lbs in the trunk.

So recently my paranoia of hydrolock was outweighed by the hunger for horse power. And with summer being here, it was not going to be cool any longer.

So I ordered an Injen CAI. But before I did so, I did a little research. What I found was a little surprising.

AEM seems to be the most popular brand for intake systems.....everyone and their mom has an AEM intake, sticker, liscense plate frame.....etc.

I pulled up this particular website however, and was suprised by the results.....

http://performance.clubrsx.com/performance.html

The AEM shortram was losing almost 10 hp after a few runs...but what was more suprising is that the AEM CAI...one of the most popular items on the import scene..also lost hp after a few runs.

Now this may be only specific to RSXs...but it was enough for me to change decisions on what company to order my product from.

I recieved the Injen CAI today and the install went without a hitch...the pipe fit perfectly and I managed....somehow...to get the air filter on without having to remove the bumper...or even the wheel. (thought it was an extreme pain in the ass).

The power gain was not mind blowing, but the dynometer in my ass could feel a difference.

Just a little experience I thought I would share with everyone ^^

Yea the shortram takes in the air faster but it makes it hotter and the cold air might take longer to get to the intake manifold but the air is colder which is obviously better than hot air. I have a AEM CAI on my GSR and even after running it pretty hard the AEM intake is not hot at all....at times it actually just "warm".

Well if you really think about it, cold air systems like that have to be precisely tuned to get the desired horsepower numbers that everyone wants but when it comes to a brand new car/engine you have the problem of development time. when a new sports car like the rsx comes out, everyone and their mother wants one and wants it to be the first on the block to put mods on it. companies see this as a gold mine and fight to be the first to put mods out for it. now i dont know what kind of development time ingen or aem had on the car before it came out or if they had to wait and buy one at the dealer like everyone else, but things like cold air systems take time to tune right. aem says they look at tubing diameters, turn angles, etc to make great numbers but in the run for the money, they probably just got something that would fit, put it in a box, and sold it without tuning it right. im almost positive that in the next few months we'll start seeing better horsepower gains since the engineers had time to tune right and not be rushed to be the first company on the block with something. maybe ingen just got lucky on their numbers? who knows? just wait and see...

Where was the dyno done??? if it was indoors with minimal ventilation... then i could see the cold air intake sucking up warmer air then if it was on the road.

Materials and special heat coatings and barriers all play a role in maintaining a cold air intake.

if you use thin insulation between the rubber / sylicone connector and the pipe, then you will get minimal heat transfer from the manifold and Throttle Body to the intake pipe.

A generous coating of ceramic paint on the inside and outside of the pipe will slow the transfer of heat...

K&N seems to preffer plastic...

A good test would be to run boiling watter thru 3 pipes...
1 plastic
1 metal (uncoated)
1 metal (coated)

if you use steel then use steel again for the coated pipe... if you use aluminum then use aluminum for the coated pipe, and so on...

just put your hand around the pipe and have some dude poor the hot water tru it and out the other end... time how long it takes for the pipe to get hot...

do this for each pipe.


I assume you'd only need 3" long pipe for each one.
a catch bucket to collect the water... a funnel to avoid burnt hands...

:frog:

nobody noticed that the RSX's CAI is located behind themotor. which is after the radiator, the block & near the exhaust headers. no wonder it lost HP. Accords & Preludes have their filter & piping away from direct heat sources; i.e. headers, radiator, etc.,

I noticed that...I wasn't shooting for the HP loss in the CAIs. I was trying to bring to attention the difference in AEM and Injen.

All cars should lose a little hp when getting hot. RSX will probably lose more than normal because of the way it was designed.

CAI is the way to go. I had a short ram and it was getting too hot. I put the filter in the fender well and ran another pipe in the short ram and the difference was incredible. The heat on the intake was cut down to about 1/4 from the heat that the short ram had. So defenetly go with the CAI. stefan525