- Wed Feb 25, 2009 4:38 pm
#98925
There is actually no such thing as cold air. The coldest air you can even hope to get into the engine is your ambient air temp. If it's an 80 degree day, then in the best case scenario, you're getting 80 degree air into your intake. Unless you have an "icebox" intake.
The problem is that underhood temps are hotter than ambient temps. When you're sitting at a stop, your intake heat soaks, and as air is drawn into your engine it heats up. This effect disappears pretty quickly... a few seconds after you open the throttle. The incoming air actually cools your intake down again.
The advantage of a cold air intake has more to do with it's LENGTH than the temperature of the air it's drawing in. A longer pipe helps to bring the power band down to where it's usable. In fact, many of AEM's gen 2 intakes actually draw air in from under the hood because the effect of the intake length was more important to increasing power in those applications.
Drilling holes into the factory air box will cost you power if it has any effect at all.
If you want some free hp I suggest bypassing your FITV and the coolant line to your IACV. Buy a roll of blank gasket material from the auto parts store and a couple feet of that small diameter coolant line going to your IACV. Also some vacuum caps. Sandwich the gasket between your FITV and throttle body. Then take the FITV coolant line at the head and loop it to the IACV coolant line to the head. Cap the coolant lines on the FITV. It isn't necessary to cap the IACV lines.
This will give you as much hp increase as any budget CAI.
