I see a lot of cars come through the shop that the customer has installed, or paid to have installed a new "cold air intake". The problem is that most of these "kits" actually suck in the hot air under the hood. Even better when they leave the intake air sensor in the cars fender intake so the computer thinks its getting nice cool air and the fuel strategies are constantly correcting. The opposite is true on the older carbureted cars. The original carbs were jetted to run on air that was about 130 F. If the temperature dropped below that, the little door in the air cleaner is supposed to suck hot air off the exhaust manifold. For some reason, everyone wants to rip off the heat stove but not recalibrate the carb. They are usually the same crowd that insist that a car has to be converted to EFI to run properly, or burn up exhaust valves from running lean.
I see a lot of cars come through the shop that the customer has installed, or paid to have installed a new "cold air intake". The problem is that most of these "kits" actually suck in the hot air under the hood. Even better when they leave the intake air sensor in the cars fender intake so the computer thinks its getting nice cool air and the fuel strategies are constantly correcting. The opposite is true on the older carbureted cars. The original carbs were jetted to run on air that was about 130 F. If the temperature dropped below that, the little door in the air cleaner is supposed to suck hot air off the exhaust manifold. For some reason, everyone wants to rip off the heat stove but not recalibrate the carb. They are usually the same crowd that insist that a car has to be converted to EFI to run properly, or burn up exhaust valves from running lean.
I agree totally but .......do you need a Snickers Bud?
When I was was in the trade we used to call them hot air intakes. Shaking ours heads.
When I was at the Toyota dealership one of my fellow techs had new Tacoma come in. Customer complaining about poor fuel mileage (down about 25%). He when through all the usual diagnosing, fuel trims, ECU updates etc.
After it came in for the second or third time, he came over and asked my opinion. Looked under the hood and told him to put the stock air box assembly back instead of the K&N system that the customer installed. He retorted, "that can't be it". Swap it and find out, he did and the fuel mileage was back to normal.
Moral of the story is that the manufacturers spend countless hours making sure everything works together. If your going to try and improve on that, you better know what your doing and have time to do it.
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When I was was in the trade we used to call them hot air intakes. Shaking ours heads.
When I was at the Toyota dealership one of my fellow techs had new Tacoma come in. Customer complaining about poor fuel mileage (down about 25%). He when through all the usual diagnosing, fuel trims, ECU updates etc.
After it came in for the second or third time, he came over and asked my opinion. Looked under the hood and told him to put the stock air box assembly back instead of the K&N system that the customer installed. He retorted, "that can't be it". Swap it and find out, he did and the fuel mileage was back to normal.
Moral of the story is that the manufacturers spend countless hours making sure everything works together. If your going to try and improve on that, you better know what your doing and have time to do it.
You hit it on the head mike, touche! today if you are going to be changing stuff with the fuel and air intake systems you better have more smarts than the manufacturer, and or more $$ than they had invested, getting the most out of it. years ago if we put headers on we got a bit more, but today's stuff the pipes are the cheap part, so to speak. today i am finding the starting point is in the computer end of it. some time ago i bought 3-4 k-n systems for my delivery trucks, 7.3 lt fords, and it didn't work out at all. when i told my bud down at westec the story he told me more air is just the first step and then you go to the computer to compensate for it.
