What brand is a good CAI

[goose8651]

Hello to all. I have never been a car person until now. I have owned 2 trucks and now looking into the car scene. I have made the decision to purchase a 2008.5 Mazdaspeed 3. I am currently purchasing items that I will be adding on in the future so I do not get hit hard right at the beginning of purchasing aftermarket parts. The first item that I would like to purchase is a cold air intake.
In owning a truck, the cold air intake is not a popular item. Do they make that big of a difference in a performance car for $300.00? Also, what brands are highly recommended on this forum? One manufacturer I want to stay away from is K&N. I have had some bad things happen with these and want to stay away. If this has been asked before, sorry for asking it again and please direct me to the right area. Thanks again for everyones help.

 

[aaronc7]

I think the best bang for your buck is going to be the Cobb SRI (short ram intake). It's $175 and will let you hear your turbo a lot more (sounds awesome) and give you noticeable power gains also! It's going to perform pretty much just like any CAI...just cheaper and really easy to install.

 

[3.slow]

Does Cobb give you the surging like the ms cai does?

 

[aaronc7]

I do not have one...let me say that first, lol. BUT, from what I have read, the problem with the MS CAI is it doesn't have a flow straightener and lots of bends in the pipe, so the flow gets a little turbulent and could cause surging issues, etc. I never had those problems (with ms cai), and ive never seen anyone mention it with the cobb SRI. Right now I am running the MS CAI with the second pipe off...so basically the "MS SRI". If I had done it all over again I would have just waited for the cobb SRI. Only advantage of the MS CAI is the dealer won't view it as an aftermarket part. My MAF went bad and I got it replaced no questions asked. If anyone wants a MS CAI for 200 shipped let me know :-D

 

[Haltech]

Ive never felt any kind of surging with the MS CAI on my car. I think anyone who does notice surging, needs to note whether they are using an aftermark BPV or not. If they are, who makes it and whats the spring tension at?

 

[GoProtege]

AEM and Injen sell them. They're pretty common. Or you can do what I did and ghetto up your own for like 20 bucks. It's easy to do with a trip to autozone.

Check corksport or prtegegarage. they probably have some options for CAIs for proteges.

 

[AllLostThings]

My Fujita 5 is just fine for me.

 

[Sierra117]

I got the CP-e, and had the MS. Both are nice, I like the CP-e a bit better.

 

[AutoXRacer]

I love my MS CAI!!!! (no surging here)

 

[3.slow]

My car was 100% bone stock before my ms cai. I did the install and yes of course reset the battery. When cruising in 6th gear and I go WOT I can feel the car jump to 20 psi (as others have noted) cueing the wastegate for a second and dropping it back down to 15 psi. The car will not surge if I am running through the gears or down shift before going WOT from 6th.

 

[Ryz]

Does Cobb give you the surging like the ms cai does?

Where did you hear this? Or do you just like spreading bad info? Bone stock the cars do a quick peak at around 22 before dropping back.

 

[3.slow]

Where did you hear this? Or do you just like spreading bad info? Bone stock the cars do a quick peak at around 22 before dropping back.

I am not making s*** up friend. Let me find the discussion and I will link it here.

 

[redrocketz]

I think the best bang for your buck is going to be the Cobb SRI (short ram intake). It's $175 and will let you hear your turbo a lot more (sounds awesome) and give you noticeable power gains also! It's going to perform pretty much just like any CAI...just cheaper and really easy to install.

yeah if you can get your hands on one quickly. They are on backorder until the new year in which case we have a ton ordered but they wont last very long. Cobb does make a great product but they are kind of slow on producing parts.

 

[2ManyCars]

I've got the MS CAI and it's great. The part is really high quality. I see someone selling one up on the Marketplace forum for around $235...

 

[aaronc7]

I'll sell mine for $200 =]

 

[maestro]

I ran a Mazdaspeed CAI kit, from Ron Tonkin. for about two months. It worked great and came with the cleaning solutions, and hardware. I had no issues what so ever with it. A satisfied customer.
I do have to sell the CAI kit how that I'm keeping the Corksport intake with their FMIC kit.

 

[Falconx84]

cobble cobble

sri is best power for $$ - and it performs just about the same as a CAI on a forced induction motor

 

[2ManyCars]

Go for the MS CAI. It's a high quality part. I love the performance. It sounds cool. It also looks good. Plus the dealer is really unlikely to give you any garbage because it has Mazdaspeed right on it.

But wait - there's more!

Act now and you get the added benefit of participating in at least 10 threads per day where folks will try to convince you that SRI is better than CAI because the air is hot anyway and CAI keeps you from parking or driving through 2 feet of standing water...

(BTW this is a joke. I'm really not trying to prolong any debates on CAI vs. SRI)