Which intake is better?

JSTUBBS

Member
OK guys I know a lot of you have put in intake systems...now which one in your opinon is the BEST? Is it the MHP CAi? Is it the AEM short ram? Is it the INJEN CAI? Or is it the MHP Short? I want to know which one I should go with? Thanks! :D
 
it all depends on what you like short ram, or cai (cold air intake), chrome or carbonfiber or black or plastik hehe it realy depends on you, and for performance the cai's are the best but nobode rely compered them to each other with dynos and stuff so i dont know which one makes more hp and so :D ;) :cool:
 
That's good question, but unfortunately we may never know the answer. Unless....... :D ;) :D W Someone has a hook up at a shop that'll let them borrow the Dyno for a couple of hours.
 
I am going with the MHP Carbon Fiber w/Yellow Accents because I think it will look the best under my hood, and it is also gonna give the same amount of power as any other CAI, IMHO.
 
Would be great to gain access to a dyno for a few hours and do a mag style test...with each system...first do a baseline run...then test and compare....note mileage (engine broken in?)

But even then the results might be different on the road....maybe 1/4 mile tests with the same mp3 each time, would be better...hmmmm :cool:

Just got some great ideas for the site....hmmm
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again.

The MHP is a 3" pipe. That makes a difference. Sure it looks good, but does a pipe that big help much?? I don't think so.

Injen is smaller, so it should give better performance. IMHO.

Ben used 2.5" piping for this very reason...

Just me and MHO...
 
Well I just got my Injen CAI and threw it on last night... WOW!!! :eek: What a difference! I guess it's reall up to you and your personal wants. Sure, the MHP CAI is phat as hell, but it is 3" piping. The Injen looks good too, if you like the polished look, and it uses 2.5" piping which improves air flow. Then there's the price issue. MHP = $329 while Injen = $235 (what I got mine for). I actually got a local shop that was gonna get me the Injen for $220, but the guy was an A/hole so I paid a litttle more for better service from protege5online.com. It's up to you man!
 
has anybody heard about AEM and if they are going to produce a CAI. my buddy can get me s*** at cost and might get it instead.

as far as which is better we will NEVER know until (like someone said earlier) you get one car to two a couple base line runs, then a couple runs with the MHP, then a couple runs with the INJEN, and so on on on on. and a few runs at the track. hell if i had the money i would buy both intakes and do my own test, but i dont.
 
I personally think that It comes down to the look of the thing. I have the MHP because I think it looks better. I'm sure that the size of the pipe has almost no affect. The CAI doesn't add that much power to begin so the difference between the 2.5" and the 3" will probably never be noticed. I like the carbon fiber look over the chrome look, but thats just me.

BTW, I haven't had any problems with the MHP for months.

Tim
 
Tim, I was thinking carbon fiber look myself. Do you have any pics of your engine with it installed? and what kind of sound change did you notice, if any?
Thanks
 
Too big of a pipe will cause too much of a bottle neck for your engine to breath properly.

2.5 inches is best for our 2.0L engine.

As for short ram or CAI. Short rams typically move your HP curve over a few rpms. So instead of having 140 Hp at 5500 let's say you will have 140 at 6500. I still havent' figured out what the advantages of that is but to some it's important.

I got feed back from people that the Injen intake robs Hp at high Rpm's. Dunno if it's true but that is the word that I heard.

I am going with a custom set up from PRM racing. It's a CAI velocity stack, it can be found at www.prmracing.com

I had this set up on my last protege 1.6L.

Stock 1/4 time is 18.2 s

after prm intake and 2 inch cat back custome exhaust time dropped to 16.8 seconds

Just some adivce I would pass along.

Jamie
 
alright, like i said before, i dont know about import rice burners as much, but with domestic v-8s you want as much air flow as possible. i would think bigger piping wouldnt hurt if not help. the air flow into the engine is determined by how hard the engine pulls it in. the air is poured in like a liquid, but sucked in like a straw, so it would be like drinking from a 20oz bottle and a 2 liter with a straw. once you get to a certain minumum size it doesnt really matter.
 
I would agree. The bigger the pipe, the slower the velocity of the air but more volume. If you were to hook a vaccuum hose up to the end of a 3 inch pipe and a 2.5 inch pipe and could measure the amount of air displaced it should be the same. A small pipe will restrict the air because under a higher velocity there is more friction between the air and the sides of the pipe (aka Drag).

Besides, there is a bottle neck at the beginning of your cold air intake because it goes from outside to 2.5 inches. The larger the pipe, the less the outside to pipe bottleneck is.

In any case, it is always going to get down to the size of the throttle body no matter what.

So I think that as long as the pipe is equal to or greater than the throttle body size then you are not restricting the air.

Tim
 
As a former aerospace engineering student, I know that Bernoulli's principle stated that fluids(air), flow faster through smaller spaces with decreased pressures. This low pressure causes a suction, the same suction that is on the top surface of an airplane's wing. So In my opinion, I don't think you should go much larger than the diameter of your throttle body. I do think that 3" is too large though. You do need some restriction in your engine. If you just take off your exhaust manifold, your engine will lose that needed back pressure an will not work properly. This is the reason you don't put 5" pipe for exhaust, and the same reason your intake pipe shouldn't be too large. :D
 
I haven't had a problem with my intake and it is a 2.5" civic short ram for the 92-95 models. It fits perfectly.
 
I have the Injen CAI.. it's.. so freaking awesome. There's clearly more power, and it's a lot louder. Good stuff.
 
Originally posted by 3pmadzam:
<STRONG>Tim, I was thinking carbon fiber look myself. Do you have any pics of your engine with it installed? and what kind of sound change did you notice, if any?
Thanks</STRONG>

Here is a pic of the Carbon Fiber MHP CAI...
mp35cai36.jpg


[ 12-07-2001: Message edited by: MP3-Owner ]
 
I think AEM is in developement of an intake, but it won't be cold-air. They actually do dyno tests and tuning of pipe sizes and lengths to come up with the best possible improvement. My background in this, believe it or not, is Car Audio. I would build sub boxes, and using different size port tubes in the box, could adjust the length of the port, or the diameter of the port, and get completely different sounds. Some boxes were very loud, but peaked at one note. Others were very smooth sounding, with less total output. This applies DIRECTLY to building an intake. The trick is to get the correct LENGTH and DIAMETER BOTH in order for maximum air intake at the throttle body, and insure these gains over the complete RPM band. If you can obtain this with a shorter pipe, and it happens to pull in warmer air, than there would be the comparison. A dyno run or 1/4 mile time run would be needed to show the results: would a shorter pipe with max. airflow but warmer air be better than less air that's colder? Without propor tests, there's no really effective way to know.
 

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