It seems a lot of people are reinstalling their factory airboxes...Any advice IF I should [switch] to a cold air system, and if so, what is the best system to buy/install?
I have a Cantrell air intake (Dali also sells a similar product), a K&N drop-in OEM style filter and stock airbox. With the intake taken care of, the exhaust is addressed with RM headers and a TAITEC GT Competition muffler. Both the intake
and the exhaust should be improved if you want the biggest horsepower increase. Initially I just installed headers and the hp increase was barely noticeable. Improving both the intake and the exhaust made a big difference.
As a bonus, the sound (again, both intake and exhaust) is wonderful and there was a significant improvement in performance - at least that is what my uneducated butt and my comparison of track times tells me!
I then heard our friend on the NSX Techline at Acura HQ tell us that he's seen more engine failures as a result of aftermarket intakes than any other aftermarket mod, because - despite their claims - they tend to let bigger particles of dirt into the engine than the stock air filter.
While it is hard to believe that an engine would fail outright from a poor job done by an aftermarket air filter, I suppose anything is possible. It is more likely that the engine would suffer premature wear from the grit missed by the filter acting like sandpaper and grinding on the cylinder walls.
What you have to remember is that auto manufacturers - even manufacturers of high performance exotics - must keep costs in line. That includes manufacturing costs and servicing costs. Paper filters are cheaper to manufacture than cotton gauze and oil filters like K&N. And when the paper filters become dirty you just throw them out and drop in a new one (what could be cheaper?), whle the K&N filter needs to be sprayed with a cleaner and then carefully washed, set aside to dry for several hours and then re-oiled. Not only does it take a lot of time (which costs more $) it has to be done properly. That is something a less careful mechanic may not do (and a dealer does not want to do because they won't make money at it) but a car nut will not only do it properly (usually), they will enjoy doing it! In light of the foregoing it is my
personal, reasonably held (at least I think so) opinion, based on my (pretty thorough) review of various articles (technical and otherwise - some even had pictures) and advertising literature and what little I can recall from the Mechanical Engineering degree I obtained from a fine University that, if properly maintained, a K&N filter will
probably, most likely do as good a job, and maybe better, in both filtering
(or maybe not) and flowing air
(I am pretty sure about this one, but I know someone will disagree) than OEM.
But it will cost more and is much more of a nuisance to maintain.
You might also take some comfort in knowing that Dodge installed K&N filters in the Viper GTS LeMans Special Edition a few years ago. As for the other aftermarket types of filters I don't know if they can make that sort of claim to OEM validation.
[This message has been edited by NSX Maven (edited 06 March 2003).]
