Stock Air Box Vs. Intake Vs. Cai ?

[streetdreams]

Mt Dad's friend came ovr to the shop tonight to help me out with my 92 325i. He works on BMWs for a living. He about shit himself when I popped the hood. I had just installed this intake, just a cone filter and an extension piece and it was all still in the engine bay. I was going to extend the tubing to to the area behind the foglight so it would be a CAI.

He told me that using the cone filter setup I had actually makes you lose torque and gain some peak hp. He said that I should put back on my old air box. What do you guys think?

[Furious]

well. depends, the intake have a heat sheild? if not than yes its possible that you might have not gained any hp , and could have possibly lost some however gained sound.
CAI and iintakes with heatsheilds actually intake a colder air at a higher flow. (more dense air at a higher rate) usually intakes loose bottom end power and you gain it at the top end. dyno graphs for some CAI's show gains of little bit of hp.

if you get an intake , software that is avalible for some of them (like dinan) actually help to gain the hp over a better spectrum

[jllphan]

Well put furious. I have a Dinan CAI, and a recent trip to the dyno had shown that I had a little less tq than I expected to see. I could easily attribute that loss to the CAI.

It all depends on what your looking for. If you want a little more umph in the upper rev range, then extend your intake into the fog light area and there you go. If you want a tad more at the line, put your old air box back on. Either way, I wouldn't leave it how you have it.