review of the Active Autowerks Cold Air Intake

[jaavaajoe]

OK, here we go.

Buuhh, I am not knocking your intake. It looks great. And if you say it increases performance, fine.

But, it does not make the air going into your engine 70 degrees cooler!!! Bear is right, you are still taking air from inside of your engine compartment. You may have shielded it from the sides and top, but you are still drawing air from inside the engine compartment.

Is there some part of the system we can't see that is bringing cool air from outside of the car? If not, how do you figure the air is 70 degrees cooler?

Bear is right, any increase you may "feel" or hear is a result of a less restrictive filter element material, not cold air.

I am not knocking your review. I am glad you posted it. I just don't believe the cold air part.

[buuhh99]

here is proof

engine bay

[buuhh99]

cais

[buuhh99]

it draws air from around the horna and wheel well area there is no other part WYSIWYG

[97alpineM3]

The Conforti CAI works in the same way... but with a CF intake pipe... and a ITG filter... which I wish people knew more about. Such a wonderful filter.

Please go here.... www.itgairfilters.com

I have delt with CAI intakes for a long time.. and been through many... every shape.. and brand... and I have come to find this to be the best... look it up... this is just my opinion.

[ACSTypeI]

Originally posted by jaavaajoe@Jul 23 2004, 09:22 AM
OK, here we go.

Buuhh, I am not knocking your intake.* It looks great.* And if you say it increases performance, fine.

But, it does not make the air going into your engine 70 degrees cooler!!!* Bear is right, you are still taking air from inside of your engine compartment.* You may have shielded it from the sides and top, but you are still drawing air from inside the engine compartment.

Is there some part of the system we can't see that is bringing cool air from outside of the car?* If not, how do you figure the air is 70 degrees cooler?

Bear is right, any increase you may "feel" or hear is a result of a less restrictive filter element material, not cold air.

I am not knocking your review.* I am glad you posted it. ** I just don't believe the cold air part.

I think you misread/misinterpretted...

he didn't mean it cooled the air... he meant the sealed off intake compartment was 70 deg cooler than the rest of the engine bay..

oh.. and I've dealt with both ECIS/AA intakes (friend's e36's) as well as conforti (my old e36 and other's) and they do work effectively, getting fresh outside air while remaining isolated from the rest of the engine bay..(wow.. only intake i need to experience is the dinan/benfer style... hopefully someone at the next bi-monthly euro meet..70+ german cars..someones gotta have one...)

anyway...

the intake is completely sealed off from the rest of the engine bay... it does not draw air from inside the engine bay..

however, buhhh999 is incorrect as well..

This applies to the e36's only... but those kind of intakes, with the heatshield, get their air from only one source, and it's actually the factory airbox source. It's completely sealed off everywhere else, including the brake and fog ducts.

this one source is from the front of the grill straight back. It's a direct feed of air. And again, it is the OEM airbox's source of air as well. HOWEVER, there is a water protection injection flap which "hides" the hole and makes it "small".. you can see it here in this picture.. it's the small square-ish hole above the fan..



I suggest cutting this off, as I did, and many others have done... the chances of ingesting water with an aftermarket CAI is pretty slim.... after removing it you will have a very large hole that feeds air directly to the intake.. again.. DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK. you can see the after shot here.. right behind that hole is the intake...



EDIT: you can't really tell how big the hole has become, so here's this next pic. The upper right corner of the flap, yea, that was the old hole. The old source of air for the factory airbox and the ecis.. the size of the new hole.. well.. basically, that entire flap... that's how big the new hole is..



but again.. like jaavaa says... the factory itnake is "cold air".. but now you just have that same "cold" air, but more of it, and faster.. which is where the performance comes from..

oh.. and DIY for removing the flap can be seen here:
http://www.bmw-m.net/TechProc/h2oprotection.htm

[ACSTypeI]

I just realized something, especially after reading the post by doughboyea about the racind dynamics heatshield and jaavaajoe's comment about "two intakes"..There seems to be a bit of confusion about the intake system..

the e36 intake system is different than the e46's.

the e36 doesn't get it's intake air from that top portion and behind the headlight like the e46 does.. it only gets it from the front grill as you can see in my above post..

I actually forgot what that top air duct is for on the e36.. as I haven't had to dig around in my e36 for a year since I sold her.. I think it's for the A/C compressor and heater.. etc.. etc.. whatever you wanna call it..

oh.. and I agree with 97alpineM3... the ITG foam filter is the best performance filter.. maintains a better filtration rate than the K&N while maintaining a greater air flow.... especially when dirty...

a lot of people retrofit their ecis/aa intakes with an ITG foam filter.... there's a direct comparison dyno between the an ecis/aa vs conforti vs ecis/aa with itg retrofit.... it ended up being something like this:

conforti > ecis/aa
conforti ~ ecis/aa with itg > ecis/aa

however, we're talking about 2 hp and 3 tq difference.. not worth purchasing a new filter over... but if your K&N is about to die.. try out an ITG..

btw.. this applies only to the short ram intakes with the heatshields.. I don't know how an ITG filter would fare on a dinan/benfer style intake...

[Kowalski]

so really there is no point in getting a cold air intake system because they take the same air... the only benefit is the fat that you can get better air flow. well why not just get a K&N air filter and put it in the old box, but out the old intake circle and then get a piece of PBC pipe thats bigger, fasten it in there with glue or melting the edges and sticking it in or somthing havn't given it that much thought, and thne getting some rupper whos and putting it to the front grill.... thats just an idea, in theory it should wokr should it not?

[flying_junk]

yea. it works. i can prove it.