What is the best Cold Air intake (long tube)?

Originally Posted by ZForce

Oh...not another CAI thread. Are the not enough out there with having to clutter cyberspace with another CAI thread..........j/k

Stillen had just thrown their CAI out there to be the first on the market, well they failed in the fitment dept. You had to cut into the body of the car and then it rattled....epic fail out of the gates. They have probably fixed it by now. Yeh they have recorded the best gains prolly 3whp more than Injen, and as far as throaty sound....I would still believe Injen has that dept won....imo. So I went with Injen for the better fit and their running record with the 07-08 Z33 version dual CAI. Now that AEM has recently introduced the long tube CAi I would be interested to see their gains. I believe Z1 Motorsports was testing AEM, with a little search you could probably find the review. Also good info from SS_Firehawk above.

A lot have opted to go with Z1 silicone tubes and K&N drop in filters into the stock box setup. There is a thread out there with a gizzilion pages to read, but a lot have either sold off the CAI or opted that route as their first setup. If I had to do it again I would probably go that route also. Dunno what gains it produced, still wading thru the pages when time permits. Injen sounds good, has second best gains and is easier to access the filters, contrary to what others believe....you do not have to remove the bumper to perform maintenance on the Injen. Easy to access thru wheel well. g/l on your decision, sounds like you are going with Stillen, good choice.

Originally Posted by gaveup

Is the cutting really that complicated for people? 10 minutes with a dremel and it was done. Never had a rattle with mine, but I can imagine if you didn't properly cut a big enough hole in the plastic that could happen.

It boils down to this with the stillen vs injen/aem: Does the thought of hydrolocking scare you? If yes, get stillen as it sits higher. If no, still get the stillen because it just has a better location. The stillen gen3 isn't much more than the others and offers some peace of mind when it comes to driving on rainy days.

If the thought of having to take off the front bumper once a year or so to oil and clean the filters bothers you, get the injen/aem. For most people that's the biggest problem as a lot of people are either scared to work on their cars or don't have the time/want to do it. After you do it once, it should only take about 10 minutes to take the bumper off, it's not a big deal.

Originally Posted by ZForce

Some people just do not relish the idea of cutting into their car....period. If you read my post you would see I said Stillen probably fixed their original issue of a poorly mfg product on their first attempt. Since then they went back and improved on it with the G3 version. It was more a bit of history.

No one hear has reported a full on hydro locked engine that was toasted. A bit of water is going to get into either one and yes, more with Injen due to location.

Cleaning the filter should be done on every oil change and the bumper mounts can only take so much before it starts to show with misaligned lines. The Stillen filters can be accessed thru the top cover.

This is not a peeing match as you are making it out to be. If you read my post I said the OP was making a good decision with Stillen. So yeh, coming from an Injen owner I advocate Stillen as the better product......I gaveup (haha pun intended), you won...happy now.

Originally Posted by gaveup

Oh, I really wasn't trying to argue you in any way. Sorry if it came out like that. I just hear people in general complaining about stuff like this and I just don't see the big deal in most cases.