aftermarket intake experience
 

recently installed the k&n short ram intake and i felt obligated to share how pleased i am with it. when i bought my 370 it had the injen cold air kit which looked alright as it was the black model, but i am a diehard k&n fan so i decided to replace it with the short ram kit. i paid a little over $300 shipped and installed everything in about an hour. although i believe that the injen kit claims a little more whp, the k&n kit feels more responsive, especially at low rpms. from the interior of the car the k&n kit sounds much different than the injen kit did, much deeper and more pronounced, but not over the top. this intake is likely more prone to heat soak having the filters located in the engine bay, but the heat shields and the actual location of the filters should drastically minimize this. i like the look under the hood much more with the filters in the engine bay than just the pipes going down the front end of the car. i know there are many stillen G3 fans out there, and i understand why, but for all things considered including price, gains, ease of install, and overall quality i think the k&n is a hard package to beat.

Nice write-up:tup: I'm pretty pleased with my K&N Typhoon too. I had great success with the K&N FIPK on my S2000 and decided to stay with K&N.

Does it affect the new car warranty????

No

You swapped out an Intake with decent gains to one that probably after about 1 hour of driving makes you lose HP?

Hey I'm just curious i know its the wrong place for this but hour you like the 20mm spacers on the Z?

I installed my K&N kit two weeks ago and I still can't believe how much of a difference it has made for the sound and my enjoyment of the car. The engine went from the standard "vacuum cleaner" sound that every one complains about to a very noticeable deep growl. At low speeds it adds just enough grunt, and at over 4k RPM's it roars.

Everything else is stock and honestly I'm happy enough that I will probably leave it that way for a while. Easily the best $300 I've ever spent.

I also put the K&N Typhoon kit on my Nismo. I have had it on there since it was new and I like it alot. Great throttle response, sound, and I have had very good torque gains with it aswell.

Actually, if you're running a CBE, the difference is only around 1 to 3 WHP.

Personally, I rarely drive the Z for an hour straight. That said, I doubt seriously it would take an hour of driving to heat soak the K&N. You're probably looking at more like 10 to 15 minutes at the most. Those heat shields really don't do a whole lot.

This car has two throttle bodies and only six cylinders so getting the air in is not that big of a deal. My tuner (also the tuner and car builder of the ceo of Zdayz) says its more about the exhaust than the intake. With the power he has got out of our cars ill trust him on that point. I have raced many 370's with other intakes and never have lost one due to my intake choice. The k&n set up is a good product and delievers a broader torque and hp range than most others. If your looking for peak hp numbers on a dyno than yes get a good longtube setup. If your looking for good torque and acceleration out of the corners then the K&N is hard to beat. Just my experience.

Sucking in extremely hot air is not as beneficial as sucking in much colder air. Maybe within the first couple of minutes of driving it's the same but that's it. The Z seems to get really hot under the hood.

What is "extremely hot air"? How much colder is the "much colder air" vs the "extremely hot air"? Has anyone actually measured the IAT of a long tube setup vs the K&N?

Drop in filters are probably on Par in terms of performance gains vs the K&N short ram. Some short rams have even shown to net zero gains on the dyno. It's not that its bad or poorly designed, its that the stock intake setup was designed well to begin with. The long tubes have been dyno proven to show results across the rpm range.

The K&N short ram has the intake pretty much open to the engine bay.
http://www.racingsolution.com/images...7078TS_Eng.jpg

The Gen 3's and other long tubes filter elements, are almost entirely shielded from the engine bay.
http://motoiq.smugmug.com/photos/574724617_AkAv6-M.jpg

If its 80 90 100 degrees out side can you imagine how hot it is under the hood? That's extremely hot! VS the temp of the air that is outside the engine bay.

Yes I can imagine. But imagining something and having actual facts to back up my claims are 2 different things. You may be right. But then again, how would we know?

Yes the engine bay is hot when you open the hood. But the car is standing still. When the car is moving there might be plenty of cool air getting to the air filters. Unless you actually measure the IAT (while the vehicle is moving) and can say with certainty that one design makes a difference over another, we are all just "guessing".

You don't think that while the car is driving down the road that the air that's being sucked in by my GEN 3's is colder then the air being sucked in by a Short Ram.

i can tell anyone that is using this sri that if you remove the rubber strip from under neath the front of the hood.out side air will definitely get to your filters.

It could be. You absolutely may be right. But my point is (and I'm not trying to pick fights here) is that without actual data, it might not make any difference (or it might be worse) to have air intakes that snake down around the front of the car vs short ram intakes.

Other factors also need to be taken into consideration when choosing an intake such as piping length, diameter, material, etc... These things also affect HP which is what our ultimate goal is.

Ultimately what you are happy with is what matters, but please don't automatically assume that an intake will make more power just because it takes in air from an area of the car that seems to be cooler than another.

:tup:

long tube intake dyno

http://www.the370z.com/intake-exhaus...pressions.html

~20whp gain


short ram dyno

http://www.the370z.com/intake-exhaus...ed-w-dyno.html

~14whp gain


33% difference of hp gained in short ram vs long tube

i'm sure there are many variables that play into this, but these were just some quick examples i found

now as the car warms up, both will lost hp, but the intake located under the hood WILL lose more power than the remotely located intake

Fair enough, but there are actual dyno numbers that have proven certain long tube intakes like the Gen 3's perform better over the short tubes. Temp readings, while useful data, isn't as important as the results in HP & Torque. I'm sure all the temp measurements were done to during the prototype stages of these intakes. If the results of those testings revealed hotter air with the long tubes, the power gains would have showed it and Nissan certainly would have chosen a different spot for the intake to get air from...which is why you don't see much of an improvement over the stock setup. The stock intake is pretty much a short ram that takes in air from a slightly "colder" source in front of the engine bay, above the front "mouth", not within the hotter engine bay.

Alot of variables involved, but colder air is more dense with oxygen...and more oxygen means more power.

So with all this hype as far as short ram goes......

Stillin Gen 2 Vs K&N what you all think?

I personally was thinking gen 3 but they are pricy. But then again everything on this car seems to be pricy.

Perfect. I will accept any arguments that are backed up with genuine dyno results. :tup:

Be glad you don't drive a Porsche.

For real’s!! But I want to and this body was the closest thing to it.

I'm extremely pleased with the way my car looks, stops, and handles. I wouldn't change a thing. :tup:

Power and sound on the other hand... I might be making some changes soon. ;)

I have a OBD2 Bluetooth with Dash Command iPhone app and discovered something interesting and useful! An intake temp reading. It shows live readings from the engine and I was seeing some interesting data. I have the K&N Typhoons and while driving I was getting ~90 deg but when stopped for a few minutes was getting to 145! So heat soak is there. But when moving it goes away.

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/i...ience-odb2.jpg

This is exceptionally useful information.

Perhaps we can get someone with Stillens to hook up this setup and try it out? We can get some numbers to put a better label on the actual difference between the two. Very useful info for those that daily drive their cars and don't feel like removing their bumper every 10-20k miles to check their filters.

There are trade-offs on all sides, of course. I wonder if they have a similar setup for Android. I will be ALL OVER it if so.

TJLazer - what was the outside temperature at the time of your reading?

It was around 80 degrees. I will do some more testing, and also in the fall to see if the numbers get better when at a stand still.

I do know that when it is hot out, and in stop and go traffic I get a lot of bogging and slow throttle response in 1-2 gear. There is a whole thread about it and I am convinced it is the ECU going into a save engine mode. Happens when I hit 220+ degrees.

My neighbor has a 370Z I can see about doing some comparisons on his stock Z...

Post MAF Tubes & Filters :ughdance:

Besides, once other breather mods are added, those manufacturer claims go to the garbage...

At CIN motorsports they hot lapped my car on the dyno for 20 plus pulls, and tuned it for real track and driving experiences. According to there track team the short ram intakes provide more off cornering accellerartion compared to the long tube intakes that have somewhat of lag when trying to spin up. In all the Z's that they have tuned the only thing that they recommend is a good exhaust system. When I asked them about my intake system thet said "there all the same" maybe one or two horsepower if your looking for that on the top end...

happen to have a link to said obd2 reader?

Here is the one I got. To use bluetooth OBD2 readers on the iPhone you need to jailbreak it. WiFi ones work but are much more expensive

Amazon.com: ELM327 Interface Bluetooth OBD2/EOBD Auto Scanner V1.4: Electronics

Only thing I don't like is that it is a little large and gets in the way a little in between your legs when installed (have to be careful not to hit it when getting in and out), so I ordered another low profile one. Should be here soon, I'll let you all know how it works! :)

I just ordered it the bluetooth obd adapter you linked. I'm going to try and talk my brother into jailbreaking his iPad or stealing an iPod touch until I know what I will do for an app solution. I'm planning on ordering the R2C intakes to start - that way we can see which short ram heat shield is more effective. I may be a couple weeks away from getting it done, but I will post back here and report my results.

In addition - I have just discovered that DashCommand is available on both Android and iOS. RAZR MAXX for the win. Now I'm officially excited.

I just got my slim ODB2 reader and it seems to work fine too. Might want to get one of those. $12 shipped and took about 8 days to get to me. Not bad.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271038936670...84.m1439.l2648

@ZBro16 make sure you install roxyBT4 for it to work with iOS dervices. (enables true bluetooth)

So it was pretty hot yesterday about 88 and I got to test my intake and coolant temps when I arrived home from work. I drive about 45 minutes in moderate traffic and when I got to my driveway I let it sit for about 5 minutes to get some heatsoak! Off the charts! I only hit 220 on the engine oil temps...

http://www.the370z.com/attachments/i...e-obd2-hot.jpg