Cold air intake in Vancouver weather useful?
 

Thinking of buying a CAI for my car.
Is it useful in Vancouver weather since it is always cool?

It's useful in making your engine make more noise!!! That's about it.

Berz out.

Save your money to take your mom out for a nice dinner instead.

Both wise statements ^^

^ +1

Exhaust first for performance gain, then you can consider whether an open intake is needed or not.

Depends on what car and what you intend to use it for, otherwise it's a waste of money just to put an open intake for the extra noise and little to none power gain.

The important thing is -- you really need to make sure the CAI is getting fed with fresh cold air, or it is just gonna be a waste of money as far as performance is concerned.

Rig up some DIY work where the K&N cone filter is protected by functional heat shields, and gets fed with fresh air (preferably with some sort of ram air effect). Then you'd be golden.

The idea of a CAI is that it takes in cold air from outside the cars engine bay. It has nothing really to do with the weather, it more about pulling cooler air that hasn’t been heated by the ambient heat from the engine.

If your building a car that is strictly bolt ons (intake, header, exhaust), I say why not, try and get everything you can out of it. If you’re expecting the intake alone to make any real noticeable difference in the car power band, you won’t be happy (other than the noise).

CAI's make most of their power from the smoothing of the turbulent air that goes into the motor. Some manufactuers claim their intakes are tuned like a pipe organ.
As well as noise, stock intakes are usually very restrictive with just a small air opening and lots of resonators/restrictors.
The CAI will give better throttle response and a smoother power band, but won't give you dramatic gains.

When the car is moving, there should be lots of underhood air flow. If there isn't, then there isn't any air going through the radiator and your car would be overheating.
Ram air effect only works in a completely seeled box. If there is any openings, the air will bleed from the high pressure area to the low pressure areas. Plus, if you run the numbers, a 2L 4 cycinder motor at WOT will probably draw more air than you can force with a properly setup ram air system.

With the motor running, it is drawing air from the underhood area causing a low pressure area. So there will definately be air flowing into the engine bay.

If you go on youtube, air intake is pretty much useless and won't do much to adding power. It is just a waste of money.

What exactly do you mean by useful? Lol
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Get a short ram intake. Cheaper than CAI, adds a few ponies, better sound compared to CAI, and you won't have to worry about hydro locking your engine when going through puddles.

K&N and AEM filters are great, stay away from the foam ones.
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Useful at making noise and wasting fuel, you find yourself accelerating hard just to hear the noise lol

Be careful with oil cotton filters like the K&N and AEM filters. If your car runs a MAF sensor, the oil on the filter can be sucked in and coat the sensor which will give it incorrect readings which will affect the way the car runs.
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We can help with whatever intake you want. Give us a call at 604 879 6288

calling an intake a waste of money? so is pretty much everything we do to our cars, if someone likes the sound then go for it,the gains are not too noticeable though.

if money isnt a bother to you, here are some reasons to buy one:

sound, obviously sound nice. short ram may be a little louder

looks, most aftermarket intakes look much better than stock

and gains, they will be small in the case of CAI and SRI but more airflowis usually a better thing, most stock engines wont need it, but if you do start doing performance upgrades then breathing is the best thing for you engine ei. full exhaust set up as well

now to answer your question, CAI are useful, have you ever noticed how much better your car runs on a cool day? engine bays get pretty hot so an isolated air source will suck in cooler air then that in the engine bay BUT if you do have a low CAI set up you run the risk of hydro lock, drive thru a large puddle, engine sucks in water and water isnt compressible so everything else will bend/break around it.. keep in mind that has to be quite the puddle.

AEM do not use oiled filters. Too much oil on the MAF sensor is a result of not following the directions after cleaning and then reoiling the KN filter. This is not an issue on new KN filters, only ones that have had a heavy reoiling.

anyone gonna bother to ask the guy what car/motor he has before they spew their shitty opinions?

Why? Chances are its just some 4 cyl commuter car that will see 0 gain other then more air sucking noises under acceleration.
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Only problem I have with that YouTube clip is that they didn't test a true CAI like the AEM where they replace the OEM rubber pipes with a long tube. But then again a 10% increase in power is also asking for a lot. Heck, even asking for a 5% increase is a lot.