CAI vs Ram ( hot air) for you truck guys

    Can you give us the specific products you're looking at for comparison? IMO, there's not much in the way of ram air in a ground vehicle. Even if you angle large air ducts with zero obstructions it'll still have a filter which negates any real manifold pressure increase (run compressor air through any filter and feel what comes through). Some piston aircraft have a manual ram air control which brings unrestricted frontal air past the filter with a short, large, straight duct. At 150 knots (172 mph), it'll add about 1" of manifold pressure. On the ground, there's more to be gained with CAI, capture as much non engine heated air as possible, even in florida it's a relative temp reduction, with more free flowing filter and smooth induction tubes. Proven time and again on dynos.

    I don't quite get the whole "CAI" of running a long tube and filter to the front of the hot engine, when a true short-tube COLD air intake is this easy. Even when trying to separate it from the engine with a box shield, fresh air can't flow to it well and there's got to be some pretty bad heat soak at each stop light.


    EDIT: Oh, just noticed this thread is non-Slingshot... but, the same principal applies.

    Yeah, like Flybuddy mentioned, "ram air" is crap with a filter involved. I built ram air into my plane with no discernible improvement at any speed. Even a ramjet rocket needs to hit 400mph before it starts to work. Pontiac was always big into marketing "ram air", claiming something like a 15hp improvement, but if that was close to accurate, it's just getting cooler air to a shorter intake. It is commonly said that each 10F degrees above ambient robs you of 1% power. There's a huge difference in underhood temperatures between the running vehicle moving and sitting still... seems to me it would be tough on the ECU to constantly have to compensate for a 50F+ spread in intake temperatures, so I like that mine is somewhat consistent, outside the engine bay.