Do aftermarket intakes (CAI) make a difference? Yes. Yes, they do.

Getting ready to sell my trusty '08 Tacoma. I installed an AFE intake on it about eight years ago. Been driving it everyday since. But decided to put the OEM one back on before trading it in. While it's not dramatic, and the OEM unit is certainly quieter, the power difference is indeed noticable. It takes more throttle to get up hills, it's slower to accelerate, throttle response is a lot slower. This is magnified at higher speeds.

I know, i know the OEM unit is CAI too. But thats not the point. The OEM unit has a very small intake point inside the fender, and then after the air filter, the air passes through charcoal, and then a series of baffles and chambers before eventually finding its way to the manifold. The AFE unit is one giant cone air filter and then a tapered, straight tube directly into the intake manifold.

Maybe if you are sea-level dwelling low lander who never goes up steep grades, it makes no nevermind. But up here at 5,000 ft, where every drive involves crossing 8,000 - 10,000 feet in elevation, a performance intake absolutely makes a difference.

 

Right on, bro. Thought it just sounded cool, but I love my AFE CAI mod.

 

Post some MAF load vs rpm logs, or at least some intake air temp comparisons or GTFO.

 

Aftermarket intakes have made a difference for me in various vehicles, including my former 06' Tacoma, but never in a positive way. Main thing it's positive for you OP.

With all the off-roading I do I prefer the stock filtration as I believe it filters the debris out better.

 

Someone drank the juice,

 

Maybe the sound just makes you think it’s faster. Guilty of this myself. No problem being dumb, fat, and happy.

 

If any advantage exists, it will be related to a lower intake restriction.

The small amount of time the intake air spends in the intake system is short. Heat transfer requires time.

Remember the truck is inhaling its displacement in air volume every 2 revolution. Example: 4 L engine running at 2000 rpm will be sucking in roughly 4000 L/minute. How much time is the air in the intake system.......fractions of seconds.

 

Exactly. The "Cold Air Intake" part is not what makes them work better. These are far less restrictive systems. No charcoal, bigger air filter surface area, no bends or turns between the filter and the manifold. Just a slightly tapered, straight tube. Also, the slight taper increases air velicity, where bends and turns slow it down.

 

Increasing velocity does not increase mass flow. The engineers who were tasked with getting maximum efficiency out of the engine did not leave noticeable amounts of power on the table by poorly designing an intake system. I'm not saying there are no gains to be made with an intake, but it's very rare in modern EFI controlled engines to give up power/efficiency right from the factory without changing emissions or using a substantially more costly design. That said, anecdotal seat of your pants claims about power are notoriously inaccurate and without supporting data, it's not even worth proclaiming.

 

Oh shit. It's Friday already?

 

10 bucks says MAF numbers are the same or lower (less air flow) with the CAI and all you are feeling the difference of is the placebo effect of the noice.

Dynos have literally been done with aftermarket CAI and stock on a stock NA motor and there are no gains. And at altitude any gains from aftermarket would be even less due to less dense air.

 

I like the look of the trd cai, but I also hate the more open oiled filters. Slapped a stock paper 4runner filter in and I get best of both worlds.

 

The OEM S2000 CAI Is also a much better design than the OEM 4.0 intake. But the do make more power. A lot. No. Nobody said it's a lot, but they absolutely work.

 

I know that Intakes and "performance" filters don't increase power as measured by a dyno.

I will say though that after installing a K&N filter, not even changing the intake, I've had a slight, but definitely noticeable, change in engine behavior. Going up hills (which I do every day on my commute) when I increase throttle, the truck doesn't downshift anymore. It just increases Revs a little, and maintains or even increases speed slightly, without revving over 2500. With the OEM paper filter, on the big hill on my commute it would downshift, and I'd have to hold revs at >3000 to maintain speed.

Overall the engine responds better to throttle input. Again, I'm not saying I increased horsepower, but the change is noticeable.

 

I had an issue once with my oiled filter being over oiled by me and clogging up my MAF (and killing my power). Since then I went with dry filters if I did aftermarket filters or intakes.

 

There's a reason why every performance race engine runs an extremely open, direct air intake. If it didn't matter, then performance tuners would just install narrow, tight, twisty and turny air intakes to accomplish other goals. But even as cars and engines have gotten smaller OEM airboxes and intakes have gotten larger and more direct.

Most new car drivers don't want to hear their intake (weirdos) and rarely, if ever, run at high RPMs, so the OEM system is designed to baffle a lot of that sound at the cost of maybe 5% performance at the higher rev range, where few drivers spend much time. Also, the OEM system will be far easier/cheaper to maintain than an air filter than needs to be cleaned a re-oiled regularly, but not over oiled as to clog the MAF. Replacing a $15 paper filter every year or so is much more appealing to the average owner who wants a vehichle that is cheap and easy to maintain.

But most of us are enthusiasts and enjoy driving and enjoy doing stuff with our vehicles, so for a lot of us, myself included, the benefit of a performance intake, while not massive, is a fun thing to play with, especially since we will see some minor, but not insignificant, performance gains for not a lot of cash outlay.

 

Y'all need to do research on these aftermarket filters.

Many AM filters designed for racing do allow less restriction, but there is a cost. The cost is particulate filtering efficiency. In a nutshell, these filters will allow a larger particle to pass and more of them will pass. You will see a decreasing filter efficiency as the particulate size shrinks.

So, you are permitting more airborne dirt to enter the engine. Not sure this is a good choice for longevity.

The K&N system is one of the best AM filters, but the filtration efficiency is not as good as a basic OEM filter. Sure, these types of filters are set up for racing, but race engines are typically torn down and rebuilt after each race. How often do you rebuild your engine?

 

There is also a secondary filter of some sort behind the replaceable one. I'm not sure how well that filters, but I'm sure it does something.

 

See, this is an extremly valid point! And one that I think, absolutely, needs to be considered. Even if just putting in a KN filter into an OEM airbox. If you are in dusty conditions, do a fair bit of offroading, in sand... etc.

I'm dubious that an oil/cotton filter is going to filter as much ultra fine particulates. I'm always impressed by how much dirt comes out of oiled filter, and it's alwasy squeakly clean behind the oiled filter, but I've alwasy wondered whats getting through that I'm not seeing.

 

The only time a cold air intake on these trucks makes gains of any sort is on a supercharged engine. That's just all there is to it.

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