Cold Air Intake Problems – Is it Bad to Install a Cold Air Intake?

Hi Guys! I’m Andy and today I’m going to tell you why you shouldn’t have cold air intake in your car. I’ve noticed that a lot of people think they could put a cold air intake on the car to get more horsepower and more acceleration, they remove the factory airbox and filter and replace it with one of these cold air intake systems.

They claim they add more horsepower but listen to me, yeah, they work on racing cars. But racing cars are adjusted to the test bench, so everything is set up as the vehicle is set up, and before each race, it is even reset so that it runs perfectly.

Cold air intake problems

Your normal car, on the other hand, was developed by engineers. The airflow that flows through the normal airbox has been carefully designed to work with the mass airflow meter to keep your car running as well as possible.

So if you bypass this system, take out the plastic airbox and put in one of those cold airflow systems, the check engine light will often come on, and that’s because changing your airflow this way often pollutes the car more than it should, your check engine light will turn on, cannot get your car inspected, and over time it will actually perform worse.

Over the years I’ve had people, a lot of them were young, they put these cold air intake systems on, then they bring the car over to me and they say my car isn’t going right or has the right acceleration, and a lot of it can be done with just a simple Track tightening.

It changes how your car draws air which then confuses the computer which thinks you have the factory airbox in it and you are getting a certain type of flow, now you are getting a different flow, different air temperatures, this will confuse the computer in your car.

How to solve the problem

Well, really good professional mechanics, they can reprogram your computer to accept this, but they need a dynamometer, a five gas analyzer, and they need to know how to reprogram computers.

It can be done, but you can’t just screw these things down and think it’s going to work right, and if you can find a man who can do all of this work, it won’t come cheap. Second, if it’s a newer car it will void any warranties you have on that car.

Now I’ve personally tested some of these Best Cold Air Intake for Jeep on a dynamometer that a friend of mine has, and we actually found out once that it was actually a little less performing. Another time it was a bit more powerful, but it doesn’t make much of a difference on a stock car.

What I often find is that the guys put them on because they look cool, they’re colored and have chrome and everything and are less restrictive and more open, they make more noise and the guys like to have a lot of noise in their car at times.

And in the same way, the guys put on full-flow mufflers and they make a lot of noise and they like the noise they make but that actually also makes them worse because it changes the exhaust pressure which makes people confused about computers.

Well, the idea of ​​cold air intake is actually a correct idea because engines run better with cold air, but often when they put these cold air intakes in, they actually suck in hotter air that is already under the engine. Where the old factory system is, its air intake down here sucks in cold air that blows in front of the car. There is actually more cold air and then this cold air intake system does.

Conclusion

You need to understand that manufacturers’ engineers are under a lot of pressure to get the best gasoline economy, the least pollution, and the maximum power they can get from an engine. You spent a lot of time designing that stuff and you just take your stuff out and screw something on, not that smart an idea in most cases. So if you want my advice, forget about those cold air intakes, leave your factory airbox on, you’ll be happier in the long run unless you like a loud car that looks cool.