What are your thoughts on the best air intake
 

I'm looking to do some upgrades to my 2000 T4R.
I'm looking into an air intake and exhaust. Any other advice.
I had a K&N on my last 4runner but was not completly happy. Short of a super charger what are some ideas?
Also I'm in Cali so I have to deal with smog.
Thanks for any input.

I would almost say stock. I know plenty of people do the KN then drop it or do the isr, etc. or airaid but it seems oem is consistently most efficient in terms of overall stats.

It's seems the consensus is stock air intake as you can't move anymore air than the throttle body allows without boost, the deck plate mod and K&N/airaid just make the intake louder from my experience, there is a report of some gains but I'm pretty skepticle. Same with exhaust, very little gains with a naturally aspirated engine, I think someone reported 10HP with headers and new pipe, but again your limited by the OEM cat as the aftermarket ones don't get along with our O2 sensors. And I would take either reports of HP gains with a grain of salt as you would need to do quite a few Dino runs to compare under the exact same conditions as your fuel trims try to adjust. I have the deck plate mod, had it opened for a week, put the plug back in for the past 5 years and never looked back, I actually lost MPG but I think it was because I enjoyed the throaty sound and spirited driving, but that got old quick. Add boost and that changes everything I said above and you would see lots of HP gains if you had fuel mods to support it.

Thanks. I think I will just do a good filter in the stock intake and look at some other options. I know I need gears and that will put some life into it as I have 33's and 4.10s with an auto. Thanks for the input.

What you can also do, that I don't see a lot of other people doing, is to remove the front piece of the air intake pipe in the fender. Don't know how much of a difference it will make, but it does reduce the diameter of the intake pipe by something like 30%. It is a bit of a pain in the ass, at the very least you'll have to remove the fender liner and maybe even the fender, for possibly minor/unnoticeable gains.

I am guessing the engineers took that 30% diameter into effect as it passes through the filter element.

I say it's a waste of time to even remove it and you just increased the ability for water to enter your airbox much easier. :(


Another option:

Supercharge if you really want performance gains as the engines need more fuel and more air to gain hp.

Playing with filters and performance chips isnt going to gain much of anything as and just waste $$. However, just my opinion on the subject. :)

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If N/A, stock. You won't get any noticeable gains. I do recommend an ISR to help clean up the engine bay though, I found that silencer annoying as hell and it looks much better without it.
Are you talking about an elbow removal? In which case it shouldn't require removing the fender whatsoever. Just the 4 bolts under the hood (or was it 2?)

Stock.

As you know, there isn't much to be done. The most common thing to do is get a free flowing muffler (there are many options) and let the EFI program a new fuel path. If you want to buy your rig a little $70 present that may or may not have any effect on combustion other than being good for a 1,000,000 miles, drop an oily K&N filter in the stock air box. Those 2 things added a full 3 mental horsepower to my experience (not backed by any scientific data). I just drove a couple hundred miles and the old girl can still hold her own slicing and dicing in freeway traffic. I like the way these relatively short wheelbase rigs handle, actually.

Edit - I forgot: Full-time ECT, of course.

No idea, don't think you need to remove the whole elbow. I just remember being surprised when putting my snorkel on that it necks down so much at the beginning of the intake tube.

Who here has a strong opinion on snorkels? I'm not real moved either way, but it's very low on my list of mods for my mainly urban DD.

Urban DD? Hard pass. They are to keep your air filter clean off road. You can fill up an air filter a day (or more) if the intake is low down in the dust. Secondary benefit is water crossings, but if the water is up to the middle of the fender, you have to take care of a lot of other things first...

-Charlie

Stream crossings are not an issue for sure. I've done the rear diff breather, but hope not to need it as i can't figure out the front anyway. I do off road every weekend I can, but I have a washable air filter. So yeah, Overkill unless Overland and I avoid the mall scene.

The front diff breather is already extended up to where the ADD VSV's are on the driver's inner fender. Trans and transfer case are at the level of the top of the transmission.

-Charlie

OH OK - nice to know - thanks