Cold air intake explained/debated

[Footofgod]

So it is often suggested when people complain about the lack of power in the 3.0 3VZE that the noob add a cold air intake. BUT, the 3.0 intake system IS a cold air intake. It basically sucks air directly from the front grill right behind the driver's side headlight which shy of putting the intake outside the car is as cold as you can get. Putting a cone filter system inside the engine bay only draws warmer air from the engine and not cooler air from outside the car like the stock system does. To me, it seems that all the science behind cold air intakes points to the stock intake being a far better option than an aftermarket kit.

So to those who have added an aftermarket cold air system to a 2nd gen, has anyone seen any SIGNIFICANT increase in power?

Here's the science behind. The guy is a geek, but that tends to be where the best science comes from.

 

[Footofgod]

While this may look and sound cool, you can clearly see that the air going in to that filter will come from the warmer engine bay and not the cooler outside air.

 

[KidVermicious]

It shouldn't take much math to determine what volume of air a particular cone filter flows over a stock intake, and then adjust for the difference in air density between ambient temp and under-hood temp.

More math than I've got, but surely one of you bastards paid attention in class, right?

 

[dubs283]

adding cold air intakes to a stock engine will provide little if any increase in power or fuel economy. the only increase noted will be in the owners imagination and his/her debt

the reason these add-ons don't do anything is because of the stock efi map in the ecm, the map is a pre-set program the factory puts in the ecm to provide the best fuel economy/power/emissions based on engine speed, air temp, coolant temp, throttle poistion, load, air pressure, etc...there are so many variables the ecm is reading that adding more air doesn't do anything

the ecm will add or remove fuel by changing the fuel injector pulse width (how long the injectors are open) based on all these variables to provide the combustion chamber with a stoiciometric ratio (14.7:1) where 14.7 parts air are mixed with 1 part fuel

the ecm, unless you can change the program inside it, will always be changing fuel delivery to achieve this ratio. the only real way to jam more air into your engine for more horsepower is to supercharge it but i don't think our wheezy ol 3VZ-E engines would last long with a blower bolted onto it!!