buying cold air intake. opinions?

[steven11]

hey all, im fairly new to the forum but would like your guys' intake on buying a intake, hehe.

ill be buying it here in a week or so, im looking to go with the steeda, http://www.steedafocus.com/parts/201...ir-intake.html

anyone have one of these? and if you have a diff one, why did you go with it?

thanks for the feedback.

[Sponsor]

[darkangelism]

The steeda is great, I have the short ram, but the cai is even better.

[RedComet]

Steeda's products are highly respected both here and on other Focus communities, same with FSWERKS. Use the search function and look around and you'll find a lot of info.

[matmatician]

Here's mine, custom powder coated and installed, I love it!

[Joey D]

The Steeda intake looks way more professionally done than the FSWerks one, plus Steeda is well known in the Ford tuning community. I have one on my car and it's fantastic, work the engine up a bit too. Just be prepared for the car to be quite a bit louder than stock.

[RedComet]

Originally Posted by Joey D

The Steeda intake looks way more professionally done than the FSWerks one, plus Steeda is well known in the Ford tuning community. I have one on my car and it's fantastic, work the engine up a bit too. Just be prepared for the car to be quite a bit louder than stock.

What's your reasoning behind that? Just curious, since FocusSport/FSWERKS has been providing tuning bits for the Focus for years and is one of the few companies to work mostly for our cars.

[Joey D]

Originally Posted by RedComet

What's your reasoning behind that? Just curious, since FocusSport/FSWERKS has been providing tuning bits for the Focus for years and is one of the few companies to work mostly for our cars.

The FSWerk intake looks like it was cobbled together in someone's garage, whereas the Steeda intake looks like it was actually done by a tuning company. Obviously the price shows and in the end you probably get very similar gains so you'll more than likely be OK with either product, I just prefer the one that looks more professional, even though I'm paying more for it.

Also the FSWerk's guys never bothered to answer any of the questions I contacted them with, whereas Steeda got back to me within minutes and even hooked me up with a deal. When a company won't attempt to sell me their product I get a pretty poor perception of them too.

Also, personally, I like Steeda more. I think they are more involved in the Ford community and make quality products. I have friends with Mustangs that swear by everything Steeda and after the thousands and thousands they've spent on things without ever having a problem, I see no reason to trust my Focus to them.

[suss6052]

Originally Posted by RedComet

What's your reasoning behind that? Just curious, since FocusSport/FSWERKS has been providing tuning bits for the Focus for years and is one of the few companies to work mostly for our cars.

From what I've seen the FSworks intake very few people actually have this intake, it doesn't have as much performance data behind it, and the Steeda uses the factory cold air ducting, and especially with the cold air intake sealing to the factory hood insulator and therefore is sealed off better than the other aftermarket cold air induction systems, although technically the factory set up isn't that different, especially with the drop in element and possibly removing the snorkel. So why spend $300 when a ~$50 dollar filter and the $0 cost snorkel delete will give very nearly the same gains?

[hotleadsingerguy]

Just for reference...none of the linked intakes are "Cold Air Intakes". Not sure why people have it in their mind to call them this, but it's starting to become more a general term for "intake" rather than what it actually means.

The performance gains of changing an intake without actually putting in a cold air intake are minimal. You might feel it is different (and it'll sound different), but the gains are minimal, at best. You might gain 15bhp in the winter, but in the summer you very well might be losing 10+bhp on the warm days. That's the difference between changing an intake to something like this and actually installing a cold air intake -- the CAI won't ever *lose* hp.

[TboneZX3]

Originally Posted by hotleadsingerguy

The performance gains of changing an intake without actually putting in a cold air intake are minimal. You might feel it is different (and it'll sound different), but the gains are minimal, at best. You might gain 15bhp in the winter, but in the summer you very well might be losing 10+bhp on the warm days. That's the difference between changing an intake to something like this and actually installing a cold air intake -- the CAI won't ever *lose* hp.

The only time heat would be a factor for intakes that have decent heat shields is heat-soak from being stopped at idle for an extended period. I have intake temp data for my car (with K&N Typhoon) that shows that it takes several minutes at a full stop to reach intake temperatures above that of the stock intake at temps up to 95 degrees ambient. The negative effect of heat soak is negated quickly as the vehicle is back in motion--even at slow speeds. Heat soak from idling is the only situation where a well-shielded (non-CAI) intake would *lose* hp. Or at least, that is the case for the K&N--I can't speak for the Steeda. I would imagine that the Steeda intake would fair just as well, as it utilizes the stock cool air ducts in a similar manner to the K&N.