Home Made Cold Air Intake DIY

Materials needed:
2 – 18” long pieces of 2½” inner diameter exhaust flex tubing
2 – U-bolts with nuts (should come with exhaust flex tubing)
1 – 2½” outer diameter to 2½” outer diameter exhaust adapter
1 – Cone air filter
1 – 2½ inner diameter to 2½ inner diameter Rubber grommet
1 – Breather filter (preferably with a male end but if you can’t find one you’ll need a male to male adapter)
3 – 2” to 3” hose clamps

Instructions:
1. Remove all stock intake components
- snorkel located between driver’s headlamp and battery
- silencer box located underneath battery
- intake transport tube #1 (2 pieces) comes up from silencer box to filter box
- filter box
- intake transport tube #2 goes from filter box to throttle body
2. Insert Exhaust Adapter into one end of both pieces of flex tubing to create one long piece of flex tubing.
3. Secure with U-bolts.
4. Insert one end of the now 36” flex tubing into the rubber grommet (note: it will be a very tight fit, I intentionally noted a smaller size than needed to ensure a good seal.)
5. Secure with hose clamp
6. Insert the end without the rubber grommet into the hole that you removed intake transport tube #1 from
7. Attach rubber grommet to throttle body
8. Attach cone air filter to bottom end of flex tubing (should hang behind drivers fog light)
9. Secure with hose clamp
10. Attach breather filter to valve breather line (the "vacuum line" that went from your engine to your stock intake tube) using male to male adapter if needed. (you may want to secure this with a hose clamp but because the line is not pressurized it really isn't needed)
11. Enjoy your improved HP, Torque, Throttle response and awesome sound!

Please note that due to the location of the air filter you run the risk of causing severe damage to (i.e. hydro-locking) your engine in wet weather. This is why I use 2 pieces of flex tubing instead of just buying one long one. In the event of rain I recommend that you disconnect the exhaust adapter from the piece of flex tubing closest to your throttle body and attach your air filter in it’s place. I have a second air filter that stays in my trunk just for this reason. YOU CAN BLOW UP YOUR MOTOR IF YOU DO NOT DO THIS!

Also, if you’d like you can also wrap your new intake tube with exhaust heat wrap to shield it from engine heat but I do not recommend this as it is unneeded, messy and an overall pain in the ***.

have you done this yourself? if so, pics?

Decent DIY for the extremely budget-minded guy, Adam.....ghetto DIY, but decent...

-BRR

the exhaust flex tubing, if it's the one i'm thinking of, is ribbed on both the outside and inside. I would imagine that this would create turbulent airflow through the intake. This isn't always bad, but in the case of the intake tube itself i don't think you would get much more than sound out of it.

Ok, I know this DIY is "ghetto" but when you're looking at spending over $3000.00 on building your motor and turbo charging why in the hell are you going to spend $230+ on an intake that isn't going to work with the turbo set up. As for it not giving me anything more than sound... I've gained 1/2 second in the 1/4 by doing this.... the ribbing isn't nearly as big a deal as you might think. As soon as I get my digital camera in I'll take pics and show you what it looks like when completed. I'll be the first to admit, it's not the prettiest thing in the world, but it IS very efficient. Both for HP and for $$$.... The only reason I even posted this here is because I've had about 20 people email me off of this forum and a few of the others I go to asking me how I made my CAI.

save $5 bucks or so using the DIY and you don't have to wait.... main reason I made my own wasn't the price though... it was the simple fact that it gets pretty friggin rainy out here in So.Cal and you generally can't relocate the filter in a system that you buy to convert it to short ram during bad weather... That and I'm impatient.

Looks good, but what did you do with the sensor that was in the stk intake?

That car is a 4 cyl. they dont have a sensor there. They have a MAP not a MAF, and the MAP isnt located in the intake line.(I think thats right)

Last time I used exhaust tubing, I was making a custom CAI for a 3.8l Ford Taurus. What a disaster. It ran worse, and after a bit of driving, the tubing got so damn hot it was heating up the air, and making it run even ****tier!

by the way, the i4 does have a MAF. some have the MAF and some have the MAP