aftermarket intake experience
 

recently installed the k&n short ram intake and i felt obligated to share how pleased i am with it. when i bought my 370 it had the injen cold air kit which looked alright as it was the black model, but i am a diehard k&n fan so i decided to replace it with the short ram kit. i paid a little over $300 shipped and installed everything in about an hour. although i believe that the injen kit claims a little more whp, the k&n kit feels more responsive, especially at low rpms. from the interior of the car the k&n kit sounds much different than the injen kit did, much deeper and more pronounced, but not over the top. this intake is likely more prone to heat soak having the filters located in the engine bay, but the heat shields and the actual location of the filters should drastically minimize this. i like the look under the hood much more with the filters in the engine bay than just the pipes going down the front end of the car. i know there are many stillen G3 fans out there, and i understand why, but for all things considered including price, gains, ease of install, and overall quality i think the k&n is a hard package to beat.

Nice write-up:tup: I'm pretty pleased with my K&N Typhoon too. I had great success with the K&N FIPK on my S2000 and decided to stay with K&N.

Does it affect the new car warranty????

No

You swapped out an Intake with decent gains to one that probably after about 1 hour of driving makes you lose HP?

Hey I'm just curious i know its the wrong place for this but hour you like the 20mm spacers on the Z?

I installed my K&N kit two weeks ago and I still can't believe how much of a difference it has made for the sound and my enjoyment of the car. The engine went from the standard "vacuum cleaner" sound that every one complains about to a very noticeable deep growl. At low speeds it adds just enough grunt, and at over 4k RPM's it roars.

Everything else is stock and honestly I'm happy enough that I will probably leave it that way for a while. Easily the best $300 I've ever spent.

I also put the K&N Typhoon kit on my Nismo. I have had it on there since it was new and I like it alot. Great throttle response, sound, and I have had very good torque gains with it aswell.

Actually, if you're running a CBE, the difference is only around 1 to 3 WHP.

Personally, I rarely drive the Z for an hour straight. That said, I doubt seriously it would take an hour of driving to heat soak the K&N. You're probably looking at more like 10 to 15 minutes at the most. Those heat shields really don't do a whole lot.

This car has two throttle bodies and only six cylinders so getting the air in is not that big of a deal. My tuner (also the tuner and car builder of the ceo of Zdayz) says its more about the exhaust than the intake. With the power he has got out of our cars ill trust him on that point. I have raced many 370's with other intakes and never have lost one due to my intake choice. The k&n set up is a good product and delievers a broader torque and hp range than most others. If your looking for peak hp numbers on a dyno than yes get a good longtube setup. If your looking for good torque and acceleration out of the corners then the K&N is hard to beat. Just my experience.

Sucking in extremely hot air is not as beneficial as sucking in much colder air. Maybe within the first couple of minutes of driving it's the same but that's it. The Z seems to get really hot under the hood.

What is "extremely hot air"? How much colder is the "much colder air" vs the "extremely hot air"? Has anyone actually measured the IAT of a long tube setup vs the K&N?

Drop in filters are probably on Par in terms of performance gains vs the K&N short ram. Some short rams have even shown to net zero gains on the dyno. It's not that its bad or poorly designed, its that the stock intake setup was designed well to begin with. The long tubes have been dyno proven to show results across the rpm range.

The K&N short ram has the intake pretty much open to the engine bay.
http://www.racingsolution.com/images...7078TS_Eng.jpg

The Gen 3's and other long tubes filter elements, are almost entirely shielded from the engine bay.
http://motoiq.smugmug.com/photos/574724617_AkAv6-M.jpg

If its 80 90 100 degrees out side can you imagine how hot it is under the hood? That's extremely hot! VS the temp of the air that is outside the engine bay.

Yes I can imagine. But imagining something and having actual facts to back up my claims are 2 different things. You may be right. But then again, how would we know?

Yes the engine bay is hot when you open the hood. But the car is standing still. When the car is moving there might be plenty of cool air getting to the air filters. Unless you actually measure the IAT (while the vehicle is moving) and can say with certainty that one design makes a difference over another, we are all just "guessing".