Cold Air Intake Opinions

[usamuscle892]

Like some of you may know my car is currently in the bod shop for paint so I cant touch the engine til they are through. I know plenty of yall are running your LT1, LS1, 350, and 305 (what I have) engines with some type of cold air kit. It's a no brainer that these V8's are robbed of horsepower because they are simply not cooled well enough. Which makes a cold air kit a first mod for many peolpe to perform, spmething I havent done........yet. Which brings me to my question. What is the best cold air intake on the market for my 92 305 TPI? Im not neccesarily looking for crazy horsepower gains, just a awesome intake that will cool my engine and perform well. I know Im gonna get alot of opinions on this but any help is HELP!

[Disifer]

Build your own. It's not that hard and the most expensive part will be the filter. 3 inch pipe connectors from Lowe's and either 3 inch exhaust pipe or pvc works wonders. I just got pvc cause it's cheap. If you want to get real fancy you can build your own airbox to isolate it from the engine bay but with the way the stock airbox was setup (on my TPI at least) anything is an improvement. I just need to borrow a sawzall to finish the project. I'm gonna put the filter through the battery tray right inside the gfx. The gfx should protect it from any water unless I decide to take the TA swimming.

[CocaColaEatsPie]

I cold air intake is going to do very little if anything to "cool" the engine off. The reason everyone want's a cold air intake is because cold air is more dense. More dense air means more air/fuel in the engine which means more power. If you are looking to cool your engine down wire yourself a fan bypass switch and get a low temp thermostat. Don't get me wrong a cold air intake is definitely a very good mod and will give you cheap horsepower, but it won't cool the engine down, it will actually raise the temperature of the engine because it will burn more fuel.

[thenuge876]

When I was looking to put on a CAI I found that pretty much the only one out there for the 82-92 was one from SLP but at several hundred dollars it was very costly. I found articles online that explained how to build your own, so I went with that. Cost me like 70 bucks or something I don't really remember, mine is located where the original filter and box were. Here's the linkCAI-Homemade

I would use the exhaust piping from autozone or wherever rather than the PVC, It looks better and is much more durable than the plastic. Just be careful not to pinch the breather hose from the radiator to the coolant tank (if its on that side).