P5 Cold Air Intake: AEM or K&N?
 

Considering installing and AEM 22481R Short Ram intake or K&N 69-6020TR Cold Air Intake in a Protege5. Have any of you installed them? If so, how do you like it?

first off ill say welcome to the board. secind off....use the search button at the top of the page. there will be tons of info on this and will help you with your decision. there is all kinds of info if you need it....the search button is your freind....cant find something is the search post it up and people will be more than willing to help. so again...welcome to the board and we hope you stay awhile.



james

Thanks, James! I'll check it out!

another thing is....try to contact gary(kargoboy) on the board, not sure if he has them in stock or not. he sells simota cold air intakes...i feel youd much prefer the cold air intake over the short ram...everyones opinion is different. the intakes he has will be a hell of a lot cheaper than either of those also. i got in on the group buy for the CAI and got it for 75 shipped. id imagine it would run you more now but not 250 for the injen. its not a bad piece for the price. if you want i got some pics i could mail you if you wanted to take a look. gary was awesome to deal with had them delivered as soon as they arrived. i wanted to get in on his thunder header and cat-back group buy but was low on the funds.




james

Thanks for the plug, James!

I actually have one Simota CAI that at this writing is not spoken for...
I had to keep one aside for the raffle we did here, but a Mazda 3 owner won, so as of right now, it's available.
I've got two threads going in the vendor section, so check out what I've got and let me know if you're interested.
And welcome to the forum.
If the modding bug bites you, you'll be here for a while.

Kargoboy, Since I didn't win the intake in the raffle, if LJLaPierre doesn't want the P5 CAI, I'll buy it.

Mike

OK. I made the offer so I guess I'll give him till the end of the day. After that it's all yours.
Gary

Great, thanks Gary. If he does buy it, do you plan on having any more to sell later?

http://injen.com/ is another one to check out, if the deal on the Simota one falls through. The fact that they're CARB legal sold me on them, Here's a pic of mine. :)
http://www.msprotege.com/members/Nat...a%20header.jpg

That's definitely a nice looking intake, but the cost is right up there with AEM and K&N isn't it? At this point, I'm ready to buy an ebay intake and put a K&N filter on it. What's the diff? :dunno:

Nothing, that's the smartest thing you can do besides getting one of Gary's Simota CAIs. They're about half the price of Injen, and it all really comes down to the filter anyway. Simota comes with pretty good quality filters, but you can still add a K&N to it. Either way, AEM and K&N are a rip off ... either Simota or eBay are really worth the money in my opinion.

i have installed a K&N Tyhpoon and, AEM and an Injen. I can't speak for the other products but I will say the K&N highly impressed me with the way it fit and mounted versus the other two I saw. Its really the only intake I would have bought of the three for a variety of 'under the hood' reasons. It is very solid and clearances are superb, far better than the AEM or Injen IMHO

What clearance issues did you have with the Injen? Mine seemed to fit perfectly. :)

I have one little issue with the K&N set-up. The metal "knuckle", or 90 degree bent pipe on the K&N that attaches to the intake manifold kinda scares me because the brake master cylinder is mighty close to that area. The rubber boot on the Injen will never damage the M/C like the K&N piping possibly could. Be careful with the install and pay attention to the M/C!

...lol, don't listen to me, though. :D I wasn't even aware that AEM made a C.A.I. for a Protege.

K&N CAI ROCKS!
 

Guys,

Thanks for the feedback. I ended up with the K&N CAI and an AEM bypass valve. K&N rocks with its simple, step-by-step instructions and outstanding quality and engineering. I couldn't be happier with the decision.

Glad you are happy with your K&N. They do make quality stuff. And I agree about their step-by-step instructions. I downloaded them to use when I installed my much less expensive Simota intake. :)