Looking for a good Air InTake system

[OzzHead]

Looking to buy an intake system. I have about 280$ What one would be the best for a 01 1500 4x4 5.3? Also when i buy an intake do i still need the stock airflow sensor...? Because i moded mine by taking out the filter and i heard that wasnt a very good idea so im hoping i wont need that still...? well if i do i should go ahead and buy the mass airflow sensor? before intake?

[OzzHead]

bump

[03silverado5.3]

I dont have one. I think I will get the volant or the king cobra vara ram.Lets see what the others say though.

[FoxTrot]

There are/were a bunch of threads on this but I don't think the search function is working yet with the new forums.

When I was looking into intakes I was primarily looking at Airaid with their MIT (modular intake tube or something) or the k&n FIPK.

I looked at volant and UPD but I figured the airaid and k&n would both perform about the same and both would out-perform or at least perform as well as the volant and UPD. My reasoning behind this was that they should be taking in more air since they are open intakes, however, the air is hotter since they aren't fully sealed off from the engine bay. So, since I figured they should be about the same, at worst, then I'd just use price as my main factor in determining which to buy.

The UPD and Volant are both closed systems. The UPD only replaces the filter box lid and intake tube. Personally, I have always been skeptical of just how much extra performance this could give since it doesnt replace the filter box or anything. Plus (unless it has changed) they were pretty expensive.

Volant replaces the filter box with a new closed one that uses a conicle filter and replaces the intake tube. There is also an option for ram air with the volant kit, I think it is ~ an extra $100 (you could always make the ramair yourself though). I was skepticle about the Volant intake because I heard some people complain about the fit of the filter box and the fact that you are just replacing the filter box with another box... albeit, it should flow more air and it does make use of a conicle filter.

Like I said, I figured the k&n FIPK or Airaid with MIT should bring in the most air, but that air should be a lot hotter than from a closed system.


Since I had my choice narrowed down to those two it came down to price, then a friend of mine was selling an unused gen II k&n fipk for $180 so I bought it from him.

I noticed a decent increase in performance right off the bat. The FIPK does increase the noise coming from under the hood but not too much and it's not annoying or untollerable by any means.

I don't know much at all about the King Cobra but they make some very big performance gain claims. Whether or not they actually make that much hp or even close to that is unknown to me. If they do then that's awesome.

If I were to do it over again I would probably modify my airbox and just buy the MIT from airaid and use a k&n air filter in the modified stock airbox. I'd do what others have done too and modify it for ram air.

Anyways, whatever intake you go with (aside from the king cobra which I haven't had any experience with or heard anything about) I think it would be reasonable to say that they all probably offer similar performance gains. There have to be differences in performance but they probably aren't too great.

[ocwave]

FoxTrot, nice write up!

volant

or

the new vararam king cobra (good 40 oz too) :cheer:

[VintageRR]

Any of those systems you see on eBay worth the money?