Decision: which is better? Short ram, or Cold air intake?

J

J dragon

Banned
:
04 Mazda 6i
I heard two sides to both stories...a short Ram I heard circulates hot air under your hood..which is better than the airbox, because more air flows in, but I heard in the long run you could lose what you gain.

The Cold air intake I heard that sucks up water from puddles on the ground and Mud, and debris in the engine which causes negative effects....what do you guys think?..I need more opinions (bluemp3)
 
ill bet my paycheck, which is about 1900 after taxes every two weeks, that you wont notice one inkling of difference.
 
Matthew said:
ill bet my paycheck, which is about 1900 after taxes every two weeks, that you wont notice one inkling of difference.
Click to expand...

i'll bet your paycheck on that too. ;)
 
"A short ram intake (SRI) will have the air intake inside the engine compartment. It's usually in the form of a cone filter. These are the cheapest and easiest to install and horsepower gains are almost guaranteed but vary from make to make. The biggest disadvantage is heat soak. This will usually only occur when the car is at rest, however. If you are at a light or just idling somewhere the air in the engine bay heats up and so does the SRI. Once the car starts moving most of the heat soak will dissappear.

A cold air intake (CAI) is different because it is routed to a location away from the immediate vacinity of the hot area of the engine bay. The pipe is longer and more complicated. This makes it more expensive and can be harder to install than the SRI. A huge danger is if the CAI filter is placed near the underside of the car where water can enter. This create the problem of hydrolock and the possibility of water in the engine....not good. The obvious advantage is that it doesn't suffer from heat soak as much as the SRI. The filter will be placed in an area to accept Cold Air only but the piping can still get hot closer to the engine. Some CAI's will not result in a horsepower increase simply because they are not engineered properly. Air passes through the pipe at a certain speed and this speed can have a negative affect on the air speed/pressure that is ideal for the engine. Harmonics and longintudinal waves can also help decrease power if not engineered properly as well as turns in the piping."-Ace from Automotive week forum


Thank you Ace from Another forum who essentially broke it down....question, when having a Short Ram, and getting the heat soak how much hp do you essentially lose when under that condition?..I have read in some cases that the car would sometimes refuse to move...if that is true..that's horrible
 
yeah well that's that someone told me....I'm a newbie when it comes to this stuff so excuse me if it's an annoying question. It's good to ask questions when you are in doubt, or yes and that was a mistype...hotair under the hood is not better than a stock manufacturer Airbox...I mean't either intake option is better than an Airbox.

No need to be an ass about it
 
It also depends on where you live and how you drive. Personnally I have to get through the occasional deep puddle at speed so I'll be going with a short ram. I also am less concerned with ultimate hp, not that either intake gives you much. On the other hand I've heard that a CAI is a bit quieter.

You may want to check this link
http://www.msprotege.com/forum/showthread.php?t=100489
as it had a good article on airflow through the radiator and intercooler, and the effects of hood vents. I never thought about it much, but if there isn't enough air exit points up or downward in the engine bay to create a low pressure zone, then no air will be passing through the cooling system.
 
Last edited:
J dragon said:
yeah well that's that someone told me....I'm a newbie when it comes to this stuff so excuse me if it's an annoying question. It's good to ask questions when you are in doubt, or yes and that was a mistype...hotair under the hood is not better than a stock manufacturer Airbox...I mean't either intake option is better than an Airbox.

No need to be an ass about it
Click to expand...

The stock airbox does add some restriction, and changing to a shorty or a CAI will move your torque a little farther up the rpm range. That's part of the reason I still have stock air; I need the torque lower for my auto tranny, around town traffic, and autox.
 
Thanks SciFi I appreciate that, very helpful article as well...I live in Maryland, and we been gettin alot of snow, and Rain here so it does get alittle messy. I think i might have to go Short Ram also..besides I fear the effects of that mud and crap on the ground flowing into the engine ...
 
the thing is that there is no true 'answer' to the question. that and its been debated approximately 100 times on this board alone (that's why I think you were getting some of the less-than-cordial responses...).

Short ram is loud, crazy loud (but being able to hear it still sucking in air for a second after you shut down is kinda cool :D ). my intake was louder than my exhaust and made people think there was a lot more under the hood than just an FS-DE with an intake and axleback... most of the fastest cars in the world use short ram because they just need the air... NOW! the temp doesn't mean s*** to them because they just need something to combust the gallon of fuel on each piston

cold air is great from a physics standpoint and from a show/looks standpoint. as to whether they make more power on such a small, untuned motor is an argument in futility. they are quieter (in general) and that has appeal for many people. I wouldn't worry too much about hydrolock simply because the motor won't tend to generate enough suction to pull that much water (unless you're fording a river or playing "dodge the highground" in a monsoon) to creat a problem.

this is all debatable and tends to be negligable at best but basically I would decide if you want cheaper, more sound, no chance of hydrolock (SRI) or show factor, quieter, more expensive, ultralow chance of hydrolock (CAI)... imo
 
I read somewhere that a CAI will work with a turbo better because you won't get as much heat built up under the hood. Since the air will be a bit cooler it won't have to be cooled through the intercooler as much......or something along the lines of that.

After reading that article from Ace, I pretty much made my mind up on an SRI, since I live near Vancouver and we get quite a bit of rain. Plus it's my daily driver, so when we get the rare snowfall, it'll probably see a drive or two in it, even though I'd rather not. I had my eyes on something like a SRI from AEM.

aem-22-480.jpg
 
All Results are +/- .5hp and +/- .10 seconds
Do not compare these results to the Cold Air Intake Results

says that as a disclaimer, makes me wonder if the conditions were the same

I had a SRI on my civic and just like everyone else is saying it was loud as heck, but really cool made a great conversation starter. I'm going to try and go CAI this time around if I dislike it, I'll just cut it and make it a SRI no big deal.
 
ZeroAccess said:
All Results are +/- .5hp and +/- .10 seconds
Do not compare these results to the Cold Air Intake Results

says that as a disclaimer, makes me wonder if the conditions were the same

I had a SRI on my civic and just like everyone else is saying it was loud as heck, but really cool made a great conversation starter. I'm going to try and go CAI this time around if I dislike it, I'll just cut it and make it a SRI no big deal.
Click to expand...

The reason they say not to compare results, is because there was serious heatsoak with the SRIs on the dyno in back to back runs.
The Results (Unpublished)
Published results never tell the whole story. During the test, we found some very interesting trends. All of the short-ram type intakes suffered dramatically from heat soak when we ran the dynos back to back. What does this mean? In the real world of stoplight-to-stoplight confrontations, performance on cars equipped with a short ram intake may begin to drop off as underhood temperatures rise. With the cold air systems, the horsepower results were much closer (within a half of horsepower instead of one to three horsepower.)
Click to expand...


The Weapon R SRI makes a peak of 10whp more than stock. The Comptech CAI made 8.9whp more than stock. Although the powerband and overall gains for the Weapon R and much greater. If the SRIs lost 1-3hp from heatsoak, and the CAIs lost 1/2hp, the best CAI is marginally better than the best SRI in conditions post-idle conditions. But any condition where the car is allowed to sit and cool off for a small period(between drag runs and at AutoX), or constant conditions such as road race and SoloI, the SRI is better. There are just so many ways SRI are better.....
 
ZeroAccess said:
All Results are +/- .5hp and +/- .10 seconds
Do not compare these results to the Cold Air Intake Results

says that as a disclaimer, makes me wonder if the conditions were the same

I had a SRI on my civic and just like everyone else is saying it was loud as heck, but really cool made a great conversation starter. I'm going to try and go CAI this time around if I dislike it, I'll just cut it and make it a SRI no big deal.
Click to expand...
Hey Glen you might not even need to cut it, some CAIs you can just put the filter on the maf, dirtysouth_msp did that with his injen, all he had to do was drill a little bung hole for the sensor that is between the filter and maf (i dont know its name), pretty easy and he didnt really notice a difference from cai to sri, just a little louder, he was just tired of the hassle of getting to the filter to clean it all the time, thats why he converted his.
 
Personally, I like not having all the debris that flies through the engine bay cloggin up my filter. I've used SRIs and I love my CAI, regardless of the performance either could add.

Don't every spend money on a short ram, because they're incredibly easy to build yourself.
 
When I had my SRI, it was no louder than my stock intake. My Injen CAI, however, is a little louder, especially at the higher RPM's. And when I turn off the car, it makes a cool little hissing sound. lol Whenever my car got up to temp, and I was in traffic(with the SRI), the engine would refuse to rev quickly. It would enter what I call Pig Mode. The car turns into a pig and refuses to move quickly. With the CAI however, this has never happend. Just my experience. Oh, and I drive in the rain all the time, and it hasn't been an issue. Just don't go forging any small street rivers. :D
 
i had both, and drove to dallas on several occasions. i dont give a s*** what that dyno says, there was not a noticable difference between the two, before, during, and after heatsoak. assuming the difference is true, 1hp will not be noticable unless your mind thinks it is.
 
it also depends on what sri you have. some of em are poorly designed and take in hot air from the radiator, others like the AEM do not.
 
Matthew said:
i had both, and drove to dallas on several occasions. i dont give a s*** what that dyno says, there was not a noticable difference between the two, before, during, and after heatsoak. assuming the difference is true, 1hp will not be noticable unless your mind thinks it is.
Click to expand...

The two you had were obviously very similar in performance. It takes minimum 5whp for you to feel it, but even a 1hp gain will net you hundredths in the 1/4 mile or at an AutoX. But the difference between a good SRI and a bad CAI will be quite significant.
 
Please log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

T
Need help installing Cold Air intake on 2002 2.0 ES
Replies
5
Views
2K
TheSwapnessMonster
T
D
2023 Mazda CX-50 Turbo - Short Ram Intake (SRI)
Replies
3
Views
5K
acidbug
acidbug
M
Looking for CAD models of Mazda ZM-DE parts/measurements
Replies
7
Views
2K
ProteJester
P

Latest posts

Back