Cold Air intakes

[DRRummel]

I hope to stir some intelligent discussion here… I have heard different ‘philosophies’ about cold air intakes. First of all I have seen a beautiful BMW 540 destroy it’s engine because the air intake was down by the air dam. He was in the city after a ball game. It had rained. As he left the ball park parking he went though a puddle (at about Mach 2). It was deeper then he expected and he sucked up some water. It made it into the engine and hydro locked the V8.
No low scoops for me.

So as I see it I have two / 2.5 options.

• Use a cold air intake that pulls air from inside the fender well
• Use a cold air intake that pulls air from the engine compartment. The ‘kit’ I have is just a cone filter that attached to the end of the Mass Air Meter.
• Take option two and build a sheet metal box to block off the hot air from the engine compartment and hopefully pull just the colder air though the radiator support and head light area.

Pros / Cons
Some people say that it better to pull the hot air from the engine compartment then to pull it from inside the fender skirt because the bend in the air flow cause ‘to much air flow disturbance’. Is this baloney? I would think the air flow issue would not out weight the hot air issue.
Your options?
All thing being equal I was sure I wanted a pull the air from the inside of the fender well. Once I got the parts, there was a new wrinkle to the story. The filter for the inside of the fender well is significantly small then the cone filter that goes in the engine compartment.
Okay. I quit. Someone tell me their experiences with both setups.

[Pure Stock]

yealoh95 would be the guy to talk to about what works and what will not.

[03 OW SVT]

In the fenderwell gets my vote.

[scott5]

i had both and the in fenderwell gets my vote.. Its not a cold air intake if its sucking in hot air from the engine under the hood?

[INSANELY CRAZY]

i've also had both and i liked the fenderwell kit better. as long as you have your inner fenderwells that will deflect most of the dirt/water...

[phillysrt4]

My cold air filter is right behind the headlight and I have a fabricated splash guard to keep water out. Ive had pretty major splash hit the guard and ive not had any problems. I think you could probably do the same on the mustang

[Troll]

Use a cold air intake that pulls air from the engine compartment. The ‘kit’ I have is just a cone filter that attached to the end of the Mass Air Meter.
Take option two and build a sheet metal box to block off the hot air from the engine compartment and hopefully pull just the colder air though the radiator support and head light area.

I was in the same boat. I didn't like the little filter that goes in the fenderwell, so I hacked off the 90* bend and ordered a 9" K&N and built a ghetto home-made heat shield from an old mud flap. I don't know if it made a difference or not. Can't really feel anything in the butt-meter, but it seems like the engine didn't have as hard of a time sucking air through the bigger filter. Seems to rev just a tad quicker than pulling it around that bend and through that smaller filter.
Enjoy:

[Ares]

I originally used the factory rubber tube and cut my air box up to expose the K&N drop in air filter. Setup worked good with my headlight scoop. I broke down and thought of coldair kits but how much better could they be over my modified stock setup. So I grabbed the K&N FIPK setup and it was night and day better at the track.

[u1arunit]

Having too many bends BEFORE the MAF can and usually does introduce some turbulence to the airflow. I can tune around it with the software that I use but personally I prefer not to deal with it at all.

Cold air makes more power WHEN the filter is large enough to supply the needed CFMs.

I run a S&B 10" filter down in the fender with the MAF sensor attached directly to it and then the rest of the way to the throttle body is the JLT plastic piping.

There is a JLT kit that puts a little larger filter down in the fender and relocates the MAF sensor just before the TB. This is a fix if you need more CFM than the 10" filter allows but once the MAF transfer curve gets all whacked out the tune goes to crap. BurnTire has been down this road and he can testify that it makes just another problem.

I can make the power levels in my sig on a 10" filter so I don't bother upgrading.

One last thing. I don't like the filter being mounted down really low on a daily driver that can possibly see high standing water for obvious reasons.

The CAI on my DD is an AEM (Acura TL) but it does not hang down nearly that low so it's safe for DD usage.