The Breath of Life

My consumption problem (7KM/L) was just bugging me. Ever since the swap, there are times that I don't necessarily enjoy the power because I was trying to conserve gas.

Anyway, I thought I should actively do something about this problem. First thing that I thought to upgrade was the airflow system for the following reasons:

1. A constricted air flow (whether intake or exhaust) robs the engine of power.
2. The less power you feel, the more you step on the accelerator pedal.
3. The deeper the pedal, more gasoline would be fed into the cylinders = increased gas consumption.

Since the engine didn't come with any air filter box, the urgent thing to install is an air filter.

There are 2 popular configurations of after market tubular filters:

1. CAI or the Cold Air Intake - pipe is longer and the filter itself is located outside the engine bay because the colder the air, the denser it is (the warmer the air, the lighter it becomes -- that's why hot air makes hot air balloons float); hence, more air is pushed into the cylinder per cycle. This is more preferred to get more power, but this comes with a price. This will cost around P6K to P10K depending on the brand. You can also build this yourself if you have the necessary tools to bend the air pipes.

Here's how it looks like installed on a D16 VTEC SOHC Engine:

2. SRI or the Short Ram Intake - pipe is shorter than CAI and the filter is inside the engine bay. Air that goes through this system is hotter than CAI, but not as restrictive as the stock air box. Using this is also safe against "hydro lock", which is a term used when CAI is blocked by water from floods which can actually damage the engine.

SRI looks like this on a D16 SOHC VTEC Engine:

This is after all a budget build so I think I can live with SRI.

After reading some forums (HCP, GT, and MLPH), I tried looking for a particular kind of tube. This tube is a fat type that some say is really effective in accelerating air that goes in the manifold.

The tube looks like this:

I saw a Simota branded plastic tube with filter in Concorde but hell, it was really expensive at P3.5K. Knowing that I might find a better deal some place, I scoured Banawe for this kind but failed.

Since I badly need one already, I settled for a normal 3" aluminum intake tube and filter by Simota which only cost me P1.4K in C3 Audio. Not bad.

Do you think it is a good idea to buy the fat tube? Hit the comments and let me know what you think!