[luminus]

Well, I finally finished my cold air intake. Here are pics:

Completely installed:

The TIG welds:

Warm air setup:

Painted sections:

Installed and painted:

I bought the mandrel bent 6061 aluminum from http://www.burnsstainless.com, the black silicon hose connectors from http://www.innovativeturbo.com and http://www.matrixengineering.cc/, and the two maf adapters from a local list member.

The inner tube is 2.5", and the outer is 3". All in all, it was around $200 to make, but its just as nice as the aem or place racing ones (and I did it myself . On the other end is my JWT intake and velocity stack. Noticable improvement in mid range torque, and it sounds wonderful! I found a local welder that attached the 5/8" and 1/2" connectors on the inner tube piece. He did a great job.

Aaron

 

[nitestridar]

WOW nice job man... i was thinging of doing it but then said forget it...

but yours came out really good...
when you gonna dyno that thing?

 

[luminus]

I'm probably going to dyno it this winter sometime, as soon as all my friends and I get together to do it. Last time I did it was stock, now I've got the usual cai intake, headers, exhaust, timing.

Aaron

 

[nitestridar]

cool....good luck and please post the results...

 

[Sr20kidD]

nice job man, i will show pics of mine when its done,

im using a pri 3" for the A arm (TB to MAF) and a 2.5 custom piping for B arm MAF to filter, I havent drilled the hole yet until tomorrow. uh, then it will be dynoed. i also got a 2.5 from tb to MAF from shigspeed, i will put that on for the second dyno run and find out which is better.

 

[nitestridar]

i think its great when you can make something yourself....
keep up the good wok fellas...

 

[toolapcfan]

Those are some nice welds! Smart man going with the aluminum. I always said I'd never buy a prefabbed CAI, but it's a lot of work and if you do it right, it costs you as much as a prefabbed. Nice job man, first rate! By the way, what kind of crazy ass battery is that?! Is that out of a civic? What's the CCA/CA of that thing and where'd you get it? How much? By the way, you might want to fab up a bracket for your throttle cable to keep it from moving, you loose throttle response with it like that. That's something I dug about my truck, no throttle cable, all levers and rods up to the carb.

 

[nitestridar]

yeah what are the dims on that battery?

 

[luminus]

Its an odyssey pc680: http://www.odysseyfactory.com

Heard of dynobat? Well the dynobat is a rebadged lesser odyssey battery for more $.

Here is the spec table:
http://www.odysseyfactory.com/specs.htm

I've had no problems with it so far, we'll see how this pacific northwest winter goes. Certainly easier to put a lightweight (15 lbs) battery rather than relocate one to the trunk.

You can pick them up online (just do a search) or find them locally through a distributor.

Aaron

 

[Guest]

Impressive, nice job man. If I knew what the hell I was doing I would do one also. AEM's just cost too damn much!

 

[toolapcfan]

Hey Aaron, did you prep the aluminum with any type of aluminum paint prep before you painted it? If not, let me know how the paint holds up. Paint doesn't adhere to aluminum very well without being prepped typically, so I'm curious. Thanks.

-Rob

 

[luminus]

Hey Aaron, did you prep the aluminum with any type of aluminum paint prep before you painted it? If not, let me know how the paint holds up. Paint doesn't adhere to aluminum very well without being prepped typically, so I'm curious. Thanks.

-Rob

All I did was run a wirebrush over the entire surface to remove the coating on it (anodized?) then painted it. I'll let ya know how it hold up...

ak

 

[SentraDragon]

How easy was it to cut the hole in the wheel well? Where did the filter end up, in the bumper or in the wheel compartment? Sorry, I'm extremely CAI retarded.

 

[luminus]

How easy was it to cut the hole in the wheel well? Where did the filter end up, in the bumper or in the wheel compartment? Sorry, I'm extremely CAI retarded.

It ended up more towards the bumper cover. I have a 93-94 cover (the big one) and you can see it through the whole in the front. I'm not sure where the aftermarket ones end up.

Cutting the hole was kind of time consuming, but it wasn't that bad. I used a reciprocating saw then a dremel to clean it up. Part of the reason its a bit difficult is because there is another piece of metal attached underneath that part thats thicker - it needs to be cut through as well.

It'll probably be time to take it off pretty soon, I don't want to run it in the rain. Not because of hydrolock concerns (although thats part of it), but mostly because rain would directly soak the filter through the bumper.

Aaron

 

[97 Black SER]

Looks good man.

 

[97PocketRocket]

I don't want to run it in the rain. Not because of hydrolock concerns (although thats part of it), but mostly because rain would directly soak the filter through the bumper.

I know this feeling very well...I was concerned for some time about driving mine in the rain after installing the stillen cai (which ends up about where you said yours does) so I ended up getting really creative, and almost destructive (gonna have to buy a new filter but hey, it's all in the name of research) to find a solution to eliminating direct contact from rain or water splashed up from other cars through the driving light hole. You'll all probably get a good laugh out of this, but I stopped by a local Wal Mart and picked up a bottle of super glue, .99 plastic cover notebook and a light weight painters bucket that was about 1 1/2 inches larger in diameter than the filter and managed to fit it over the filter as a cover, then drilled a small hole about the size of a pencil in the bottom corner of it so any water that did get in could leak out to prevent it from getting full (obviously). Thanks to Hurricane Lily the southeast has gotten quite a bit of rain lately and I've had lots of opportunities to test it out. So far the filter has remained bone dry from the looks of the oil on the filter so it appears to be working quite well after a few weeks of driving. It also added a bit of interesting resonance to the intake, it has a more gruff sound to it and not quite as raspy as before.

*edit*

Forgot to say, that's really clean and very nicely done for a custom made cai

 

[Mr SEntra]

Wow, looks really good!! Nice job, and it's awesome that you took the time and effort to make one yourself.

 

[psshhgoesmysr20]

All I did was run a wirebrush over the entire surface to remove the coating on it (anodized?) then painted it. I'll let ya know how it hold up...

ak

Was that a brand new wire brush? If not, and if you used it on any carbon steel, metal slivers can attatch themselves into the aluminum, and cause a rust problem. Just a heads up.

 

[luminus]

Was that a brand new wire brush? If not, and if you used it on any carbon steel, metal slivers can attatch themselves into the aluminum, and cause a rust problem. Just a heads up.

It was a brand new wire brush, well, it was one you hook up to a drill.

But, I did not know about that. Thanks for the tip!

Aaron

 

[Overlooked]

Should have gone with a real Cold Air Intake