I bought an intake off ebay last fall and ran it for a few months then swapped it back to stock for winter. I recently put it back on and my mileage has been down almost one MPG since. I also have a spot I've figured is about 1/4 mile and it's around 2 MPH slower with the intake. This is with the no name cone filter BTW, I was running a K&N in my stock airbox previously.

I did some looking around and found this article about air filters.
ISO 5011 Duramax Air Filter Test Report

Now I'm wondering if I should have any kind of high flow filter in my car at all.

What are your opinions about aftermarket intakes and high flow filters? I'm thinking it's pretty much pointless unless you're pushing some serious power and running full throttle all the time.

 

Was it a real cold air intake or the typical E-Bay hot air intakes? The factory intake on the 4th gens already sucks in cold air, the problem is that it has a lot of restrictions which tend to choke the engine up. At the end, it all boils down that you only get what you pay for.

 

The ebay crap is just well...crap. I invested in this SLP Performance 21033 - SLP Performance Cold Air Induction Packages - Overview - SummitRacing.com and it gave me some noticeable extra horses. Not a huge gain by any means, but it definitely smoothed her out and I could feel it right away jumping on the highway. You can actually HEAR the intake functioning (from outside the car). K&N is more or less just preference, I don't feel it's worth wasting money for one of those filters and all the cleaning you have to do with it. More flow means more dirt will get in. Run the SLP with a regular paper filter and you should feel the difference. I also deleted the bellows and have a lot of other modifications done. But the CAI was added before the engine mods. This is what my bay looks like (not updated pic) with the bellows delete and the hidden CAI (it gets installed under the air box) and no goofy chrome pipe sticking out anywhere for a cheap ebay CAI.



Granted, this is from my own personal experience modifying my own 3.8. I'm sure there will be someone out there to tell me I'm completely wrong and don't know anything as usual.

 

Here's the one I went with, it's definitely getting cold air since the filter is completely out of the engine compartment. You can definitely hear the intake working, even under moderate acceleration.
I knew the stock airbox was in a good place to begin with, but I wanted to get rid of that restrictive baffle after the filter box.

I had considered the SLP a while ago, but I thought this would have been a better place to pull air from.

I'm not sure how much you pay attention to mileage, but was there any difference with the SLP for you DR?

Thanks!

 

A true cold air intake will hurt your economy, not help it. More air means more fuel for proper combustion. If anyone says they get better fuel economy after installing one, it is change in driving habit.
Consider wrapping the pipe with something thermally insulating. Metal conducts heat. Also try isolating the filter completely from the engine compartment. And get a real filter. Most likely you have some spectre type garbage? Or worse, a k&n oil bath type? Get an oem style paper filter. Ford has a few good cone filters.
Darlingreject, that is some fine detail work under your hood. Do you have more pics of it?

 

the straight pipe cai like that do not perform as well as the stock intake. like dr says the best are slp for your year.

 

The problem with those intakes is that it points down and is a little too close to the ground for my liking. I know we get rain and I've gotten caught in some bad flooding, so if I had an intake like that, I'd be sucking up water through it and then have to deal with a whole different set of issues...

I honestly don't pay attention to mpgs. I calculate how efficient my car is by how many miles per tank I get. I can never get an accurate number either because there's always something wrong with her that affects my mileage. So eh, I get anywhere between 270-300 miles per full tank (so that's like 17-19 mpgs?). Depends where I'm going, what kind of driving I'm doing, and what is currently wrong with her. I do more 'city' driving, so I don't see a lot differences no matter what. It's been in that range since I got the car and is still like that even after fairly heavily modifying her. I think my tune will end up giving me my missing mpgs. But that has yet to get installed.

If you need any ideas on how to modify your car and get REAL power out of it, I'd be glad to offer what I've done to mine so far. I also have a build thread on here you can view. My fiance and I have done all the work.

That's the most recent pic of the engine bay unfortunately. Haven't had time to get her all nice and cleaned up for any photo shoots lately.

 

Cold air intake isn't cold air if it's warm/hot air next to the motor it's sucking in.
Plus k&n is the only air filter that I've seen a difference in power.

 

According to EPA, an Auto '02 3.8L Camaro should get City/Highway/Combined 17/28/21 MPG, $2642 Fuel cost/yr.

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/2008c...f.jsp?id=17415

Notice that these are the "new" numbers, which are lower than the original window stickers...

 

I get 30-31 MPG with my Ebay CAI. But I do admit I have never driven it with the stock one on it. I plan on upgrading the filter current one has 40K on it. I run about 75-80 MPH and drive 32 Miles each way to work. I fill up every Sunday with 10-10.5 gals.