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K&N Intake - $400 noise-maker

9307 Views 58 Replies 23 Participants Last post by  My8688
Automotive fuel system Motor vehicle Automotive design Vehicle Automotive air manifold

I got bored waiting for my exhaust to ship from HKS, so I decided to do this so that you don’t have to. Install was fairly easy and looks clean enough if you take your time.

Sound: At full throttle, this thing by itself sounds angry, but it’ll still go unnoticed with normal driving. Car go “whomp”, and it’s admittedly pretty satisfying.

Mo’powa?: Probably not. I was only able to do pulls to 70mph because the highway has a S/L of 55. The car got there just as quick.

Why should I care?: I’m not your mother. Opinions are mixed on aftermarket intakes, and for good reason. 8 horses on a dyno might be possible, but it doesn’t necessarily translate to real-world performance. I’ll probably hack the intake up to supplement a forced-induction kit down the line because it would really make sense for that application. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy my whooshy noises at the cost of some top-end speed maybe that I don’t use anyway.
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Nice! It's a decent intake, but for $450 I wish they did a little more to seal it and didn't make users assemble the whole thing. Granted it's $399 now, but still...

It's far louder and more aggressive than stock for sure. It also improves throttle response very slightly when you first tap the pedal (thought this was placebo at first but after swapping between the two it's there just not a massive change).

Tips to improve it if interested (if not, disregard): I'd check the top seal as it may not contact the hood liner when closed. You can always put a light inside the box and a camera or your phone outside and close the hood and look for light leaks. There are also holes in the corners of the box, but you can seal these by buying some more of the heat shielding adhesive they provide (off Amazon) and do the rest of the box vs just the bottom (this helps drop temps of the sides too). Lastly, the seal around the pipe is loose and lets in a bit of hot air, but you can fix this by putting something inside the seal to cinch it down. One method is to spray silicone inside the cylindrical part of the seal and then run an industrial size ziptie through it to cinch it down on the pipe to fully seal.
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I think it's a valid concern. The K&N spacing does seem ideal, and they also installed a velocity stack that functions as a heatsink inside the pipe where the MAF is located. But they have been doing this forever and they have a large team of engineers working on this stuff too so not surprising imo.

I too am interested in the HKS option though.
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Pretty cool to actually have some data and back to back pulls to show it making the claimed 6-8hp.
That's a good point, but at least it doesn't lose any power (let alone gains) all the while sounding great. Definitely would be nice to see how a stock box with the charcoal filter removed would stand up to it though.
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The noise is the best part lol. It's so good.
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I wanted the same or similar wookie roar, but this engine has a smoother induction noise and it's just not on that level of loud lol. But it's still a huge improvement over stock and obviously far more apparent.

This is pretty much it, despite the video being a 1st gen:
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Good news is that it does actually make more power than the stock intake, at least with the charcoal filter (likely makes the same power as the stock intake in other regions). But either way, the most important part is that it does not lose power from heat soak on back to back runs :)

Stratified auto tested it:
It does yes.

It can be further improved like many things however. Sealing up the corners of the box, making the gasket fit more snug around the piping, and adding a bit more heat reflective tape specifically. But as said, it already matches the stock intake with the emissions filter removed so going above and beyond isn't gonna yield much more anyways.
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