Off brand cold air intake (Pros and Cons)
 

Hey guys,
This is my first post. I have an 03 accord coupe ex 2.4L and I want to do a few cheap mods to boost my performance. I want to first put on a cold air intake. I've heard good reviews about K&N, and Injen and a few other main brands, but idk if its worth the extra hundred bucks. I could just buy a cheap offbrand intake and slap on a K&N or Injen filter. This would save me about 100 bucks!
The intakes itself is just an aluminum alloy weather its offbrand or main brand it shouldnt matter. Right?

Thanks in advance!

Lets start with the basics; your car came from the factory with a Cold Air Intake. Adding an aftermarket unit *may* give you a couple of extra horsepower (as in less than five) up near redline at wide open throttle. That said, those few extra ponies typically also reduce your mid range torque by a similar amount. Ask yourself; how often do you drive around with the engine up over 6,000 rpms?

Second; many cold air intakes are prone to ingesting water when the weather gets nasty. When this happens it doesn't take very much to cause hydrolock in the engine; a hydrolocked engine typically means you then get to rebuild or replace said engine.

Now, if all you want is to hear some extra noise and you don't ever plan on driving in areas where there may be some pooling of rain water, then you're probably good to go.

Good point, I do not plan on driving at high RPM's too often, but a few extra horse power could be nice. In regards to hydrolocking, I am not too worried about that. I will also install a bypass valve to reduce the chances of hydrolocking.

But what is your opinion on offbrand cai's?

Personally my opinions are that unless you spend a lot of time on the track with your car then they are an absolute waste of money; regardless of brand.

the only difference between a name brand and a cheap name brand.. normally isnt the filter so much as its the pipe and how its bent etc.. +you pay for the name brand.

You will not notice any hp gains, the only thing you will notice is a increase in noise resulting in you driving faster because it SOUNDS like your going faster -.-

and for shipo.. the stock intakes for hondas pull air from the engine bay, even though it goes down into the air box and back up. so how is that a cold air intake?

Well then my Accord must be the exception because the factory intake pulls air from above the leading edge of the radiator. No two ways about it, that's a Cold Air Intake.

Earlier years had the intake snorkel pull air from different places, some were the space behind the radiator. So it's not fair to say all Accords were the same.

Fair enough, but I've yet to see a factory intake on an Accord that didn't use what is effectively a CAI as its main source of intake air.

I posted this on another thread too but have had good results so far.
What I just did was retrofitted a pipe to the stock intake pipe with a k&n cone filter fed under the bumper. 7th gens dont have an IAR I dont believe but that was part of the reason I partially reverted back to stock for my 5th gen. I also noticed the intake temps were cooler. While aluminum intake pipes are good about heat I found that the coolant hose that runs near the pipe will heat it up.
Granted, the temps can be negligible, but if you're gonna do a CAI ive found the stock intake pipe insulates the air flowing through the best. Just rip the airbox out and retrofit a cone filter. see what that does. Ive had great results.

So, factory plumbing with a sub standard filter. No thank; I'll stick with the factory setup. :)