the place my brother works was having a raffle to raise money for a local homeless shelter and as a prize i won a TRD/ AEM cold-air intake for a tC. i own a tC and i would like to add some power, but everything im seeing on here is telling me that this intake won't add but a couple horsepower, if that. so im thinking, should i craigslist this thing and buy a lighter crank pulley with the money and pocket the leftovers?

 

Neither one is really going to get you much of anything. How much power (or if it adds any at all) is debateable..but even so it's not something you will really notice.

If you want power, F/I (specifically turbo) is going to be the way to go

 

geez. i dont have the money for forced induction. boy, i love tC's looks and style and features and everything, but we really picked horrible cars in the power-making department.

 

I wouldn't really call it a poor choice..squeezing power out of anything isn't going to always be cheap. A good turbo will run you a $3k-$5k bvdget (depending mostly on if you get a new or used kit and install yourself) and you can easily make anywhere from 220-300whp without having to do much more than a good tune and an exhaust + whatever the kit has packaged with it.

Honestly the only reason I can think of to get the pulley over the intake is the pulley is street legal and cai isn't..other than that the gains are going to be pretty superficial.

And FYI on a lot of newer cars intakes won't yield a whole lot of power with any configuration. There are exceptions to this but for the most part it's just another look pretty/sound cool part

 

Go drive a new civic or sentra or focus or cobalt under 18k and you'll be glad you bought a TC. Way more torque, better looks, and more options. Just my opinion.

 

nothing will actually give you more horsepower. the lightweight crank will only mostly improve acceleration b/c it increases the rpm/ acceleration. The cai will actually give you more hp. But like everyone said unless you go f/I you won't see a tremendous improvement

 

well yeah. everyone knows a lighter crank pulley doesn't actually produce power, it just allows more of it to reach the ground. imma keep the intake and install it as soon as i can. it'll make a little power and sound good, so im satisfied.

 

The sound is addicting. It lead me to a turbo eventually The power is nice too lol.

 

you cant afford f/i there is always n2o

 

Just put on the intake. It will be louder so you think you will be going faster.