sTalking_Goat

In terms of how each works, the rpinciples behind it and performance increase.

I did a search first and found no straight answers.
Thanks.

VividRacing

A short ram intake just has a shorter tube. Compaines like injen make there CAI so they can also be a short ram intake. The CAI will have a longer tube so the filter drops down out of the engine bay. This way it isn't pulling in hot air from inside the engine bay and instead pulls cooler denser air from outside. The downside is CAI usually require more bends in the tube. This can sometimes cause air turbulance which is inefficient. If you live somewhere cold you will see a bigger difference between the two. I live in AZ so the air is hot even outside the engine bay. Also short rams are closer to you so they generally are louder and I think sound better.

sTalking_Goat

But does the cold air it gets from putting the filter below the engine make up for the air turbelence ineffeciency? I live in NorCal so it doesn't really get very hot or cold. Should I go for the CAI or the Short Ram.

This is a general question by the way, not for any particular car.

VividRacing

All I can say is that when I had my 240sx when it was cold (50 degrees, i live in az) the CAI made quite a difference. WHen it was warm out short and CAI were about the same. I guess it depends on how many extra bends in the pipe they need to make to go from short to CAI. An extra bend, go with CAI but if it takes a lot of bends go with short. hope that helps

VividRacing

If you are looking for a short ram for the xB we also have the Blitz induction covers which turn your stock air box into a short ram type intake

mikochu

https://www.scionlife.com/forums/vie...=cai+short+ram

here's some more info...

Uno1200mob

If you plan on adding a turbo, Short ram is the way to go. If not, i'd go with CAI.

socalxb

The innate need to tinker finally got the best of me. I just did a home-made CAI, using a Uni dual-stage foam filter, 3" flex ducting, hose clamps, and black window screen mesh.

The Uni filter, being foam, is more flexible than a K&N gauze-style filter. It's dual-stage, in that the outer filter is coarser and less dense than the inner filter. I have mine positioned behind the middle grill, towards the left edge. You can poke your finger thru the grill and press against the filter. It measure about 6" long, 4" in overall diameter, with a 2.5" opening. I clamped one end of the flex ducting to the filter opening, using a black plastic reducer to give the clamp something to bite onto, instead of just the rubber filter opening. This ducting is then routed to the airbox inlet, where another clamp secures it. I removed the stock Toyota paper air filter element, and used it as a template to cut a piece of black window screen mesh that's about a half inch bigger all around. I put this piece of mesh between the airbox halves, and put the airbox back together. This mesh serves as the filter of last resort, just in case anything gets past the foam filter.

I've only put about 30 miles on the car, but my seat of the pants dyno indicates that the car pulls harder from mid-range to redline. It was a pretty inexpensive mod to do. The filter was $23, which I got from a local motorcycle dealer. The flex ducting and hose clamps were about $6, and the window screen mesh and filter oil I had lying around on my parts shelf.

Living in So Cal, I'm not terribly concerned with the filter not being able to prevent water from entering the system. When I was looking into the engine compartment, I could reposition the filter from behind the grill to a space just in front of the wheel well. It would be pointing down, so that would further reduce the chances of water traveling all the way into the airbox. Downside to that is I would lose the ram air effect that it has now, being right behind the middle grill.

Just thought I'd share...

TrevCelicaGTS02

No one here really told you the answer to your question, and some of whats been said is actually wrong...so here you go man.

Short rams are designed to give low-end and mid-range gains. Low end and mid range referring to your RPMs. Because of the way turbos are designed they work better with them, but I'm not getting into detail. When people say the short rams are taking in "hot air", thats a lil misleading. Most of the time the air is still colder than what the stock box was taking in - just because the filter is taking in air from inside the engine bay doesn't mean the air is that harmfully hot.

Cold Air Intakes are longer than the Short Rams (hence the name, short ram) and have more bends. But, the bends don't mean anything if your getting an Injen or an AEM or a K&N or whatever, because those companies are some of the best and they get around the problem of air turbulence in the pipings by etching aerodynamic grooves into the sidewalls that steady and speed the airflow. The bends don't hurt the intake. The big difference between CAIs and SRs is that CAIs have a much better high end gains usually, and thats not to say they don't have low end and mid range gains as well, just not neccessarilly as much as the SRs might.

But watch what intakes you buy and do your research on what you need. Some companies make intakes where you lose power over the stock box at low rpms but might gain a few uptop - usually, you wouldn't want that. Some intakes are just crappy. But anyway, thats the difference.

Al-Truistic

Does this item (Blitz Induction Cover) increase the engine noise at all? I had the Blitz Short Ram and loved it, until I got my great new auto axle back exhaust. In tandem they really gave my Box a great boost, shifting through the gears at much lower RPM's especially through the lower range, but when my autoBox down shifted or I had to mash the pedal the noise was not pretty. Whereas up until 70 MPH the sound was bearable but "downshifting" from there or mashing the pedal would make your body wibrate/feel the intake and exhaust working.

Taking the Blitz Short Ram off and re-installing the stock box brought it all back to normal levels (pre-exhaust swap) and although the performance isn't as high I still have great sound and a better than stock performing engine.

I love my new exhaust, enough to sacrifice the breathing that my engine was doing with just the Short Ram prior.

AL.Truistic
aB
In your experience (or anyone else's for that matter --- ) in combination with an aftermarket exhaust, are CAI's less likely to increase the sound levels of an engine than a Short Ram type intake?

AL.Truistic
aB

LeetXB

In the mustang world we didn't usualy goof around with CAIs much but I guess its one of the few things you can go out and buy in the tuner world. As far as cold air VS shorty goes - I'm not sure how the air would be colder out of a Short ram as apposed to the original air box unless it was positioned somewhere else. However, Yes the air temperatures are very diffrent! Underhood temps can easily be 50 degreees higher than ambient and are often even higher than that. Thats more than enough to be "harmfully bad" as far as performance is concerned. The power loss as INTAKE air temp increases is pretty much linear so the you're pretty much always getting the same gains with a CAI percentage wise. Infact if I were a gambling man I'd say the gains are more dramatic as Ambient temp increases. As ambient temp drops the radiator is more efficent and needs to force less heated air into the engine compartment - I'd bet Under hood and Ambient temps get closer and closer as Ambient goes down. However The car will be faster in the winter one way or the other so I can see how it would seem like it did more in the winter. Even on a car this light 3-5Hp is really pretty hard to judge by the seat of your pants.

Anyhow... which is better? Look for Dyno numbers! Don't go by anyones pants. Find a RELIABLE source for Dyno numbers - make sure the part fits into your future plans, and forget what you know about everything -- Preconceptions based on sketchy info are not the way to buy parts - or at least not this one.

Minsk99

Is this correct? The August issue of DSport has a piece in it called "The Science of Intakes". Its pretty interesting. They state: "All other factors being the same, shorter systems tend to show the largest power gains in the upper rpm levels while longer systems show larger gains in the mid rpm range".
Perhaps you mean that there is nothing detrimental about them. However, the bends mean a lot. By varying the combination of pipe diameters, number of bends and lengths, an engine will exhibit hp gains in certain areas of the power band.

In terms of difference in the Injen CAI and short ram, I believe that the short ram has more peak hp and at higher RPMs. However, the CAI will kick in lower in the power band. For each 10 or 11 degrees the intake lowers air temperature the engines hp is increased by around 1% (source: DSport August 2004 and Performance Auto & Sound August 2004). I believe that the Injen systems have the filter located in the same place so there is no difference. However, some short ram systems will not relocate the filter to an area with nice air flow or away from the engine. This will effect total hp from the system.

Chimmy3

bumping this up cuz this was a great read... dunno how it got here should probably be in xA/xB power hungry...

would like to know who is right though... do CAIs or SRs give better mid range power... and which gives the best low range power cuz thats what the auto xB is...

hotbox05

with these cars everything will be very very similar , both in length and power , short rams create more power as long as it's the behind the bumper sr , but aem's cai is a sr the dealership cold air is longer and crappy.