Mike, AEM intake opinions?

[98SCREAMER]

I have been wanting one of these since I first saw the pic late last year. I was wondering what you thought of it. There was a dyno showing a 12 HP increase on a 5.4 liter, is there any truth to this you think? On a side note, I promise I will send in my chip for a reburn soon. I haven't forgotten about getting it done, just that this has been a bad year so far. Hopefully things will clear up, and I can send it in soon. Thanks.,,,,98

[Superchips_Distributor]

Hi Screamer,

That's pretty easy, as you get what you pay for, basically. A lot of people have asked us about that specific intake & we've taken a look at it.

I don't care for the AEM intakes myself, they're cheap because, well, they use cheap materials, ther's just no other way to put it. The Air Force One makes more power and is *much* higher quality, and I feel certain will easily out-last the AEM unit. It'll certainly look much better for much longer, and make more power.

The AEM piece is made of much cheaper aluminum for the air-handling tube material, & shiny plastic. It looks sorta OK in the pictures in magazines, but it's finish mars very easily (most people scratch them up just during installation, if they aren't already scratched just from shipping), and I don't see it holding up long term anywhere near as well as the AF1's aircraft grade 304 S/S does. While I'm not a fanatic about the material used for the air handling tubes in intake kits for street-driven trucks & SUV's, aluminum would be my last pick due to it's heat retention characteristics as compared to the 304 S/S used in the AF1.

Over the past 5 years, and especially over this past 12-18 months, everybody and their brother is making intake kits for American trucks & SUV's, and most of them are crappola, low quality, etc. For the past year and half, the trend has been to put out ever-cheaper intakes, and compromising the quality of materials and doing no real R&D are the only ways to do that, which is exactly what we see in all the cheaper intake kits.

You'll have to forgive me, as I'm a bit of a stickler for quality, especially in parts that have to live under the hood. For me, I'd wait until I could comfortably afford the Air Force One instead of putting on a cheaper intake kit, but you may feel differently.

The bottom line is, only you can really decide what you'll be happy with, and you may be happy with the AEM (though I don't think so long-term, is my hunch).

I advise *never* taking shortcuts, wait to do your mods until you can afford to use *quality* materials and get the better results. Trust me, it will show up directly in how long the product lasts & how much actual performance gain you get.

Good luck whatever you decide on this!

[98SCREAMER]

Well. How much more could the AF-1 be than the AEM? Cause the AEM is one of the most expensive out there aside from the Volant, from what I've noticed?,,,,98