What is the best cold air intake system?
 

I am looking for the best cold air intake system for my 2004 5.4 4x4 supercrew. I just put a dual magnaflow catback on and want to finish it off... any help would be appreciated...

K&N or AirForceOne. Those are the only 2 that I have previous experience with. I am happy with my K&N but it is black plastic. My brother has the AirForce One on his and the aircraft grade aluminum looks damn good under the hood. About the same performance. If I had it to do over I would probably go with the AF1 because of looks.

I went with the JLT. :thumbsup:

aluminum
 

aircraft stainless steewl -more like it-phil:thumbsup:

go with AF1 its worth it :beers:

I have a K&N and it works great:rocker:

none of the products mentioned above are "cold air" . not in the least.


volant, S&B, and outlaw are the only cold air intakes on the market for the 04+ F 150s

I have the AF1 3 ¼” tube. From everything I’ve read, the AF1 outperforms all the others, especially on the 5.4L 3-valve. Personally, I haven’t had any trouble with my setup and it has delivered a big noticeable difference in extra power. It’s the one IMO


This is simply the best intake kit for the 2004 & up Ford F-150's 3-valve 5.4 engine that money can buy, from design to function to materials to execution

Power gains from this kit are approximately 25 HP at the rear wheels on the 3-valve 5.4L V8 motors at just 3000 rpm!

The Air Force One intake including the air filter element is backed by a Lifetime warranty for as long as you own your vehicle.

I watched the AF1 out perform the volant on the dyno ask FX4ME2,

technically, the AF1 is NOT a cold air intake, as mason asked for. most of the open filter hot air intakes will outperform closed box intakes HP wise when either you are dynoing or going quite fast down the road with air rushing through your engine compartment. why? because all the hot air is pushed out

what does that mean in a real world commuting scenario?

that means nothing when you bog in the heat driving around town at low speeds or at a dead stop.

ill spin my 35s all day long from a stop with my sealed outlaw in 120 degree heat, i couldnt get near that with my open air k&N

Hell they shouldn't be able to call them cold air anyway. The air going in the intake is never cold, granted the intake air temperature is a few degrees cooler which doesn't make it cold. But this isn't what the question is about. IMHO the best cooler air intake is an intercooled SC setup.:D

Anyone know when an Outlaw will be available for 06
 

5.4? Website just says coming soon but not sure how long that has been up there.

Thanks, helpful thread that is encouraging additional research on my part.

This was posted today by Mike Troyer, he says what you claim is a myth and that you can suck air from under the hood and be cooler:

https://www.f150online.com/forums/sh...05#post2220905

You know, I have played with watching my IAT (thanks to my Edge Evo II), and I gotta call BS on what Troyer is saying with that one. Yeah, I know I'll get blasted for not taking what he says as gospel, but I have done my own testing and I know what he is saying is NOT true.

With the STOCK intake, moving down the freeway my IAT is 1-2 degrees above ambient. Get off the freeway into stop and go traffic and the IAT starts to climb slowly. In the 5 miles from the freeway to my house (usually a 15-20 minute trip), my IAT got as high as 120. In normal city driving here in So Cal, I never got going fast enough to get IATs back down near ambient (high 80 degree day) - it stayed in the 105-110 range. Back onto the freeway, it took more than 2 miles at 65+ to get the IATs back down.

I installed one of the so-called CAI kits - brand does not matter, because all the open element systems are darn near identical in design and function. Yes, this one had a heat shield. On the freeway, IAT was 10-15 degrees above ambient - all the time, no matter how fast I was driving. off the freeway, my IATs got over 140, and no amount of city driving could get it below 130. This also with a high-80 ambient. It took more than 5 miles on the freeway to get back down to the 15* over ambient. Think about this - ALL air going into the engine compartment goes through the radiator, AC condensor and trans cooler. If you have a radiator that is 200* and a condensor that is in the high 100's, there is NO WAY the air in the engine compartment will be at ambient. Don't believe me? Simple test - go spend $15 for a thermometer with a remote probe and stick it under the hood and go drive around. Report back with the results. It will prove that I am right.

Now you are thinking that IAT doesn't matter, 10* is only worth 1hp, blah, blah. What no one tells you is that when the IAT hits 100, the ECU starts pulling back the timing to prevent detonation, and that causes BIG power losses. The higher the IAT, the more timing is pulled. Yeah, I know that for a fact because my Evo can monitor that, too. The higher the IAT, the more timing is retarded.

I might be new here, but I have been around for a long, long time. I have racing experience in Bonneville, IMSA, SCORE, and a couple other smaller associations. I can tell you that sucking air from under the hood is one of the WORST things you can do.

I can also tell you that Dyno does not equal real world. We can spend 2-3 days working on an EFI tune and get it perfect on the dyno, and on the street it will run like crap. Use dyno information as a reference only - do not take it as gospel. I think he relies too much on his dyno. There is a reason why, when he is creating a custom tune for someone, that he has them datalog in real world driving.

As for ram-air, some of what Mike says has some accuracy, but he is not totally right. Ram-air in a maf equipped system works just fine.

im sorry, mike troyer is a great guy but is not God to me. i skimmed his post however and i will quote verbatum "so then it simply becomes a matter of underhood air circulation, and thus at what point do you hit the threshold of enough air circulation under the hood to overcome the natural heat soak of low speed/stationary".

which brings me exactly to my point. at "low speed / stationary" speeds youll experience in urban commuting environments, open air is a horrible choice.

i entirely support that hotwires has written about IATs . . in my outlaw my IATs never rose above 10 degrees farenheit moving, the most ive gotten was a 15 degree spike in 105 degree weather . . ive tested the outlaw wtih the IAT gauge on my edge evolution from 65-105 degrees and it performs very consistantly