So I'm thinking I'm going to go ahead and "bite the bullet" for a Troyer tune on my truck. It's an '05 F-150 with the 5.4 engine and a 16615 Magnaflow SIDO cat-back exhaust.

However, right now I'm leaning towards leaving the stock intake in place -- primarily because I love the way it sounds right now, and have seen so many mixed reviews on the sound of the truck after a CAI install.

If someone were to hold a gun to my head and force me to go with an intake, I'd probably lean towards the AEM Brute Force -- primarily because I prefer the idea of a dry filter versus the oiled filters of their competitors.

Which begs the question -- how much an I leaving on the table by doing a tune with exhaust but no intake?

 

Normally these type of questions get under my skin because there is no one here except Mike that can give you the correct answer. He is the one that has done all the R&D'ing on these trucks and he is the one that knows what power level is achieved through each and every modification. You ask 100 different people adn you will more than likely get 100 differnet answers, which will be attained my shear guess work.
I am not flaming you so please don't accept it that way. I am only stating the factual truth.
Questions thrown out to the general form that require specific information only cause more confusion. That is why so many have a hard time deciding on which modification or brand to choose, as far too many that do not know the answer chime in with information that they "believe" to be true..
Do yourself a favor and call Mike of one of his crew at the shop for the honest answer....Only then will you know the truth....

 

And the Truth will be.. go with the Air Force 1 intake. Mr. Troyer has stated numerous times on here that for our engines the AF1 makes the best gains in power. I'm sure he'd be pleased to write tunes for you with the stock intake, or whichever one you may choose, but he has stated repeatedly that all of his testing rates the AF1 as the best intake for our trucks.

I have the 3" AF1 on my 4.6L Screw, no tunes yet, and could not be happier. The throttle response and sound are amazing. If it's dry vs. oiled elements you're worried about all I can tell you is my experience. I got my AF1 in March and it's been a very wet spring here so I've been driving through very heavy rain, standing water quite often. No problems there. A couple of times a month I drive down a dirt road for a couple of miles, I'll admit to have been very **** about pulling the filter off after every trip down and back that road to check for dust / dirt in the intake tube. Nothing. Clean as new.
The filter has faded some from bright blue to a very light blue but it has never appeared to be dirty.

I'd highly recommend the AF1.