Now I have been snooping around for quite a while here even before I decided to register. I do quite a lot of reading. But there are a lot of things that bother my instincts by what I have noticed here.

As soon as someone wants to do a performance upgrade, they immediately look at CAI first. WHY? Your truck will not benefit from the increased airflow. You are still running a stock tune. And even if you reset the PCM to allow the ranges to re compensate for the new mod, your truck will go right back to stock parameters. Sure there will be some very minor changes to the program. But you just threw a bunch of money at something to try and increase your performance. Your logic needs to change slightly.

Tuners, tuners, TUNERS, T-U-N-E-R-S !!! Folks, this is where you need to start. You first need to change your programming on your truck to accommodate your CAI. Not the other way around. You will get much better bang-for-your-buck by FIRST buying a tuner. You can then tell the author of the tunes on what CAI you will be using and they can customize the tunes to make the air flow velocities of your CAI work. CAI works by decreasing the amount of work required by the engine to get air into the cylinders. You are allowing more volume to enter each combustion chamber and that can change how the combustion will occur. Too much volume in there and you will end up leaning out your engine which has catastrophic effects !!

After the tuner, buy your CAI. You will see a performance boost then. And you will be safe if you purchased a custom tune. Using a CAI with an Edge is a no no as Edge uses the airflow parameters of your stock intake. It cannot compensate for your new CAI so keep this to mind.

We can sit here and dispute this all day, but any performance mod you do with bolt-on's is about worthless without a new tune to compensate for it. The only exceptions for this would most likely be gears, superchargers, electric fans, pulleys, headers, and maybe exhaust. But a simple little bolt on such as a CAI isn't going to provide the same performance boosts as the tuner would.

Would you like more acceleration on take off? Look into gears. Most would recommend that you move to 4.10's or higher.

Want to increase your gas mileage? Stay off the accelerator and quit trying to draft. These trucks get their best mileage when you are going below 2000RPM and are not constantly mashing the gas. Nothing will fix this problem as it is a result of the end user, unless you are behind on your regular maintenance.

So folks, the moral of this RANT is please think at least 3x's before you drop cash on a CAI. Look at a reputable tuner first. Your money will be spent far more wisely on this splurge. Because when you get your tunes installed you will wonder how you could ever live without them.

 

People buy CAIs because it is more tangible than a tuner. They can open the hood and see it and show it to their friends. You are correct though that a tune would be more beneficial and on 04 and newer it is key to getting the perfromance from your CAI due to changes in the MAF sensor. Before 04 it was not an issue. The MAF design was different and you got great gains from a well designed CAI like the Air Force 1 or Air Raid units without tunes.
Your rant is filled with good info but it is not the whole story.

 

What about the people who get custom tunes? They can't have the truck tuned for mods it doesn't have yet, and it'd be stupid to have tunes wrote for a stock truck, then get them re-wrote when you add a CAI, then re-wrote again when you get an exhaust.

 

Interesting info.

Sure it does make sense not to get custom tuning done on your truck without first buying your CAI first. My rant played into the fact that most ppl are under the assumption that the CAI is the miracle cure.

What you have me stumped on is what would you need to get your tunes rewrote when you add exhaust. Explain please.

 

You will certainly need a retune for blowers and headers.

 

CAI are cheaper then tuners. That's how most people, including myself, add aftermarket parts. My exhaust came first because it was a "must have" item, and the CAI will come next, followed up with the tuner, and gears would be the last thing. If I get a high paying college educated job after I graduate, then I might just get everything at once.

 

I at this statement...


Because the only bolt ons you have available are efans, pulleys, headers, exhaust, intake, and some consider pcm tuning but some don't.

The reason that they are called bolt ons is because it is as simple as unbolting your old stuff and bolting on the new stuff. You don't NEED to get pcm tuning with these upgrades on MOST vehicle types. Will your performance out of these mods be maximized without a tune? No. Will you see gains from them? Yes.

Some vehicles can see major gains in the intake department, for example an rsx-s will see 12whp from an intake on the stock tune. And the 12 whp is not numbers that the manufactures post in order to make sales. Some of these people may be bringing in past knowledge from other vehicles where there were major improvements from intakes (not likely but possible)

What you should be ranting about is the use of the search function. Then you would probably see half the posts of magnaflow vs flowmaster, best intake, best intake for price, SIDO vs true dual, Troyer vs. VMP, etc. etc.

 

ummm.... this rant is a little old bud. I have said this since I have been here, as well as tons of other members, ones who had been here long before me. I think this is well know. Pretty pointless and simply regurgitating facts already readily available on this site. You know what bugs me ? People who don't use the search function, and then go on ranting about something already well discussed here.....

and did you say you don't need a tune for headers ? or blowers ?

You need an explaination to tell you why you need a retune after an all new exhaust system is installed ? I guess that kinda ties in with my above question on the header though. Technically, you could argue you really wont be taking advantage of any mod, unless specifically tuned for it.

12HP from an instake change ?? I am going to raise the BS flag on this. Prove me wrong, but I want dyno sheets. I want the same air temp, humidity, etc etc etc for both tests as well. No ?

**** and GTFO ( joking, before any panties are bunched )