its not about drivability its that the car might not be running a safe afr and in time with a bad afr your engine will go boom

 

so my motors gonna blow up all because of a k&n intake aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hptuned for it means no warrenty... trust me they know if ur tuned my friend works at gm

 

AFR would have to be extremely far off from AFR CMD for that to happen...
The AFR would have to be greater than the AFR CMD, indicating that your running lean. The only problem with running a richer AFR would be that your waisting your gas... and clogging your cat.

The AFR we are talking about here with the K&N intake always bounces between 14.4- 15.1 when CMD should be 14.7, and thats as extreme as the K&N gets.....which doesnt happen all that often, maybe 15% of the time. still not terrible enough to destroy your car. Hell the stock air box is worse than that.... but I know what your going to say.... your going to say that the stock air box has better trims at certain engine loads and rpms that the K&N spikes to a -14.0 on stft's or something like that.... but thats not true either.... the stock air box does the SAME thing.

Jesus, you guys are talking about this like its a light weight crank pulley.... "In time your Crankshaft will crack due to the smallest of unbalanced masses in the aftermarket pulley..." That might be true but your talking 150,000 miles later, lol... and at that point, what's to say it was the pulley's fault?.... it could absolutely be a number of factors...


So is this what we are saying with small changes in fuel trims? Can I expect my engine to explode after 150,000 miles? or are you saying after 10,000 miles? what if it never explodes? does that mean your wrong and Im right? im not saying that... im a scientist, all outcomes are possible.. There's not enough turbo balts out there to do study though...

 

Doesn't the Stock/GMS1 each have a set target air values? Although the PSI in the turbo has been raised and it's running leaner, I'm just wondering as to how my K&N SRI is supposedly going to be hard on my engine whenever it gets close to stock Fuel trims and the Computer will still be limiting the amount of air allowed? The only difference is that with the intake, i'll reach the target air values quicker. If you look at the dyno, it does not raise the peak HP/TQ, it just gives it a boost throughout the powerband from the turbo spooling faster, so what's worse? Having a factory made tune with an intake or having an aftermarket tune and pushing the engine above what the manufactures recommends? There's a reason why some dealers allow bolt-ons and why ZERO dealers allows tunes. And also I posted this on another thread so I may as well post it on this one too, this card came with my K&N SRI and reads:

"The installation of reusable products may be discouraged by some service providers who are misinformed or prefer the repeat business of selling disposable air filters. We will be pleased to answer any of their questions directly.

If your service provider claims your K&N Air Filter should be removed, replaced, or is harmful to your engine in any way, please call immediately and le us talk to the service provider.

Your K&N Replacement air filter or intake system is backed by one of the industry's best warranties. We also pledge you will never be taken advantage of by a service provider denying a warranty based on the presence of the World's Best Air Filter.

WE WILL SOLVE YOUR PROBLEM SO YOU WON'T HAVE TO"

There's no fine print saying that it has to be tuned or your engine will be destroyed but what do they know?

 

Jordster,

I agree that getting an aftermarket tune is the quicker way to voiding your warranty, but getting a tune doesnt alway have to mean that your increasing your boost. A tune could also leave the stock boost level and just fix the trims... however a tune is a tune and it would still void the warranty.

The stock Maps are alittle sloppy, hence why the stock airbox also looks aweful on a graph.. but its stock so if the motor goes you can get a new one for free.

What they are talking about is these little half second fluctuations in the fuel trims when you let off the gas or go from 40% to 20% throttle... it takes the car a second to register the change and adjust the trim. The K&N SRI really can be adjusted (I know it sounds stupid but it holds true) by rotating the off centered filter. I can rotate my filter so that I get as much as +6.0 ltft's and I can rotate it so that I get -7.0 ltfts... I figure somewhere in between should be just about perfect

 

I know a lot of people say 1230 (Coupler facing up) however that would mean the bulge facing downward and IMO it doesn't look very efficient. I would rather put the bulge facing the vender, it seems like it would ultize the filter more effectively. I'll fiddle with it, I did however just finished sending K&N a messgae regarding the intake and what they would recommend as far as tuning/filter position/warranty work. They did make it seem like if the dealer had any problem with it, THEY would be the ones dealing with it so obviously some clarification would be nice, I'll keep you guys posted.

And thanks for the info regarding the trims/tuning. I guess the main thing is, if your planning on modding your car for performance, educate yourself on the risks that are involved before jumping in to it. That's why I've been playing it a bit cautious with the intake even though it's from one of the industry's leader. I don't even know if I should be investing in more power, the road has to be completely flat under hard acceleration in 2nd or else you'll be tossed around more than Rihanna when Chris Brown gets back from the bar.

 

I havent heard a chris brown joke in a while thank you!!!!

 

Bulge should be facing the hood. not the wheel well. you want it to bulge upwards. I originially had it downards and its not good as far as fuel trims go.

unless you keep all your clocks upside down at your house?

 

Man my car is completely stock and my AFR always bounces between 14.3 - 15.2. Or so the RPD tells me it does...


That one statement should be the end of this discussion. If K&N is willing to ensure that no customer's warranty is voided due to their product and willing to back up their product like this, that tells you that they are very confident, if not positive that they have this tuned perfectly so you don't need to tune your car for it.

 

so pretty much what i have read here is that putting an intake on your car wont hurt it up front but over a long period of time it might....obviously down the road tune for it, but just slapping one on wont kill u....might have some wacked a/f ratio's under some load conditions but nothing that will "blow my engine up" or harm it right then and there

 

Jordster and I were reffering to the K&N SR intake. I can't speak for the other intakes out there, they do seem to screw up peoples cars except for the AEMs new design that Terminator stated.

 

well for 1 it seems the k&n sri filter if rotated affects the trims at certain spots, so you'd have to test to see. I'm not saying its perfect. I never said it couldnt use a tune. But some of the people on this forum are scaring the **** out of members thinking they need this or that. Hell once term2 wrote that intake thread, 800 people wanted the hahn cai, now everyone wants the k&n. Why people believe 1 persons opinion is true and the only answer, well thats their fault but making blanketed statements that your opinion is the only answer and truth is...well I dont agree with it. I'll go data log my k&n sri but I have so much f'ing road construction here I cant find a good spot to really hit wot a lot. I have a dashhawk though so I can log and/or find someone to watch it for me while I drive.

 

Ideas to try Northvibe,

Wot in 2nd gear or 3rd ( what ever feels safer for you speeding ticket wise, lol.)
cruising at 3500rpms
crusing at 2000 rpms in 5th
foot off throttle and just rolling (should go to 0, but if you get any values, its from air going into the filter from moving)

and go from 20% accel to 40% accel (should see a spike in the positive direction for fuel trims.
and go from 40% accel to 20% accel (should see a negative spike for fuel trims)

 

Putting out an intake that is "tuned perfectly" for all cars is basically impossible. Cars don't all take to mods in exactly the same way even if they're the same make and model. An intake may be perfectly fine on one car and cause knock on another.

 

Will an intake blow up the engine?...probibaly not. Will you get the best performance out of it without a tune?...no.

 

Knock sensors will reduce the timing to save your engine. But, they can only reduce the timing after they've picked up some knock. It's likely that some cars come from the factory with some knock retard. Unless it's very bad, you won't hear a thing. It might not even be enough to where you feel a difference. But, knock is never a good thing. If it's consistent and enough, it could add up to a chipped piston down the road. An intake may not blow your engine up, but it may be reducing performance; which ruins the whole point of putting it on in the first place.

Also, the learn down feature basically makes it pointless on a stock car. Are most people more concerned about hearing the turbo and the engine bay looking cool than performance and reliability?

 

No here is the situation.

People want to put performance parts on their car. People dont want to have to tune every single time they put a new part on. Thats just retarded and a waste of money. People want to put parts on that will increase performance while mimicing stock settings. That way they can throw the parts on now and then get a tune later down the road.

And yes, some people really like to hear the turbo noise. Makes the car more enjoyable. An easy alternative to getting a BOV is the SRI. K&N made a good SRI.

 

Yes, but the same can be said for brand new cars you buy off the lot with respect to the stock intake.

 

What's retarted and a waste of money is throwing expensive aftermarket parts on your car, then not tuning it for them, so that your car actually runs worse than it did before you spent a bunch of money.

What's retarted is putting a part on your car that makes it run unreliably, just so you can hear the sound of a BPV opening.

 

When I get my ECU tuned it ***** out and bricks the car.

 

ok this is stupid....almost all companies i would think when they design these intakes are testing them out and making sure that it is o.k. to drive the car...they aren't just going to make an intake and tell you to put in on your car and good luck....no one says at the bottom of there ad. like certain things that says may require a tune.....this is just stuipd.......i want you guys to actually find a cobalt that had a negative affect to the point where it blew up a car and that was the cause or that it lost power and ruined everything.....

if you want a real answer i say we donate a t/c to the guy with the 200,000 mile cobalt thread, put the intake on his car and do nothing, and see what happens......

 

You can trigger knock by being a single digit off in fuel. I know because I see it in logs.

So those of you talking about being 15% off, you're crazy. I would not want to be the next buyer of that car.

 

DI engines knock no matter what stock, partial throttle etc. its the wot knock thats worrying.

All the companies that have created intakes for the LNF dont know anything about DI engines. Its disappointing and I tried to get cpe to make one as the ones for the mzr were nice....but alas no

to kyle - ya right, go look at the hahn. there are plenty of members on this board that with stock tunes have had @#$#@$ up everything from cel's to bogging.

 

This is also true. The car likes to knock even on the stock airbox setup, but I do totally agree with what Wang is saying here. Intake = custom tune for it. /thread.

 

Ya this thread is whack sauce. To say 100% you need a custom tune to run a intake is ignorant. The problem is, 99% of the people on this forum will read this, believe it and either spread the rumor more, freak out and not mod, or make 100000 threads asking why. Maybe this is a conspiracy to get tuners more money and tunes?