Well, I finally got the motivation to begin throwing some aftermarket stuff on my car, and figured a filter would be a sensible place to begin. Popped the hood, looked at the airbox, and saw the dreaded SAI hose. I do not want to remove the SAI system, just too much of a hassle there. I'm seeing two options:

I've heard that a K&N 69 Typhoon intake can be used with SAI, however I can't confirm this. Can anyone with a secondary air injection system confirm that this or any other aftermarket air filter can be used with SAI?

The more likely approach I'm seeing if no one can recommend a good aftermarket filter is to drop in an Injen or K&N intake, and then put a second smaller filter onto the end of the SAI hose. A friend of mine just has a piece of cloth over this SAI hose, but something about that seems like a bad idea. Can anyone verify that a second independent filter for the SAI would work?

My goal with all this is to not throw codes if at all possible. It'd be awesome to be able to pass inspection like this, but at this point I'm expecting to just have to drop in the airbox every time I get it inspected. That's not a huge issue.

Thank you guys for any and all help! It's gonna be awesome to have a less ugly engine bay that I can take to car meets and not be as embarrassed with!

 

I can verify that the K&N system I have is SAI compatible. TS-6969 or whatever. It has the fitting on the bottom of the intake to hook up your SAI.

 

Assuming that you're using this system, how well does it work for you? I was leaning more towards and Injen or ideally an Airaid system, but if the K&N performs well I guess I could suck it up and pay a little extra.

 

I love it but I'm way more modded than just an intake. Remember if you screw with the SAI you'll get a ton of codes which can only be dealt with by tuning them out.

 

Would I be getting codes just by dropping in the intake then? I'm really not looking at getting into too much tuning yet. I'm on a limited budget, and I was only looking at doing an intake and muffler to the engine right now, and then starting to get rid of the god awful suspension.

 

Sai system is a series of barometric pressure sensors. The patameters are programmed with a margin of error. If the readings dont fall in those parameters, a code is thrown. If the K&N does it without codes, go for it. I for one have the injen and throw codes like they're going out of style. To my knowledge, it's easier to mod the l61 Sai system than the LAP of later years, due to some design tweaks. This topic has been discussed many times. Maybe someone else can chime in to confirm or correct my knowledge.

 

i have it on my g5 and i have the black K&N intake for the 2.4. i just put a filter on the end of the SAI hose and hid it. no codes ever. been like that since 09-10

 

Thank you guys for the help, I'm pretty new to all of this and glad to hear that SAI isn't some huge problem for the things I'm looking at doing. I'll be ordering the intake within the next few weeks, looking forward to actually having a bit of throttle response for the first time!

 

Honestly, yeah the intake may help with throttle response a little bit, but the tune will make the single most amount of difference in throttle response. The computer limits the throttle to open very slowly under a certain RPM. Also timing in the areas you floor it in are obscenely low so it really hurts. But the intake is worth the sound for sure.

 

Installed the K&N intake today and damn it's nice! Wasn't expecting nearly that throaty of a sound out of my little 2.2, I'm impressed! Not sure if I really feel much of a power increase or I'm just imagining it, and a buddy that followed me on the first test drive said he thought I was running pretty rich. Hoping the engine just needs to get used to this much more air and then everything will sort itself out. Overall I'm impressed!

 

I don't see how you could be running rich.

My old 2.2 was headers and catless and cat back with injen intake and it ran normal

 

Doesn't make any sense to me either, but I've put about 100 miles on the new intake and things seem to be smoothing out. I guess it could just be the engine getting used to it, maybe it over-compensated or something?

 

When I installed mine, the car had LTFT(long term fuel trims) that were adding fuel to the stock calibration and engine because it was consistently lean. Because of that the stock engine was where it needed to be. You already need to take out a little fuel by removing airflow from the MAF table at lower RPM when you put on the K&N in my experience, and then you have the fuel trims adding fuel on top of that. So basically it is probably the fuel trims causing your problem. If you know someone who can reset them great! If not just give it time. The fuel trims will eventually even out.

 

is no one else going to comment that someone following you has no clue based solely off the exhaust if you're running to rich or to lean. if your blowing smoke like a diesel unplug your battery for 10mins, then start the car and let it idle for 5mins and drive around at different loads without going WOT

 

Shhh just play along. Mine really was rich though when I put my CAI on. I just assumed the same in this case.

 

Well it never use to smell like gasoline whenever I got on the throttle... lol, obviously there's no way to be completely sure of how it's running, just an assumption.

On a different note, how long does it usually take for the fuel trims to even out? I'm guessing a few hundred miles probably?