steven46746

With my 13' a little over a month away I'm starting to piece together what I want to add to it when it gets here. I've been eyeing the K&N Aircharger kit as it seems to give great results without a tune. Anyone have experience with this intake or any suggestions? I won't be tuning the car so bare that in mind. Thanks for the help.

DeepImpactPony

The cold air kit is more of a cosmetic than function, I have a stock air box, with K & N air filter, 2013 automatic, with 3.15 gears, and GT500 mufflers for sound, as they do little to nothing for performance, and a tune. In bone stock form, I ran 13.38, with the aforementioned add ons and a tune, I ran a best of 12.43 @ 113, so Id say the best bang for the buck would be the tuner.

steven46746

Well I would love to tune it but voiding my warrenty in the process pretty much takes it out of the question.

DeepImpactPony

The benefit of a tune with stock air box, allow you to easily reload stock tune in the event of needing warranty. This is again, why I have not been sold by the cold air kit, and this is why I had a tune loaded for the stock air box, so that I can compare the stock air box tune, to a cold air kit tune.

tj@steeda

You are going to get the best bang for your buck with a tune/cai.

Just to make it clear. Just because you put a part on your vehicle it DOES NOT void your warranty. For a product to affect the warranty, there must be an investigation done by the party refuting the warranty to prove that the aftermarket product indeed caused the OEM component part to fail. Just because you put a CAI/tune on your car it does not does not automatically void the warranty. The CAI would have the be the direct cause that caused the part to fail. Also, you have to remember when installing aftermarket parts you are responsible to care and drive the car in a non malicious way - because no warranty covers "abuse" .

Are you looking to add power or would you prefer a better handling car? You won't see great gains with just a drop in CAI.

Who is your dealer? Sometimes if you ask them about tuning they will let you know if it is an issue with them or not.

Hopefully this helps.

Best Regards,

TJ

steven46746

I was under the impression that a tune leaves a permanent imprint on the ecu, even when reset to stock; ford can still tell. And if that's true it would pretty easy for them to write off any engine malfunction as a "bad tune".

mopar?

i think it's 10+ for stangs that it leaves an imprint no matter what. I caved and tuned my car and only with the 87 tune and the airaid cai it feels like"boost" kicks in at higher RPMs which was unexpected. The car did feel a teeny bit more responsive with my cai only and the sound it gives off is awesome too

I'd wait for a black friday sale if I were you.

stangfoeva

This. Excellent advise TJ.

When my '11 was not idling properly I took it in to be looked at. First thing they asked me was if everything was stock. That was the first time I was glad I hadn't tuned yet. Felt so good to tell the guy "Yup" and be honest.

Some dealers will be cool with it, others won't. Soon as my 60K is up it's tune time

FromZto5

Absolutely false. Don't mislead the OP.

A tune will void the warranty, or make it highly likely that it will void it. Dealers and Ford can tell if a tune was placed on an ecu, whether it's been reflashed back to stock form.

Flagstang

Bucko

The dealer now has a way to detect if a tune was installed; setting the stock tune prior to a visit to the dealer no longer "hides" the tune.

MRGTX

This is spot-on.

I'll add that the no-tune CAIs are even less useful than the ones that require a tune...which do little anyway. The stock airbox on these cars happens to be pretty **** good.

RedCandy5.0

Airaid or Roush CAI gets you about 8-10 rwhp without tune. I doubt you will feel this but this is the dyno #'s.

Bucko

Very good point. And considering most "CAI's" on the market are "semi CAI's" at best (not in an inclosed box; the so called rubber seal against the hood is not that effective), they really only provide the same thing that the sound tube does on the GT's that most folks on this site find lame. So, the money could be better spent on other go fast goodies. By modifying a stock air tube on my V6, I was able to create a CAI using stock parts, and the sound effect came into play.

If a tune is installed, then this is all a mute point.

kylerohde

In summary, save the $300-400 from the intake and put it towards exhaust, an upgraded shifter, tinted windows, new wheels, or 100 other things that will provide more value than a CAI. Not worth it unless you're tuning.

FromZto5

Best post in this thread so far.

2012GT

I installed this and Steeda's 93 tune when I changed the oil at 1,000 miles. The best 2 mods that I could have done to my car and I'm saying that at 15,600 miles. I get 26-28 MPG on the highway. The car couldn't be better. I will go out on a limb and say the car is safer and more efficient than stock....note: in no way am I a Steeda representative or paid to say this . How about some springs TJ? Lol

SteedaBrandon

I have attached a dyno sheet that was a test we did about a year and a half ago of the stock airbox vs the cold air on a 5.0.

On this test the car was loaded with a basic tune with no cam timing changes just so we could have a higher rev limiter that way we could rev the engine to the same RPM with both intakes without running into a limiter. Ignition timing was the same for both tunes.

The results show a “peak” gain of only 5 horsepower, but there is a lot more there if you read the dyno sheet. Gains started at about 4,500, with gains of 6 to 9 horsepower between 4,500 and 5,000. Between 5,300 and 6,100 gains were 7 to 10 horsepower. And between 6,700 and 7,200 the gains were an impressive 12 to 15 horsepower. So you can see measurable gains from a cold air intake.

SteedaBrandon

Thanks for the Steeda props! Nice pic.

FromZto5

Oh I have no doubt the Steeda CAI and tune are great and safe. I guess my point is that, that "chances" of warranty void goes UP if this gets installed. In other words, if you have do have the tune, and you do have to take it in the dealership for warranty work for an issue related to the engine, if the dealership "sees" this tune, chances are, there will be a lot more headache to deal with versus not having a tune at all. You know what I mean? It just gives dealerships more "ammo" to deny you a claim. That's all I'm saying.

Trust me, I WANT to put the Steeda CAI and Tune on... but from the various experiences of other folks that I have read, heard about, or seen first hand, it gives me reason to pause. That's all I'm saying. Pause, at least, until warranty is over or until I go full bore with my Supercharger anyways.