Thats not a turbo legacy? becuase if its turbo just stay away from CAI. All they do on most any car is lean out the mix which can be a lil dangerous.

The way i see most CAI do it is suck air from the wheel compartment which is sealed off save the intakes in the bumper.

 

If you're referring to a turbocharged Legacy, steer clear of CAI's period. Too many things that can go wrong. If it's a naturally asprated Legacy, I still wouldn't recommend it in wet conditions since the cone filter is set so low in the engine compartment/fender well that it could easily suck in some water (which is REALLY bad).

 

I have had my injen CAI in my WRX sedan through a whole winter and drove several times in rain. The bumper does give the intake adequate protection through rain and small puddles, but it is the larger, much wider puddles that I would be worried about. (Pretend you are driving through a river one and a half foot deep and at least 5 feet wide - that could cause serious problems!) Otherwise, no problems so far driving on the street.

 

Here is a post with a few links on the subject of cold-air intakes for the WRX or any factory turbo USDM Subaru. Some of the linked discussions are from tuners from outfits like Cobb and EcuTek. They discuss the effect that the intake may have on the MAF sensor readings but you're welcome to read their statements and judge for yourself.

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0==WW==0
"…axles of evil…" - george w. bush

 

for some odd reason my friends in the Volkswagon world swears that their neuspeed cold air has performance increases. Could i be wrong? soemone tell me....something

 

CAI do give performance gains, but they generally are not huge (from what i have seen) and come with more problems than good points. IMHO

When i took my car into the dealership, i was talking with the head mechanic and there was an interesting wrx there. It had a CAI and his engine pretty much blew up cuz water got sucked in. $8,000 to get it fixed.

 

It's very possible. It depends on the application and the design of the piece. Other cars may not position the MAF sensor so close to the intake to affect readings. But that's a Volkswagen and what works on other cars doesn't necessarily work on our flat-four.

It is possible to make a CAI work on a turbo Suby engine, as explained in the linked article posted on EcuTek's pages. On a mildly tuned engine it may not result in a significant power gain, though.

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0==WW==0
"…axles of evil…" - george w. bush

 

contain the words "CAIs will make you run lean." I have a wideband and neither my AEM or 80mm APS caused me to run lean. Stock ECU, turbo, equal-lenghth headers, fully catless, to Stage IV, neither made me run lean. I'm not a famous tuner, but I do know what I've seen.

San

 

Most threads do say that but that's not how I characterize the effects of a CAI.

I've only seen one printout from a dyno pull while utilizing a wideband. This took place at Vishnu Performance. The piece in question was not a CAI, per se, but similar in that it replaced that section of intake adjacent to the MAF. The car was subjected to the usual runs to high RPM under load and the resulting graph showed not so much a lean condition, but a dozens of peaks and dips in the air/fuel ratio curve. We compared this to graphs from stock WRXs tested the same day and it was obvious to me what MAF mis-readings do to the power curve. In this particular case, it didn't result in a big difference in power or torque output but without tuning the car just won't be quite as smooth under full-throttle acceleration. And, no, I can't say that this is the case for every single CAI on the market but I think there's a reason why Prodrive and Vishnu Performance do not sell one with their stage kits. Shiv stated that the graph we saw was typical of a CAI, based on his dyno pulls and testing. Maybe more recent testing at Vishnu has uncovered other information but that's what I was shown that day.

I would not hesitate to use an aftermarket intake if I went with a FMIC but I'd get it tuned.

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0==WW==0
"…axles of evil…" - george w. bush

 

San, I also want to add that I'm not even an unknown or amateur tuner. I don't doubt or dispute what you found in your testing so I guess there is still not the definitive answer that can satisfy everyone.

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0==WW==0
"…axles of evil…" - george w. bush

 

oh okay cool. Cuz i keep reading on the boards how everyone makes these generalizations of how any turbo car should not utilize a CAI. heh but it is the intraweb and everything i read is pure gold!

 

thing. I don't post here enough or check the threads enough. I have a FMIC, so the stock intake isn't an option. I only replaced the AEM with the APS because Cobb advised that they could provide a map for their engine management with the APS intake. Nearly a year later, they said they wouldn't support it. Hooray Cobb. The intake is red and matches my intercooler piping (silicone) so I installed it. I've seen some bad press on the APS intake also, but I don't have any problems yet. I have yet to start advancing my timing to optimize my setup, but have never seen any knock (UTEC) even when I was a bonehead and my AVC-R hoses were wrong and was boosting to 23+ psi (probably 10 times). 23+ at 4000 feels good (breaking in new turbo), can only imagine what it would have felt like at higher rpms. Can only imagine my engine would have blown, it was early and fairly cool (for Hawaii).

San