i currently have a short ram on my 2000 Toyota Celica. would it make more sense to keep with that or to go for an AEM Cold Air Intake?

 

Cold air is better, neither will do anything for the car

 

+11234 billion , this also supports my philosophy that only women drive 2000+ celicas

on a side note. pm me when you move the the USF area. i live around there and am about to go there myself.

 

What the fuck are you smokin? So your saying that if you have a stock air box...and then you remove it and put a cold air intake on there it's not gonna make you see any horsepower gains?

 

I'm saying if you own a late model German car (BMW, VW, etc.) or a car with such little power potential as a 1ZZ/2ZZ powered Celica, the money spent will not be worth the little power increase you'd get from it.

Get a CAI for a VW or a BMW and I guarentee you that you wont gain more than 2-3 HP from it.

It all depends on what car..a MkIII is different. You have a restrictive assembly with a huge resonator to quiet the car since it was meant to be a luxobarge cruiser. You'll find more power out of an engine like a 7M-GTE who gets only 30 HP from 7 psi of boost compared to the N/A...they came fairly corked. The Celica however is a lower end car and muffling the intake sound is much less important.

If necessary, I can provide proof. Dont get too nervous about having more to learn about cars; I have plenty to learn myself. Just picked up Maximum Boost by Corky Bell to actually learn how turbos work and properlly sizing them to my specs.

 

CAI can provide decent gains on most motors, the problem is many intake are marketed as CAI but really aren't. Get a tried and true CAI from like AEM and you probably see ~5-10hp

 

I was just saying no matter what kind of car or truck you have if you put a cai on it your going to see horsepower gains regardless.

 

That depends...how much "colder air" or more of the colder air will you be getting? I bring my case back to the german cars which more often than not have a snorkel with some ram air intake in the front of the car that are already "CAI"s.

25 psi is right though, a "CAI" could just be a marketing term depending on where it is drawing air. AEM usually seems to have the intake near the bottom of the car and away from rising heat from the engine.

 

most of AEM and "true" cold air intake, for that matter, mount the intake filter in the wheel well area so..like said its lower than the rising heat and its usually in a path of fresh airflow...
and as far as cold airs on 1zz motors in my mr2 it made a noticible increase over the factory "CAI"....yea its not +20hp but its still enough hp gain to notice, better throtle responce and better gas milage...
and the original question was will cai be be better than ram air....not how much of an increase it will make....and the answer would be yes a "true" cold air is going to be better than a ram air...it will produce beter gas milage and yes the performance gain may only be 1hp and not be enough to notice...

 

NO you won't see much of a difference or horsepower gains. the only other way i would imagine you'd see much gains is if you

modify/get a bigger throttle body
bigger intake manifold
at least 3 inch piping on CAI
and spend decent money and get a K&N filter


thats the only way i can see much gains on a cai, and that comes from experience on helping my cousin with his b18c1 swapped civic si hatch. he did all that i listed there PLUS full catback with 3 INCH piping straight to the back and only gained around 12 hp. alot of people mistake alot of the principles of how engines work, including me. when i first "got into cars" i was thinking small. CAI, putting a "aftermarket" muffler on stock pipes thinking i was getting "speed" . until someone introduced me to the wonderful world of turboes. like orion said, if she wants REAL HP gains she might want to look into these not all at one time of course, unless she has alot of money:

cam gears
camshaft(don't know how that will work with the vvtl-i)
aftermarket throttle body
full exhaust(and i mean full, not just headers and a tailpipe)
piggyback ecu system greddy emanage is pretty good for decent tuning(again i don't know how this will help or hurt the vvtl-i)
lighter flywheel, pulleys

i don't know how much HP that will get you, but its way more practical than sticking a whole bunch of rice mods on a nice car.