[Googz]

Hi,

I am looking for a new intake mostly just for the sound. I am having trouble deciding which one to spend my pennies on. Which one did you buy and what do you like about it? Do you have any sound clips? What was the install like? I am torn between the injen and the Mishimoto. I had an afe stage 2 on my 128i i am not sure if it was worth the extra money.

Please let me know thanks!

Joe

[eclipes]

Checked in to see results. I was looking into this as well but was worried about heat soak. The current filter keeps the intake temp pretty cool.

[Derivatize]

afe intake is 20% off right now on turner

[AUSf22]

I'm thinking of going the AFE Power Pro intake as it does have some dyno figures to back up some small gains. Has anyone got one installed to give some feedback?

[OpenAir]

Originally Posted by AUSf22

I'm thinking of going the AFE Power Pro intake as it does have some dyno figures to back up some small gains. Has anyone got one installed to give some feedback?

You are not going to see any gains with the stock turbo. The OEM airbox breaths very well as is. You will gain the sound of the intake.

[Viffermike]

Originally Posted by OpenAir

You are not going to see any gains with the stock turbo. The OEM airbox breaths very well as is. You will gain the sound of the intake.

This. No one has been able to design an intake that betters the OEM one flow-wise. The only thing that possibly (emphasis added) would help is this scoop from AFE. A couple of posters have noted cooler intake temps (3-5 degrees F) with one of these installed on both F30s and F22s.

As for sound ... IMHO (and YMMV), an aftermarket intake is mostly placebo unless the filter is exposed -- and to do that on an F22 would eliminate most of the effectiveness of the ducting that routes air to the OEM box. That, gentlemen, would potentially decrease power due to heat soak. Go for it if you really want to, but it's not a smart mod at all.

[FSociety]

Originally Posted by OpenAir

You are not going to see any gains with the stock turbo. The OEM airbox breaths very well as is. You will gain the sound of the intake.

+1

Best you can do and its been said over and over is get a BMC air-filter or K&N Dry- Filter that will help over stock.

[Viffermike]

Originally Posted by ROBNYC

Best you can do and its been said over and over is get a BMC air-filter or K&N Dry- Filter that will help over stock.

AFE also makes really good drop-in OEM replacement filters: in oiled (Pro 5 R) and dry (Pro-Dry S). The product page is here.

[Googz]

Wow, I am surprised. Intakes were the first mods everyone did to their cars. I expected this thread to be about which sounded better and superficial things of that nature. Although I never expected much gain. As per the above, it seems like the manufacturer claims of improved flow, hp and tq are false. How do they get those improved dyno numbers?

This discussion reminds me of this quote "It is a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing"

[AUSf22]

I have a friend with the GruppeM intake installed on his 328i, it definitely sounds better but we will never know tell the gains of the intake alone since he had it tuned with a downpipe back exhaust at the same time. I'm going to get the AFE regardless of power gains, the noise and the added "fart" on the upshift makes it worthwhile

[Viffermike]

Originally Posted by Googz

Wow, I am surprised. Intakes were the first mods everyone did to their cars. I expected this thread to be about which sounded better and superficial things of that nature. Although I never expected much gain. As per the above, it seems like the manufacturer claims of improved flow, hp and tq are false. How do they get those improved dyno numbers?

This discussion reminds me of this quote "It is a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing"

They get them by hiding the fact that the intake is installed on a car with other significant mods -- usually the company's own -- and testing the car under controlled conditions on a dyno, where conditions such as heat soak are minimized if not eliminated. Also, results are often stated for an engine, not a model -- meaning that if a model (say, the 335i instead of the M235i) has a less efficient intake design, the company will state the gains for the 335i for all models with the N55 engine because they're more impressive.

Heck: some dynos even have a gigantic wind tunnel-esque fan in front of the car to simulate airflow at speed. Key word there is 'simulate' ...

[Viffermike]

Originally Posted by Googz

Wow, I am surprised. Intakes were the first mods everyone did to their cars. I expected this thread to be about which sounded better and superficial things of that nature. Although I never expected much gain. As per the above, it seems like the manufacturer claims of improved flow, hp and tq are false. How do they get those improved dyno numbers?

This discussion reminds me of this quote "It is a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing"

Check out this post from this thread on the dyno testing of an intake for the N20 328i by a small aftermarket company. The intake has a high-flow oiled cone filter, a custom inlet tube from the stock air duct, and a fabricated filter box that eliminates a resonator (!!!) that is part of the stock F30 intake -- and, I'm sure, the F22 intake.

The elimination of that resonator is the 'how' for any sound enhancement that an aftermarket intake might provide. But power gains are negligible with both a stock tune and an aftermarket tune -- and the variation in both HP and torque with the aftermarket tune in the meat of the power band looks like the profile of western Colorado: all peaks and valleys.

The takeaways?
1). Even higher-flow filters do little to help airflow. So ditch the K&N/BMC/AFE drop-in idea unless you want a filter with reusable media.
2). The engine mapping is too complicated to take advantage of potentially improved airflow right away. It would likely need time to adjust -- and even then there's no guarantee that anything will improve, either stock or with a tune.
3). The developer suspects that the MAF sensor, which is integrated in the OEM housing and not a duct leading from an air box to the intake manifold (as on many other cars) does more than just read airflow.

Basically, the intake is a mirror image of the exhaust on N20s: it's already as optimized as is reasonable and possible, and the biggest reason to upgrade either is to change the sound, not to increase performance.

Here's the entire thread.

[Googz]

Thanks for shedding more light on this. Their honesty is refreshing! I might just purchase the intake because of that. Haha

[Viffermike]

Originally Posted by Googz

Thanks for shedding more light on this. Their honesty is refreshing! I might just purchase the intake because of that. Haha

Quite. Kudos to Mishimoto Engineering for the transparency. It's apparently part of the company DNA; the web page is full of fully documented R&D/testing for many makes & models. Definitely refreshing to see -- and one of many reasons why I gravitate toward smaller shops for stuff like this (even beyond cars).

[e46m3lol]

You can spend a lot of pennies on the AWE intake

I've had it for 3 weeks now it I love pooping the hood to see the carbon fiber eye candy