ONLY if the stock air box is the bottleneck. If the stock air box and stock air filter already flow more air than the turbo can suck, you're intake has done nothing but lighten your wallet.

On a side note, as I understand it: Our cars will see initial power with an intake because it leans out the AFR (as TTP said). However, the ecu will start to compensate for the added air flow, and eventually, the gains you see from an intake will be minimal at best. The only way to see true, sustained power is by tuning the ECU and MAF to run a leaner AFR, so the ECU doesn't feel the need to readjust back to factory AFR (rich). The tuners are free to correct me on this, but this is my understanding.

And, the above is why running an intake that circumvents the MAF's ability to detect the amount of air actually being flowed without getting a tune is dangerous. Running 14:1 AFR and such...

 

our stock intake likie every stock intake on the market IS A BOTTLENECK

 

No offense, but I'd rather wait for people who actually have experience tuning cars with modern ECUs and hot wire MAFs to correct me before I acknowledge the validity of your statement.

 

wait no longer, ive tuned a handful 6-8 srt-4's (granted there is no "maf") and was very proficient with HP tuners on the LSJ.

ON top of that, i belong to a large evo club and spend alot of time working on them and have for the last few years.

At the end of the day though my friend, Its research and common sense.

 

That's nice. I'm just basing my statements on feedback from people with experience working on cars with hot wire MAF. Also, I would not call this an issue of common sense: Common sense is something that is obvious, a priori.

Let's break down the facts:

• The RA's I/C is tiny.
• The RA's turbo is small.
• The RA's ECU is a neural-net processor... a learning computer: It will compensate for leaner conditions over time.
• The RA has a hot wire MAF that the ECU uses to measure AFR; some intakes throw off the MAF, meaning the ECU can't properly account for AFR and the RAs run dangerously lean without a tune.
• All of the current intakes suck air from inside the engine bay.
• The stock airbox sucks air from outside the engine bay.

Now, looking at that objectively, it tells me that, even if the short-ram and "cold-air" intakes might be more free flowing than the stock air box, they are sucking in hotter (i.e., less dense air) than the stock airbox. The I/C is so small that it probably suffers from a tremendous amount of heat soak, and it most likely cannot properly cool the hotter air being taken in by an intake. Without a tune, the ECU will compensate for the added flow from the intake, or if it can't account for the extra air, the engine could run dangerously lean.

To end, we still do not have side-by-side comparisons of the same car, on the same dyno, tuned with and tuned without an intake. Until we do, your "guarantee" that an intake = more power (i.e., the stock airbox is the bottleneck) on the RA is unverifiable. Could the stock airbox eventually be a bottleneck? Sure, but that is probably very far down the line in upgrade priorities.

Until someone whom I respect as a tuner in the Mitsu community corrects me, I'm not changing my opinion. I just hate the idea of people running out to spend $300 + on an intake when there are, potentially, much more beneficial mods for the money.

 

hahha I wouldn't go that far.

it's not making logical decisions and learning from them to make it smarter or solve problems faster. It's changing parameters based on how far +/- it is off a set standard. That's it.

I do like the terminator franchise as much as the next geek though.

 

Sorry, I couldn't help it.

 

If the ECU becomes self aware, there will be serious consequences.

 

LOL^^^

I will say, airfilters ALWAYS pose resistance to airflow, some less than others. I'm with second chance that it fascilitates the improvements, but thats not where all the gains a 24 lb/m setup sees from the filter comes from. It makes sense that it simply leans the mixture out some and thats where most of the HP comes from.

I would be more apt to believe that theory in a higher HP car. Say, around 35lbs/min or so.

 

+1 for do them all... you'll get a very nice power gain

 

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