Hi, I just bought my car Friday. I am a serious N00B. My dealer part shop says its impossible for cold air intake to work, says the system controls the valves for the air intake on he motor and it wont let any more air in no matter what.

I did a search for the info, (i got allot of info) I am trying for a quick answer.
I dont want to prove anything to the dealer, I just want to know how it works so I know.

How does it (Cold air intake) trick the system?

thanks

 

If you really want to trick the system, get a reflash haha

 

yeah reflash definitely is the way tooo go

 

The intake won't "trick the system", your ecu will eventually relearn and adjust to the increased airflow. Getting a reflash or tune will just help to make the intake just work more efficiently since you're tuning your ECU to work better with it (e.g., changing the air-fuel ratio).

 

thanks, sounds like it would be a good add on. I also dont want to void the warranty. its my daily driver

 

you won't void your warranty for the whole car, only for the intake part, obviously since you changed it, and the only way you can void the warranty for other parts is only if it's proven that the intake made the part under investigation fail...

 

The Austin dealer here installed my stillen intake and now im thinking did they just install it or did they program it to work efficiently also.

 

They just probably installed, dealers generally won't really tune your car for mods.

 

It doesn't trick the system.


What happens is that with a CAI, there is an increase in air flow. What is misleading about what most people tell you is that because you have more air flow, you run leaner as a result of having more air for the input amount of fuel. But during normal driving, your o2 sensor runs on a closed loop, meaning that based on the composition of your exhaust flow, it will adjust the fuel input accordingly as to maintain the stock stoichiometric ratio of air to fuel.

When your engine is under a heavy load, such as going wide open throttle or such, the o2 sensor goes to an open loop, meaning the ecu switches to preset fuel maps, so it's possible that you run a bit leaner as the fuel input amount is fixed and you have a higher than usual density of air coming in.


Either way, you're adding more power to the engine, so that's that.

 

thanks for the replys

 

thanks. I will order one next month. and my car will be even FASTER!!