I am really interested in the gains reported in the 3G Stillen CAI, but am a bit hesitant because of the difficulty in installing and ongoing service. I recently had the plastic facia off to install some stainless mesh behind the grill, and my worry would be having to remove this wretched plastic cover every time you want to service the filters. It seems like it would be a huge PITA. Any thoughts?

 

its something that does not get done too often..maybe once a year..twice at the MOST!! and thats to clean em..the process of getting 2 the filters can take no longer then 10 minutes, taking ur time...

 

Well maybe I don't know the best way to get that wreched plastic cover off the top. It took me a lot longer than 10 minutes... and I had to bend a stupid centre brace out of the way as it hooked the plastic shroud in place. It is by far the hardest car I have worked on to get access to the grill.

Maybe I am doing something wrong... let me know if there are any tricks.

First I removed all the plastic plugs with a screwdriver. Then I removed a bunch of 10m screws, then 2 more to release the rad overflow tank so that the shroud could be wiggled back to unhook the two steel pins that hold it down. Then you have to carefully bend the shroud ends to get it to pop out of the front... and then release all the cabling that is snapped to the front edge of the plastic so that it will come out far enough for you to gain access. getting it back in was not all that easy either as it tends to get hooked into the front grill tabs that snap the grill into place.

Not a user friendly design IMHO