mine is two piece, scratched up polished aluminum, mandrel bent(I haven't seen any that aren't:dunno: ) and very lightweight too:thumbup:

 

I like my analogies! :fawk: But then I personally am big on names... To each is own... just giving my damn opinion.h:

 

I hear you mang, voice ur opinion, just don't offer anymore analogies:fawk:

 

thanks for all the inputs... just wanted to get different people opinions on the subject. im going to get one from ebay with the CARB sticker since we have a smog regulation here in CA. like all if not most of you, i also plan to put only good stuff on my car, but i also try to be wise in spending my money. its cool that we get to learn from other people's expereince in this web-board... thanks again.

 

about the carb sticker... what makes one brand of CAI carb approved and others are not? if they're all technically the same, then they all should be carb approved right? for the ones that don't come with the carb sticker, where can i find a sticker?

 

I doubt you could legally buy CARB stickers... but you could prolly find one somewhere for sell or make one yourself. Companies like AEM pay for the research to make sure that their intakes are CARB compiant and thus they get the sticker rights... but cheap no-name companies don't care... because it's cheaper that way and appearantly they still sell just as many.

 

oh come on dude... there's not much "research" that goes into a mandrel bent tube with a filter on the end. just because you like to pay way too much money for a name brand doesn't mean the rest of us do.

 

I don't know much on what has been done or proven or the numbers behind that, but I can give you my opinion from an engineering perspective. There is a difference with mandrel bending, there has to be, FROM THE CAT BACK. Its like any tube or pipe, it will only flow as well as it can from the smallest diameter. Take a straw for example, if the smallest constriction was 0.5 mm but the rest was 5mm in diameter, would you feel a difference in the pressure it would take to suck up water, it might not be noticible by a person drinking, but there is a larger % difference if measured.

You also have to remember that at the bends are where there is a decrease in velocity at the inner diameter of the apex and there is turbulance induced by this change in direction. Add a decrease in diameter or shape(and obstacle in it's path) in the pipe and you add even more turbulance.

So to answer your question on if it matters? It will for the air flow from the catalytic converter back, but then again, you are still resticted by the pipe from the exhaust manifold to the catalytic, and so madrel would not do anymore than the crush bend should have done because they are still both restricted from the front pipe.

For an intake it will help though, by how much I really don't know, depends on the difference in diameter you get, the car, and so many other factors.

 

Until someone proves me wrong, I am sticking to my guns on this. What affect does turbulence have on the performance aspect of this stuff? I still say that if you take my car and put 2 1/4" crush bent piping on it from the catback and hayame muffler, the numbers would be identical to the same setup but w/mandrel bent piping. No increase or decrease.

 

I used to have one made by Focuz that wasn't. It was one of those ones where about a foot of the pipe is 5" while the rest is the normal size. It was welded where the pipe changed size. Has anyone seen these? They DO make a difference in sound; it was a loot deeper and throatier than the CAI I have now, but the power gain was about the same.

Overall, I just thought it was fugly and looks much nicer in my brother in law's 1989 RiceTegra