K&N "Cold" Air Intake Mod

[H3slate]

I have had a K&N cold air intake for a few years now and I have been pretty happy with it. The big drawback to me is the shield they send you to protect your filter from the engine bay. It leaves a lot to be desired.

There is plenty of dirt and water that gets in that area, as well as gaps that left me wanting something better.

Now I know that there is a product out there that utilizes the stock air box,:shifty: Air Doc, but I wasn't ready to fork out more money for my intake. Besides I still had the stock air box laying around and already had a perfectly good intake tube.

So I decided to see if I could keep the K&N intake and get the benefits of a sealed box for the filter. So, I started cutting.
I guess there is no turning back now.

Previously I had tried to eyeball to see if it would work, and you just didn't know for sure either way. I thought that I would have to modify the outlet hole to adjust for the more severe bend of the K&N tube. Once I had the hole cut I pieced everything together. It was a tight fit and all connections had to be made at the same time. But, it worked!! The hole was the perfect size for the tube, and there was room in the air box for the filter.

To try to make things easier to fit together, I cut 1 1/2 in. off the end of the intake tube. This would allow some more room in the air box to fit the filter. I also did some trimming to the ribs on the inside of the airbox to adjust for the new position of the filter in the box.

I reused some of the trim pieces from the old shield to help clean up the new air box hole and hopefully make for a tighter fit.

 

[H3slate]

While working on this it gave me an opportunity to clean my MAF sensor and clean the throttle body. I also cleaned and re-oiled my filter. There was a lot of dirt in there. :whaa:

Put everything back together and added the "required" stickers. :giggle:

It turned out really good. I now have an enclosed area for my filter, protected from the heat of the engine and the dirt from the road. This setup actually made the intake more secure, I was able to stop using the bracket that mounts to the side of the engine. Before there was enough movement where the intake tube would hit the underside of the hood on bumpy roads. This led to a wild goose chase to find the "suspension" noise I kept hearing. :emb: There is still a small gap where the intake tube meets the box, but the gap is much narrower.

Still trying to decide what to use to seal that up better. Any suggestions??

 

[Dennis]

Nice mod to the air box...I'll keep that option in mind..

I too was not satisfied that the air-box seal was not sealing against the hood underside very well..So I added some split foam Pipe insulation and that did the trick

Original

 

[alrock]

Nice work. I didn't realize that K&N had an open top box setup similar to the Airraid (Airraid was filter and open box shield only - no intake tube). I had an Airraid for a while and moved back to the closed box as I figured cooler air would come through the fender wall than through the engine compartment. I also had too much dirt and water getting into that open box.

I ended up ditching the oiled filters as I think they were contributing to the large amounts of dirt I was seeing in my intake. Maybe I just couldn't find the happy medium between properly oiled and stopping dirt as I didn't want too much oil or too little. I've got the boring ol' OEM setup of paper filter and OEM intake. :emb:

 

[Chook]

I had the K&N also but was not happy with dust/water etc. After speaking with Woofpac he recommended Volant CAI and it works great. The filter is sealed in a separate airbox and the plastic intake seems to insulate the incoming air much better that the metal K&N giving lower Intake Air Temp. I have also ditched the oiled filter types (a lot of comments of dirt ingestion) so have installed the Donaldson Filter. (The mining industry use these filters extensively as they are much better in dusty environments) Volant also sell a debris cover for when you go extreme environment. Here are some videos of my system..............

[video=youtube;I6h5wyM5y14]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6h5wyM5y14&context=C39e1143ADOEgsToPDskL1 QdMtegzFybpbp_Ed2BLI[/video]

[video=youtube;4PDdtV63nHQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PDdtV63nHQ&context=C39e1143ADOEgsToPDskL1 QdMtegzFybpbp_Ed2BLI[/video]

[video=youtube;O52wL2O32tA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O52wL2O32tA&context=C39e1143ADOEgsToPDskL1 QdMtegzFybpbp_Ed2BLI[/video]

 

[Dennis]

If you wish to stay with the original airbox..aFe make a really good filter like K&N but without the oil.. p/n 10-10096

http://www.autoanything.com/air-filters/77A2113A2560006.aspx

 

[machineguneddie]

I plan on putting the pipe insulation around my air box like Dennis did, and I want ahead and bought the prefilter air sock from K&N (matches the color of my truck) the sock is supposed to keep out fine dust and water. I'm also thinking about a new air intake or modding the stock one over the fender, but I dont want to go full snorkel ) I do like the looks of the low ones that resemble an H1