hey i just called AEM and spoke to one of their engine expert...guys.. and had a long conversation with him about my car (2k2 protege es 2.0L) and a cold/short ram intake. He told me how AEM was the first 2 make these intakes, and how they should of copyrighted it....and how they test each intake they make very thuralilly blah blah blah..to 2 get 2 the point. He stated that with only around 10 kinds of cars....the short ram serves its purpose better than the cold air. He said thats y they dont make a cold air intake for the protege, gave me an anology of an amatuer snorkler snorkling with a 10 foot snorkle rather than a 2 foot 1.... (what is he gonna snorkle better with?) the 2 foot 1 aka the short ram. Anyway, he gave me a long speech on how the cold air isnt that helpful for our protege's and had me leaning on getting a short ram, and so far rite now...im gonna get one from AEM. the whole conversation started when i called in asking if one of their bypass valves would work on a different cold air (injen) when he immediatly said no they rnt meant for that. So for the final question....is it still smart 2 get a cold air from a diff company? and if so where would u get the bypass from? n e thoughts on our convo because i am very very confused on what 2 do now. =(

 

You might get more answers if you use full words when you write. It is hard to understand a post like that.

 

did he say anything about heat soak?

 

The bypass will still work on an Injen. Why don't you just go with the AEM and then make your own extension. If you find (and probably will) that you can't tell the difference, just go with the original AEM design.
If you do use the bypass, you'll "bypass" any gain you may have obtained by buying the intake in the first place.

my $.02

-Bt

 

LOL

 

I've got the AEM and am satisfied with it. From all the threads I researched:

1) AEM SRI and Injen CAI have similar gains.

2) The bypass valve is a waste of money. It robs you of any power gain by the intake. Injen never made one, so they may not see a need for it. I've only heard of one person hydrolocking they engine and they hit water that was several feet deep.

Summary... AEM is fine and don't drive through puddles more than a foot deep.

 

How big of a danger is hydrolocking with a cold air style intake? How much more power do you get than saw a K&N filter ($34 for my 03 P5) versus $200+ for most cold air solutions.



Thanks in advance.

 

man i should have taken pictures of my friends civic he had a cold air intake and he went thought a slightly deep puddle and he sucked water into his engine.. one of the connecting rods blew right though the block tearing a huge hole... he wishes he had that bypass valve now...

 

You know the funny thing is a little H2O is good for fuel economy and power... just wish it would compress better

I'll prolly just stick to the K&N and consider getting the Japanese spec cams that my MazdaSpeed dealer is offering for $600 installed... which i think is a little too steep. What do you think?
oh, and still looking for a dyno plot with the J spec cams.

 

humm... unless i was going for the tone, i wouldn't even do it.

im still using the stock setup. for power gains i would just go with a wet nitrous kit. its a lot faster and easier to get that kind of gain than trying to pinch out gains off a na motor.

 

Nitrous? (waay too expensive per shot) No way, I want this to by my everyday car... the cams should have almost no impact on reliablility, and may actually help fuel economy in addition to adding the 15 hp the dealer was tlaking about (but i want a dyno plot to prove it).

Installed the K&N today felt the difference right away. not much, but anything helps.

 

you know..I read this post and it pretty much summed up what I was thinking. I don't think there would be a difference in a CAI and the SRI. the CAI, though it is taking "cold air" from the wheel well...1, would take forever to get back to the TB...travelling over a hot engine anyway. Unless you insulated the CAI, I don't think it would matter anyway. THe SRI is the same concept. From the pictures I have seen with the SRI, it looks like it sits right behind the driverside headlight. I could safely assume that both would result in the same amount of gain....hell, who can really tell the difference in +/- 2HP anyway...and thats at the crank...unless you're a dyno.

and all of the above is IMO. I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong

 

news flash....

AEM is releasing a cold air intake for the Protege 2.0L

I read it the other day.

Your AEM salesman, tech, whatever is full of ****.

 

Well, on this mazda6, the short ram proved to be more beneficial than the cai: http://aempower.com/product_intake_app.asp

 

I agree... as hot as the 2.0 runs... you'd need to insulate the Cold air to have any benefit from the cold portion. If you don't you might just as well save $140 and put a K&N filter instead like I did.