I have a 2008 Mazda 3 hatchback and i wanted to put a cold air intake on it. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on which brand to go with or if it helped at all or doesn't really make a difference.

 

Get one with a filter to prevent hydro-locking when driving through large bodies of water. People also tend to get cold air intakes that can be built as short ram intakes as well, as some aftermarket manufacturers do make them (Injen in particular)

Also check out AEM as they produce a nice CAI as well. In terms of a performance difference - you may notice something, but mostly a placebo effect to be truthful. The car will definitely breath better and sound better, but in reality adding an intake without a proper tune to accommodate it won't give you anything near the advertised level of performance.

 

Cold air has more oxogen content than hotter engine bay air. I dought a simple CAI really needs a tune. It would sure help though. I wouldnt be surprised to see 5- 8 hp on a stock engine. Correct me if im wrong.

 

By the time the air is used in the process by the engine the oxygen (cold vs hot air) difference is minimal. 5-8 sounds about right, but some aftermarket distributers claim their intakes add up to 15hp/18tq, which I feel is unreasonable to expect.

 

Ya most of the Hp claims are bogus. Most people dont realize or see the little print stating the gains are dynoed on the car that has been completely rebuilt to race specs.

 

I drive a 2005 2.3L hatchback, wanting to increase my cars overall horsepower. I preferably want a SRI because living in Canada driving through snow I don't want to deal with the CAI maintenance and water logging problems.

Please send me ideas in which brand and model would work for my car!

Also, has anyone ever used Weapon-R intakes?

 

As far as HP a lot depends on the car. My old rx8 didn't get junk when putting on a CAI, maybe 2HP, but the 2012 mazdaspeed3 gets some decent gains with a CAI.

What are people seeing with the regular mazda3 2.3L engine?
Racingbeat recommends the K&N typhoon CAI.

Like most people said your not going to get any noticeable gains just from a CAI. It really only adds up with multiple bolt-ons and performance modifications.

Maybe we should start a thread just to list the available CAIs for the different gens of 3s