Good but cheep cold air intake

[Santos]

I've been looking for a cold air intake for my 2002 ford ranger edge but I haven't been able to find one for it.

 

[91stranger]

This is a highly debatable topic on here. Some say its not worth it, other say it just swirls hot air from the engine into it, others say it does help. I personally have had a K&N cone filter attached to the end of the intake and removed the plastic box. I will tell you didn't really do anything other than looks... I couldn't tell if there was more power or not. It didn't help my gas mileage and it didn't make much sound (most good CAI's have a nice throaty sound compared to stock intakes). So at the end of the day it is up to you.

Personally, I would just buy a K&N air filter for your stock intake and be done with it. I know there are people on here with computer readings showing the difference.

 

[Blmpkn]

Are you looking for a short ram or an actual cold air Intake?

A short ram leaves the filter exposed in the engine bay, letting it suck in 100°+ degree air. Engines dont like sucking hot air. If your intake air temperature is high enough the computer will pull timing, drastically reducing power, especially from a stop sign.. Which Is where we want our power.


An actual cold air intake will put its filter usually in the fender of whatever it's on, separated from the engine bay. That way, your motor will always be pulling in "cold" air. However, a true cold air intake also has a habit of ruining your motor by sucking up the first big puddle you come across.

BOTH styles, by design, will leave you with a net LOSS in torque, with MABEY a 5hp gain up top where the average person realistically never revs to.

 

[Santos]

This is a highly debatable topic on here. Some say its not worth it, other say it just swirls hot air from the engine into it, others say it does help. I personally have had a K&N cone filter attached to the end of the intake and removed the plastic box. I will tell you didn't really do anything other than looks... I couldn't tell if there was more power or not. It didn't help my gas mileage and it didn't make much sound (most good CAI's have a nice throaty sound compared to stock intakes). So at the end of the day it is up to you.

Personally, I would just buy a K&N air filter for your stock intake and be done with it. I know there are people on here with computer readings showing the difference.

So it's better to keep just puf a better filter in?

 

[Blmpkn]

The only reason to buy an aftermarket filter is for its potential lifetime. You can wash them and re-oil them over and over instead of having to buy a new one every 50k miles.

Buying one thinking it'll give you more power is a fools errand. Factory filters are designed to flow as much.. usually MORE cfm than the motor could even suck in on its own.

 

[Dirtman]

I've been looking for a cold air intake for my 2002 ford ranger edge but I haven't been able to find one for it.

It already has one on it. They installed it at the factory. There is NO aftermarket system better than the factory one. Period.

 

[1990RangerinSK]

It already has one on it. They installed it at the factory. There is NO aftermarket system better than the factory one. Period.

Not entirely true. From October to April, all of my vehicles have a much better aftermarket Cold Air Intake than the one from the factory. It's called Saskatchewan Winter. December to February usually give the best CAI.

 

[Dirtman]

Not entirely true. From October to April, all of my vehicles have a much better aftermarket Cold Air Intake than the one from the factory. It's called Saskatchewan Winter. December to February usually give the best CAI.

 

[PetroleumJunkie412]

It already has one on it. They installed it at the factory. There is NO aftermarket system better than the factory one. Period.

Second exception, when you alter the volumetric efficiency of your engine, intake needs may change.

Will say I picked up 2mpg from a CAI on my 2011 SuperDoody with a 6.2. It got me to a whopping 11.5 average.

 

[bilbo]

On just about every car I've ever owned, the air is brought in through duct/hose/plastic box thingy from somewhere by the grille. So outside 'cold' air. So I've never really understood the cold air intakes that are a tube with a cone filter on the end.

 

[Curious Hound]

Second exception, when you alter the volumetric efficiency of your engine, intake needs may change.

Will say I picked up 2mpg from a CAI on my 2011 SuperDoody with a 6.2. It got me to a whopping 11.5 average.

Yay?

 

[cbxer55]

This is a highly debatable topic on here. Some say its not worth it, other say it just swirls hot air from the engine into it, others say it does help. I personally have had a K&N cone filter attached to the end of the intake and removed the plastic box. I will tell you didn't really do anything other than looks... I couldn't tell if there was more power or not. It didn't help my gas mileage and it didn't make much sound (most good CAI's have a nice throaty sound compared to stock intakes). So at the end of the day it is up to you.

Personally, I would just buy a K&N air filter for your stock intake and be done with it. I know there are people on here with computer readings showing the difference.

The reason most CAIs make more noise is they have a larger tube from the throttle body to the MAF. The MAC intake on my Ranger is noisy as f*ck, I hear it over the muffler less exhaust I have. It hisses real loud at idle, and has a deep throaty roar when the throttle is mashed. The intake on my Lightning is loud as f*ck, it lets out more supercharger noise than the stock EPA intake muffler airbox ever did. I just put a WeaponR intake on my Mustang. With a still stock exhaust, the intake is all I can hear.

By the way, all three have a hose running from behind the grill directing cool air up into the area the filter occupies. The WeaponR on the Mustang came with it, the one on my Ranger and Lightning are improvised.

On the 3.0 Ranger, the stock intake tube is pinched down to around 1.5 inches. Yet the TB and MAF are three inches. The stainless steel MAC tube maintains the three inches all the way across. Which is the reason you didn't really notice any change. Just out of curiosity, I tried putting the stock tube on, but leaving the open filter. Sucked ass big time. Ran just like stock. Put the big steel tube on and tossed all of the stock components in the round-open-top-file. Same with the Lightning and Mustang.

And when I buy a vehicle, the very first thing I do is change the intake. Every time. Without fail. In the Lightning world, you will be hard pressed to find one with the stock EPA intake muffler airbox. Every one of them will have an open filter CAI. The only ones that keep the stock one are those who desire their truck to remain stock. Anyone going for performance changes it out ASAP.

I even change them on my bikes. The B-King, you can't see it and all I've done is put a K & N filter in the stock location. But ran two tubes from the stock location to the front of the bike for cold air intake. The M109R, the two huge filters hang off the side of the bike, so they get plenty of cold air.

 

[Shran]

It already has one on it. They installed it at the factory. There is NO aftermarket system better than the factory one. Period.

This is 100% accurate, don't waste any time or money replacing something that works perfectly. Aftermarket "cold" air intakes gain you nothing.

Furthermore, I would advise simply using the factory filter as well. K&N and other oiled filters seem like the way to go because they're reusable, but the clog up REALLY fast in dusty environments, and the oil will migrate throughout your intake tube and all over the MAF sensor and potentially ruin it. Those paper filters will seem cheap in comparison to a new MAF sensor.

 

[cbxer55]

This is 100% accurate, don't waste any time or money replacing something that works perfectly. Aftermarket "cold" air intakes gain you nothing.

Furthermore, I would advise simply using the factory filter as well. K&N and other oiled filters seem like the way to go because they're reusable, but the clog up REALLY fast in dusty environments, and the oil will migrate throughout your intake tube and all over the MAF sensor and potentially ruin it. Those paper filters will seem cheap in comparison to a new MAF sensor.

Never had those problems with mine. I've never cleaned the MAF on my Ranger, and that intake has been on it since 2002. I clean and re-oil the filters yearly. The Lightning has had that intake since I bought it in 2009. So stop spreading false facts. I use Simple Green to clean the filters and good old K & N oil to oil them. Just don't over oil them. That's the reason that MAFs get oily. Most people have a tendency to think "More is better." It's not in this case. One pass, very lightly applied, good to go.

You like your EPA mandated intake muffler, you can keep your EPA mandated noise muffler. They are there so the vehicle can pass noise emissions in a closed booth. If you're like me, and like the sound of intake noise, you got to do it. I love intake noise. As said above, my Stang has the stock exhaust system (for now, not much longer), and after I changed the intake to that beautiful WeaponR, it roars now when out and about. I love it. It's going to go really good with a new exhaust system. Just haven't decided which one as of yet.

I recently had the intake off on my Lightning, for some supercharger maintenance. You see that beautiful aluminum elbow, which replaced the crinkly black rubber POS? Not one drop of oil inside it. Totally clean.

 

[cbxer55]

Are you looking for a short ram or an actual cold air Intake?

A short ram leaves the filter exposed in the engine bay, letting it suck in 100°+ degree air. Engines dont like sucking hot air. If your intake air temperature is high enough the computer will pull timing, drastically reducing power, especially from a stop sign.. Which Is where we want our power.


An actual cold air intake will put its filter usually in the fender of whatever it's on, separated from the engine bay. That way, your motor will always be pulling in "cold" air. However, a true cold air intake also has a habit of ruining your motor by sucking up the first big puddle you come across.

BOTH styles, by design, will leave you with a net LOSS in torque, with MABEY a 5hp gain up top where the average person realistically never revs to.

During the summer time, the air is 100 degrees anyway. You can't escape that. I drove my Lightning to a friends place one day, he lives around 100 miles away. It was January. The filter on the intake of my Lightning was cold to the touch when I got there.

Oh and btw, the 2.0 Ranger has a couple heat tubes that run from the heater hose to the intake manifold. Heating the intake manifold to the same temperature as the thermostat, 195 degrees. So much for your theory that the computer pulls timing for hot air. LMAO!! I cut and removed those two stupid tubes years ago.

As I said, the Lightning is a performance vehicle. And you will be hard pressed to find one of them with the stock airbox. There's a reason for that.

Oh, there's a way to keep the filter cleaner so you don't have to clean and re-oil it often. It's a sleeve that simply slides over the filter, called a pre-filter. They work well. I just need to order some for my vehicles. The one I had on the Lightning, I seem to have misplaced it. And that company doesn't offer them in red any more. Black only. But anyway, just once a year, remove the sleeve, rinse it in water, let it dry, put it back on, and motor on. With one of those on there, you really don't even need to oil the filter. The pre-filter catches just about anything the filter would. When I had that red one on the Lightning, I hadn't cleaned or oiled the filter for five years. But the last five years, been without it. I have a feeling it is in the ex-wife's garage. And I ain't going there.

AFE Power sells them. https://afepower.com/