CAI...not seen any difference

[glenny1988]

changed to the mace cai had it since july ant seen no difference to be honest was thinking of changing back to stock as iv got bit of a slugishness on heavy acceleration what is everyones opinion if uv had it,did u change it back cas u didnt see the point,is it better just to have the k & n panel filter in stock box
cheers!

[karlos]

Have you spoke to Steve at MACE regarding this issue?

edit:I see you saw my post and made a thread.

[glenny1988]

have made a post in the mace forum section awaiting reply!

[MACE]

And have replied

attention MACE...not seeing any difference in your product

[soop]

The Mace box wont be worse then the standard setup, but its a little nieve to have expected to feel any difference.

Its another one of those things that goes to aid the over all efficiency of the engine. The easier it is for the motor to perform one action the less engergy is spent doing it.
Its all about Volumetric efficiency.

[impulsive]

Definition of Placebo - Wow, that Chev badge added 50hp, i felt a lot more response in the throttle straight away...

This is much the similiar effect of any CAI... i doubt you will notice a difference

[soop]

Two hole mod is a placebo.
Airbox still flows the same.

That said any gain you notice will be very very very minimal with any kind of CAI. Without other mods.

[MACE]

Gee we must be attracting an awful number of naive people, more so the fact that they’ve actually taken the time out to write up reviews of these products in addition to some of them taking the time out to do some practical data logging.

MACE Cold Air Intake

eBay Feedback Profile for mace_engineering_group

So what do you guys think, every single one of those people are naive? Call me naive but as good as my “sales” skills are and the number of people with actual product experience, statically speaking I would be inclined to say no

[Torquative]

if it helps Steve we noticed a difference in data when I put the insulators on then we tuned the Alloytec with VCM. I cant remember what changed exactly, but it had to be adjusted to suit having the insulators in ... but that's just going off data VCM suite had collected opposed to how things felt and that was for the insulators not the air box.

[MACE]

Well it's great to see people actually testing out our products instead of others speculating about them without any product experience

Cheers,
Steve

[WogBoyz]

Im also backing steve.. all the products i got from him for my v6 ute, spacers, larger tb, cai airbox all made a differnce to my ute. Wasnt a massive differences but you could deff they had an effect, keep up the good work MACE!

[impulsive]

im sure if you change the tb, size of the airbox, piping, tune it, and bolt on a blower you will notice a difference, but as far as bolting on a CAI ONLY, no exhaust not tuned or anything else i'm very doubtful you will notice a difference at the foot... Call me naive, but im sure a 'sales person' will tell you anything to get a sale.. not doubting any product or their businesses. it is as a whole that i doubt any small modification such as cai will make a difference.

That Chev badge really added 50hp, i swear...

[soop]

Pretty much my sentiments impulsive.

[glenny1988]

couldnt agree with u more impulsive...iv yet to find a better throttle body to upgrade,piping what better can go then standard black psv? and not meaning to sound stupid but what u mean by a bolt on blower( is that slang for exhaust lol)

[karlos]

im sure if you change the tb, size of the airbox, piping, tune it, and bolt on a blower you will notice a difference, but as far as bolting on a CAI ONLY, no exhaust not tuned or anything else i'm very doubtful you will notice a difference at the foot... Call me naive, but im sure a 'sales person' will tell you anything to get a sale.. not doubting any product or their businesses. it is as a whole that i doubt any small modification such as cai will make a difference.

That Chev badge really added 50hp, i swear...

I take it you are referring to Alloytechs/SIDI's only?

[impulsive]

couldnt agree with u more impulsive...iv yet to find a better throttle body to upgrade,piping what better can go then standard black psv? and not meaning to sound stupid but what u mean by a bolt on blower( is that slang for exhaust lol)

Blower = Supercharger.. im sure with the right mod's combined you will notice a difference.. TB piping and CAI will make a world of a distance, and combined with an flowing exhaust to match even better.. but for someone to claim a world of difference from a CAI only... im not so sure

[impulsive]

I take it you are referring to Alloytechs/SIDI's only?

yeah i only talk in alloytecs sorry...

[MACE]

In general alloytec or not you can definitely improve the performance of an internal combustion engine just by modifying the intake system. In the case of the alloytec the area with the greatest potential for improvement is the air box assembly. Modifying or replacing this with a well designed item WILL yield a measurable increase in performance by itself. I've never suggested that these items by themselves will yield reductions in quarter mile times by seconds, but going by the overwhelming feedback with people running our cold air intakes in various configurations, practically speaking work as described.

Why? Well here is a detailed explanation I've written in another forum below (Q and A). Was written about a throttle body discussion but definitely still applicable here.

“At the end of the day a engine can only consume as much air as it is capable of, having a bigger hole to let the air in doesn’t mean that it will be able to actually to consume more air.”

Volume flow rate is different to pressure. Meaning you can have the same volume flow rate but much higher pressure (the extreme case would be forced induction) which would relate to an increase in power, as it “crams” the additional oxygen in the cylinders. The same is true with naturally aspirated engines however they have only atmospheric pressure to play with (around 101.3kPa absolute pressure) therefore one of the ways to improve power in naturally aspirated vehicle is to reduce the pressure drop across the entire inlet tract (including throttle body). In the case of a boosted car it’s much easier to overcome this inherent pressure drop by simply running more boost.

As for reducing air speed in the inlet tract it’s not as bad as people make it out to be as slowing air speed does decrease the pressure drop across the induction system.

In saying this though if this was to occur around the injector/cylinder port area it’s not good, as it would result in poor fuel atomization, wet-walling etc. Anything before and I wouldn’t be worried to much about speed. It’s only when fuel is involved that speed is important. Speed is important in the intake manifold but that’s when you start playing around with runner diameter and lengths, to achieve desired savaging etc. Yes savaging does occur in the inlet tract but is quite weak relative to that occurs in the manifold itself.

Basically putting a larger throttle body is the same reason why larger inlet piping, higher flowing filter works!

For more info check out the following links

Boost Part 1

Boost Part 2

You can take what I've written with a grain of salt, as biased fantasy, however I encourage people to do the following easy testing themselves!

No need for techincal engineering calcs, all you need is a coke bottle, some clear tube and water to make yourself a manometer, plus a stop watch and a way you go.

CAI Mods Tested

Interesting as to see how they were able to achieve some significant results just by some mild tweaks

Cheers,
Steve

[impulsive]

......... i'm very doubtful you will notice a difference at the foot...

steve,
no one is having a chop at your product, from what ive researched its probably one of the most considerable on the market for alloytec, and if i had the coin i would trial it... what the OP is saying is that he doesnt feel the gains at the peddle, or, seat of his pants.. he doesnt physically feel the power gains, which is what we are saying.. not that they arent there.. testing will show better airflow and more hp no doubt. Please don't take us the wrong way.

[kuzman89]

Noticed a def imrovement in throttle response, fuel eco and alittle power. Revs alot easier also, different car though. Steve knows his stuff

[soop]

I've just gotta wonder why you're car is so much different to everyone else's.

I've had maybe 6 - 7 cars over the years. And modified them all.
Not one has ever had a noticeable difference from just fitting a fancy pipe to it... ever.

CAI goes along way to helping when you're doing so more major modifications no doubt, but as a stand alone mod its just about pointless.

[wortus]

Noticed a def imrovement in throttle response, fuel eco and alittle power. Revs alot easier also, different car though. Steve knows his stuff

I think the other thing to consider is does fitting one of these on it's own provide a performance/efficiency increase comensurate with it's cost? I've got an open mind on this however at this point in time I would not be disposed to spend in the order of $300 just to change an air box. For a V6 my car goes good enough stock and if I wanted more power then I'd probably think about getting a V8.

[MACE]

steve,
no one is having a chop at your product, from what ive researched its probably one of the most considerable on the market for alloytec, and if i had the coin i would trial it... what the OP is saying is that he doesnt feel the gains at the peddle, or, seat of his pants.. he doesnt physically feel the power gains, which is what we are saying.. not that they arent there.. testing will show better airflow and more hp no doubt. Please don't take us the wrong way.

It’s all good impulsive

I’m always willing to listen to any constructive feedback good or bad

As for the op’s problem it was most likely attributed to the incorrect pipe we’ve sent up as shown in the link I posted close to the top of this page.

attention MACE...not seeing any difference in your product

Long story short our alloytec CAI kits run the same diameter pipe as they earlier kits except half as long. The tube should be around 50mm long. He was originally supplied a longer pipe from my understanding

This steel tube joins the rubber hose and pod filter together. If this pipe is too long it will intrude into the inlet tract hurting airflow, thus performance.

Hope this clears up the ops case.

Cheers,
Steve

I've just gotta wonder why you're car is so much different to everyone else's.

I've had maybe 6 - 7 cars over the years. And modified them all.
Not one has ever had a noticeable difference from just fitting a fancy pipe to it... ever.

CAI goes along way to helping when you're doing so more major modifications no doubt, but as a stand alone mod its just about pointless.

So you did similar sort of testing to what this guy’s done below?

CAI Mods Tested

Interesting to see just changing a short elbow shaved .15 seconds in his 0-100 time

Bare in mind the car is dead standard, so the results are effectively stand alone

As for the op’s problem it was most likely attributed to the incorrect pipe we’ve sent up as shown in the link I posted close to the top of this page.

attention MACE...not seeing any difference in your product

Long story short our alloytec CAI kits run the same diameter pipe as they earlier kits except half as long. The tube should be around 50mm long. He was originally supplied a longer pipe from my understanding

This steel tube joins the rubber hose and pod filter together. If this pipe is too long it will intrude into the inlet tract hurting airflow, thus performance.

Hope this clears up the ops case

I think the other thing to consider is does fitting one of these on it's own provide a performance/efficiency increase comensurate with it's cost? I've got an open mind on this however at this point in time I would not be disposed to spend in the order of $300 just to change an air box. For a V6 my car goes good enough stock and if I wanted more power then I'd probably think about getting a V8.

And that’s fair enough. And depending on your current mods, budget and your requirements probably would probably recommend something else next anyways

[wortus]

[And that’s fair enough. And depending on your current mods, budget and your requirements probably would probably recommend something else next anyways [/QUOTE]

From what I have read the most cost effective mod for a stock Ecotech (as mine is) would probably be one of the Mace Engineering spacers that fits between the inlet manifold and the plenum chamber?

[kuzman89]

Really speaks for itself (VE) Not only is the piping larger, there is barely any restriction compared to stock. Every time I go in for a warranty claim I put the standard box back on and it really feels lethargic.