Wow, what a pain in the ___ to get to the throttle body for maintenance. Do we REALLY need all that air box stuff. I'm a 'car guy' (not mechanic), and have been very happy in the past with aftermarket 'cold air intakes' My question is... can anyone give me advice on a intake for my Sport? I can't believe the $ that K&N get for theirs. Has anyone made their own?

 

Theres a DIY on here that requires cutting the stock airbox maf sensor out that people have used to make one. seemed simple enough if youre okay with cutting stuff up. I think they spent roughly 50-60 bucks doing it.

https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/2nd-...e-cai-sri.html

 

Yes, this car is tiny and is limited in space. The Honda engineers who design and tuned everything know what they are doing. Everything is designed for a reason and even though there are flaws in their designs, its tuned to its maximum efficiency. This is including the exhaust system as well.

I have not tried K&N intake system, but I will be testing it in the near future.

 

I would not recommend what these guys are doing unless you have a dyno to prove the difference in the power band that you playing with.

 

not to be a jerk ..but did u even bother trying to search the site? theres lots of info on this and almost everything else regarding the car on this site. if you are having trouble finding stuff go to google, enter your terms along with fitfreak for best results.

but here....ill sum it up for you...
theres only a small handful of intakes made for us that work on our cars. dont bother with the ebay $50 one that says they fit, u will get errors from the MAF space not being precise. cheapest cost wise new is HPS, about $160. goes up from there unless you find one used. id advise to not bother with the homemade hack version, personally i dont like clamping stuff to plastic pipes that were not designed for such things. ive seen a couple melted ones too.

as for performance from a legit one, u will get a a slightly better throttle response, bit better fuel economy, and vtec sounds around 5200 rpm.

 

Thanks very much for all responses, I too don't like cutting stuff up, I was just trying to get a straighter air flow w/o all the plumbing, and better accessibility to the throttle body. Lets face it, a performance boost is a joke with these cars, and I wasn't looking for that. I just can't get my head around the cost of $$$ for bent tubing and a filter. I know engineers are paid a lot of money to design these things, but really....look at the stock Air Box! Is the MAF Sensor a different shape in the 1st Gen (round) than the 2nd Gen (rectangular)?

 

Can anyone with a short ram intake chime in on whether or not heat soaking is an issue? As others have mentioned the engine bay in these cars is really tight and it seems like a short ram would just end up sucking up a lot of hot air and losing power on a warm sunny day.

 

most short rams for the GE get the same "ram air" from the factory hoodscoop that the oem intake gets. which isnt much...but temps did drop about 10 degrees the other day when i checked on my torque app on a short drive. in motors this size ive never noticed a difference in power of a cai vs a short ram..especially in warm seasons when the ambient air is hot anyways. i thought about running a duct from the bumpers mouth, up the side of the battery to the cone filters location. but then remembered it made no noticable difference on my scion xa.

at one point, on my scion xa, i had a TRD cai....literally in the fender\bumper. the inconvenience of getting to the filter to clean, or even just check on it was more trouble than it was worth. the only time i could say it felt like made 2hp instead of 1hp was in the dead of winter. and my scion was "dumber" than the Fit.

 

So I ended up buying the HPS short ram off Amazon earlier this year. I really was up in the air about even adding an intake, even though they were only about $170. As I was scrolling down they had the color blue and it was only $100, it was too good to even pass up so I just bought it. No idea why it was so much cheaper, but I'm not complaining.

My thoughts on it....... it does give the car some more sound but it's not what I thought it was. I have a short ram on my 05 Acura TL and it has that deep intake sound..... Not that I expect that on this little 1.5. I had an Integra, and you could hear the throaty intake sound even on that. On the fit it sounds a little more buzzy then anything else I think.

I will say I do feel like it gave the car a little more kick. I can feel it more in the upper revs. I have the 5mt and since this car revs so high, I can definitely feel more power in 5th gear on the highway. Can't say I've really felt any heat soak in either of my cars. This car isn't exactly fast, so any extra hp I'll take. Thought about a cat back exhaust also but seems the only one I can find is a Yonaka, and I'm not sure they even make it anymore. Their site always says it's out of stock.

 

I have the K&N one here: https://www.knfilters.com/cold-air-i...-intake-system and bought when my car was a little over a year old and haven't regretted I haven't ever had no heat soaking issues with my intake or any other issues with it. Mine is about 5 yrs old the intake anyways and I love mine.

 

One more vote for the HPS short ram; easy install, and it definitely opens up space in the engine bay. Can't say much about power as I'm running a Sprintex supercharger, but the HPS definitely made the supercharger much more audible to the point where it's comical. Though I like noises like that.