injen cai vs mugen airbox

[SHOGUNRDC5]

hey guys just wanna know which of the two to you guys recomend? does anyone know if the injen is prone to hydro-lock? cos i just dont wanna experience that again.

[MrThanh]

hey dude. i saw your car outside uts lib on ultimo road the other day

i've got the injen cai, and if you're careful, you wont hydrolock, although it is very scary driving at night when it's raining due to the poor visibility. i've driven through a very deep puddle, and i thought that the car was going to die but it was fine. just dont VTAK it through puddles.

[kookie]

well it depends on how you drive. Injen feels like it lags down low but much more power up top. Mugen on the other hand is very responsive but not as much power up top.

[sangers]

Cold Air Intakes:
- Provide greatest peak power gain, second only to the Gruppem intake.
- Do not suffer heatsoak issues related to Short Ram Intakes due to being relocated away from the engine bay and engine heat.
- Have a laggy response due to their length (Like sucking through a long straw).
- Possible to hydrolock. Some people on this forum believe they have come very close to doing this. Some members of ClubRSX posted that they had hydrolocked their cars. Then some members on ClubRSX argue black and blue that it is near impossible to hydrolock your car. You be the judge. I would just avoid puddles.
- Illegal without an Engineer's Certificate (But they are not really visible so Police always overlook them. I've never heard of anyone being defected for having one on a DC5).

Mugen Airbox
- When used with a OEM bumper and grill, are one of the most restrictive aftermarket intakes available. Toda Racing Australia and Hondatech frown upon this intake greatly.
- When used with an aftermarket bumper and/or grill, with a provision for the intake scoop, yield better gain than an Short Ram Intake but fall short of Cold Air Intakes and the Gruppem intake.
- Are as reponsive as Short Ram Intakes.
- Do not suffer heatsoak issues related to Short Ram Intakes due to being enclosed in a shielding case and due to drawing oncoming cool air from the front grill area.
- Illegal without an Engineer's Certificate (But since they look like a stock airbox, Police always overlook them. I've never heard of anyone being defected for having one).

[GoldCoastDC5R]

There are very few cases of hydrolock cause by CAI's. In order to hydrolock you have to submerge the whole filter in water for a period of time of atleast a couple of seconds. I have driven my car in torrential rain heaps of times and had no problems, just make sure you leave the plastic lining around the inside of the guard as that stops a lot of water splashing from the wheel/tyre onto the Injen....

In terms of power the injen will give you a lot high power than the mugen airbox as it gets a hell of a lot more air, if you look at the intake of the mugen it isn't much bigger than stock.... You may aswell do the hondata mod to your stock airbox and run a feed to the front bar the same as what the mugen uses. Cost you 100$ max rather than close to 10times that for Mugen.

I haven't really noticed the CAI resulting in lost torque down low, it there is any it is very minimal...

I would say get Injen and then spend the rest of you money on other mods. go to www.tozka.com for best price on injen

[MrThanh]

if you're scared about hrdrolocking from water splashing onto the filter, k&n make a 'sock' that goes over the filter, called the [/i]drycharger[/i]. the filter does sit up fairly high though, and i'd imagine you have to drive into a very deep and/or very long puddle to hydrolock. you can probably see that i'm all for the injen cai... and the experience that i had when i came REALLY close to hydrolocking was scary, but it was also an eye opener as to how big a puddle has to be before something like that happens. and i do like the fact that it isnt screaming out "defect me!" the second you open your bonnet.

i find it so strange that you hydrolocked you car when you had the short-ram in there... but then again railway pde around canley is terrible to drive down in the rain (i avoid it completely when it rains)

[SHOGUNRDC5]

Mr Than...you go to UTS too?
sangers..thanks for clearing it up...about the hydro locking..well i managed to hydro lock my car with an sri hehehe.....so gruppe M has the best of both worlds? response and power?

[MrThanh]

Mr Than...you go to UTS too?
sangers..thanks for clearing it up...about the hydro locking..well i managed to hydro lock my car with an sri hehehe.....so gruppe M has the best of both worlds? response and power?

indeed i do 2nd yr b bus. b com.

if i recall correctly, on the dyno the gruppem makes very little difference to the mugen intake. but on the road, the gruppem is able to take in a lot more air due to the scoop that it's got.

[noodleman]

gruppem sure is the winner but the price of gruppem you can buy 3 injen CAI and 1 1/3 mugen intake

you wouldn't want to risk hydrolocking your car again would you? if you could afford it i'd go mugen / gruppem > injen

[sangers]

yeh u really cant test the mugen and gruppem intakes on the dyno. they are designed for flowing air. if u can run a dyno in a wind tunnel...

the concept of the mugen is to ram oncoming cold air into the intake scoop

the concept of the gruppem is to draw air from a low pressure pocket. when the car is in motion, oncoming air will flow pass the lower windscreen cavity and up the windscreen and you have a point at the bottom of the windscreen that is a virtual vaccuum. other places like this are in front of the front wheels (hence why u sometimes see intakes mounted here in other cars). go check out the intake mounting point of the k20 elise in the other thread - again, in a location to avoid airflow. the concept is low pressure -> low temperature. so u have a source of air that has a temperature lower than ambient.

[GoldCoastDC5R]

Mr Than...you go to UTS too?
sangers..thanks for clearing it up...about the hydro locking..well i managed to hydro lock my car with an sri hehehe.....so gruppe M has the best of both worlds? response and power?

How the hell did u hydrolock with a SRI? Did you have a vented bonnet and an un oiled filter or something? Being that any exposed filter should be thoroughly oiled most water that hits the filter will pass off the filter, hence why you really have to fully submerge the filter to cause hydrolock....

[MrThanh]

How the hell did u hydrolock with a SRI? Did you have a vented bonnet and an un oiled filter or something? Being that any exposed filter should be thoroughly oiled most water that hits the filter will pass off the filter, hence why you really have to fully submerge the filter to cause hydrolock....

iirc, he drove through a massive puddle, the tyres threw the water to the sides, and a lot of it ended up on his filter. if you've ever mounted a SRI into the DC5, there is absolutely nothing in the path between the filter element and the passenger side wheel. also, because the SRI piping is almost horizontal, it wouldn't take much suction to get the water into the TB as opposed to a CAI where it would have to suck the water up the length of the tubing. it's probably like turning the garden hose at your air filter while revving it or something i suppose.

[Jingers]

In terms of power the injen will give you a lot high power than the mugen airbox as it gets a hell of a lot more air, if you look at the intake of the mugen it isn't much bigger than stock.... You may aswell do the hondata mod to your stock airbox and run a feed to the front bar the same as what the mugen uses. Cost you 100$ max rather than close to 10times that for Mugen.

Incorrect.

Have you seen how thick the FRP walls of the mugen intake is? Have you seen how the wall of the stock intake box is laid out? It is a HUGE differnece. THe volumn of air that the mugen airbox holds is without doubt better. But of course if some people think hacking up an airbox works then so be it. There is only so much air a restricted pipe can suck up, i cannot see the aem sucking up more air nor have been proven to suck up more air.

More top end power is just a number hey? what about the torque and response inbetween? here lies the differnet tuning styles

[GoldCoastDC5R]

Jing the intake into the Mugen box is probably at most 10cm by 3cm in size that means that no matter how big the box is the amount of air getting into the box is restricted. If you file off all the ribs in the stock air box as well as the divider in the middle of the stock airbox then it would be very similar to mugen. The minimal increase in the volume of air in the box wouldn't result in that much more air being transferred into the Intake manifold. As sang alos mentioned without a aftermarket front bar which offers the scoop for the airbox it is no better than a stock airbox.

With the CAI the pod filter is fed through what forms the brake duct area and is open to the environment meaning that there is a much greater area for which air can access. With all of the lining around the guard in place if forms kind of a big airbox in a sense so to speak, the only restriction to the amount of air getting to the Intake Manifold is the throttle body as it has the smallest diameter opening from the pod filter to the IM.

You talk of decreased torque and responsiveness at low revs but when driving the car hard how ofter do you go below 4000rpm? On the track i never go below 5000rpm so low range torgue and power isn't really an issue. If you going to drive like a nanna and change at 2000rpm then yes it might be a problem. In saying that i have no issues driving around under 3000-3500rpm and i am running Spec C cams....

[sangers]

Jing the intake into the Mugen box is probably at most 10cm by 3cm in size that means that no matter how big the box is the amount of air getting into the box is restricted. If you file off all the ribs in the stock air box as well as the divider in the middle of the stock airbox then it would be very similar to mugen. The minimal increase in the volume of air in the box wouldn't result in that much more air being transferred into the Intake manifold. As sang alos mentioned without a aftermarket front bar which offers the scoop for the airbox it is no better than a stock airbox.

With the CAI the pod filter is fed through what forms the brake duct area and is open to the environment meaning that there is a much greater area for which air can access. With all of the lining around the guard in place if forms kind of a big airbox in a sense so to speak, the only restriction to the amount of air getting to the Intake Manifold is the throttle body as it has the smallest diameter opening from the pod filter to the IM.

You talk of decreased torque and responsiveness at low revs but when driving the car hard how ofter do you go below 4000rpm? On the track i never go below 5000rpm so low range torgue and power isn't really an issue. If you going to drive like a nanna and change at 2000rpm then yes it might be a problem. In saying that i have no issues driving around under 3000-3500rpm and i am running Spec C cams....

i disagree with u here tony. as i said before, the concept of the mugen intake is to ram cold air into it. this is the same concept as many other intakes out there on the market for other cars. the airbox is a reservoir/collection area for cold air and when required, it is drawn into the engine. ok so its always drawn in but it's not drawn in at the highest rate all day long. i assume the size of the mugen intake scoop is large enough to support the amount of air drawn in when the engine is not under high load. then when under high load it has the large reservoir of air at its disposal.

i think ur gonna lose responsiveness across the entire rev range. its not like you have your throttle open 100% all day long on the track. just because your revs are high doesn't mean you're giving it to the gas pedal. the wider the throttle, the more fuel going in, the more the intake will draw in air.

your tuning map doesn't map air to just rpm.