First impressions
It's shockingly light compared to the OEM airbox, very well made, and a gorgeous piece of CF.
Install
Very straightforward. Getting the small breather tube off the OEM airbox is the most challenging bit. I used a flathead screw driver to help push it off while puling rather hard. It popped off eventually. The upper and lower intake pieces at the front of the car come off in 1 minute after removing 4 torx screws and wigging the lower piece out.
I used vice grips to squeeze OEM intake clamp just behind the airbox, pulled the tubing off, and the OEM airbox was out. The instructions provided by AWE are pretty clear, but I had a few quibbles. First, you need to unscrew the lid to install the air filter, install three grommets, and apply a foam strip (provided) around the lip before reinstalling the lid. I'm not quite sure why AWE couldn't do all of these things beforehand for you, especially given how expensive the intake is. I suppose it might be necessary to keep the lid off when pressing the intake grommets into the three OEM mounting points (and thus the lid has to be off), but I'm not entirely sure that's true. Not a big deal, but these steps are just annoying.
Reinstalling the intake tubing and breather hose took 30 seconds, and reinstalling the front intake pieces took another 2 minutes. Total install time was maybe 20 minutes (could have been 10 if the intake was ready to install from AWE).
Another somewhat larger quibble: the OEM airbox has a rubber seal on the front portion that connects to the lower intake scoop, preventing any hot air from the engine bay from entering the airbox. While the AWE intake has a similarly-shaped front port, it doesn't have any rubber/foam sealing here. There is about a centimeter-wide gap on the bottom of the front port, which will allow some hot air into the intake box. Not a big deal, and certainly better than an open intake, but again, this is a $550 box. I'd expected this seal to be tight.
Impressions
Sound: noticeable increase in turbo noise. Not quite as much as I was hoping, but after a few days of driving around, I think it's just right for a daily driver. You can hear spooling and bypass valve action with the windows down, and still somewhat with the windows up and radio off. It's not going to turn heads or anything, which is probably nice.
Power: I installed this a few days after installing Neuspeed power module. I guess there's more power up top with the addition of the intake? AWE has dyno graphs showing increased power, but my butt dyno honestly couldn't tell. Perhaps if I'd given myself more time to adjust to the Neuspeed before installing the intake, an increase would be more apparent. But it's at most a 5% increase (probably less), so I wasn't really expecting a massive change. No complaints here though, I believe it's doing its job, and the sound increase was my main objective.
Overall
Pretty happy with the intake, but do wish it came a bit more assembled from the factory given the price. I'd like to try a CTS Turbo open intake just to compare the difference at some point, but I like how the AWE intake looks in the engine bay, the closed design for theoretically cooler intake temps, and the not-so-blatant turbo sound increase.
Image from AWE:
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Baggio
Bookmarks