Type R Club of America

What's a good, reasonably priced, cold air intake for the R? Is there a big advantage over the stock set-up? This needs to be readily available too, not some mythological, rarer than hen's teeth, made from the shell of a nuclear sub and blessed with holy water from an Eskimo minister, cold air intake. And go......

I believe inline 4 is supposed to sell the comptech/ct icebox again. Might be worth messaging them.

The aem is reportedly a solid choice. The one that has the long pipe with filter by bumper.

Icebox is good, which I have on my gs-r. It works fine with rain. Not sure the aem would be good for rain, so I haven't tried it.

I haven't checked if Tuan aka Michael Delaney's old articles are still around, but they're a great read regarding this.

Some keys to intakes are volume, velocity stack setup, etc. The icebox and similar DIY intakes are good bang for the buck. The Mugen and Comptech both had velocity stacks, and the Mugen seemed to have slightly better throttle response due to the volume. RealTime used an NSX airbox for increased volume on the ITR and many cars that followed (including the TSX).

I’ve tried the AEM full CAI but honestly unless you’re running a larger bore TB (or just looking to hear more intake noise) the best setup I’ve found is the OEM intake with a homemade cold air feed and a high flow replacement filter.

Having the filter closer to the engine keeps a more immediate throttle response (ala ram air). Having the filter higher ensures against sucking up a puddle. Cold air feed still brings in air direct from outside the engine bay. The OEM rubber arm allows for engine movement, slows heat soak, and tapers to accelerate the air into the TB. Line the air box with aluminum glass fiber tape for extra resistance to heat soak.

I’m not sure if my filter is still available but l’m very happy with the CT engineering OEM replacement filter which also has an integrated velocity stack to ensure maximum flow.

I made my cold air feed from some 5” flex (drain) tube, a subwoofer port (as a velocity stack for the cold air feed), and a silicon coupler to the air box. Installation was pretty easy due to flexible tube, none of the difficulties of getting the Mugen box in place.

The modified OEM airbox easily supported 213whp, where exhaust (jdm 4-1, JDM oem cat, Mugen twinloop cat back)was the limiting factor. To be clear these were not the only mods to get 213whp and that was tuned on s300. The modified airbox did not get me 40+whp but I do have the dyno to prove it provided plenty of air to support that level of power.

Alternatively I believe the CT/Comptech icebox, which is basically a produced version of what I described (but with 4” rigid feed and won’t look as OEM) is available via Marcus at HeelToe.

If looking for relatively quick and comparatively low cost gains, and haven’t already, look at getting a quality valve job from someone like Portflow. For the age of our cars if you haven’t had the HG and valve seals done it’s probably time anyway so knock it all out at the same time.

FYI HeelToeAuto is the one that is remanufacturing the CT Engineering iceboxes.

I had the Comptech Icebox (same thing but more rare) and it was good but I always found myself removing the top for better throttle response on a small local track I have. I figured it was a waste to run it that way so I removed the snorkel attachment and put a velocity stack there instead of the extra tubing and it was a good compromise.

I have a Mugen system now and it's better all around except if you have AC like I do it's the biggest nightmare to install.

Note: I'm on a JRSC system.

NOCSUCOW wrote: ↑Tue Jan 21, 2020 8:03 am
I have a Mugen system now and it's better all around except if you have AC like I do it's the biggest nightmare to install.

Agreed, the Mugen install took me around 4 hours. Getting it to fit was a major pain in the ass, the AC lines like you mentioned, was annoying. I thought having the AEM low profile torque mount piece would have helped, but I still had issues getting the torque mount bolted back on.

Removing it doesn't look any easier...

However, throttle response and midrange seem a lot stronger than the Icebox. I never dynoed to see the differences between the two as my tune was done with the icebox installed. I've seen them go as low as 25,000 yen to around 50,000 yen depending on condition on Yahoo Japan Auctions. But I did keep my icebox for a future build if I have a spare car/motor

I had seen similar feedback on the icebox when researching my custom build.

The main difference seemed to be the icebox's 4" snorkel\feed makes install easier but does restrict flow over the larger Mugen design. This drove my decision to go with the 5" flex tube in my setup. To install with the flex tube, I simply removed the air box, then placed the feed from under the wheel well up under the frame rail into the bay, attached the feed to the air box then snaked the feed back down in place and mounted the air box back into place. Secure the feed however you prefer behind the front bumper and you're all set.

aklackner wrote:I had seen similar feedback on the icebox when researching my custom build.

The main difference seemed to be the icebox's 4" snorkel\feed makes install easier but does restrict flow over the larger Mugen design. This drove my decision to go with the 5" flex tube in my setup. To install with the flex tube, I simply removed the air box, then placed the feed from under the wheel well up under the frame rail into the bay, attached the feed to the air box then snaked the feed back down in place and mounted the air box back into place. Secure the feed however you prefer behind the front bumper and you're all set.

You have any pics of your set up?

hootrscootr wrote: ↑Tue Jan 21, 2020 10:11 am You have any pics of your set up?

I'll see if I can find some with it in place, I have it apart waiting to go into 01386 so can grab some shots of the components.