Cheap Cold Air Induction Project

*** This is an older project of mine which no longer exists on my car.  However, I'm leaving it here for informational purposes. ***

You may be aware of a some nice CAI's on the market. Jackson Racing sells a popular unit that looks and installs clean and by the opinions of most, works very well. Racing Beat also has a similar version. Both are great and I wish I had one but... I chose to put the funds toward other miata enhancements and make my own CAI for little money.

Well, I made one for about $6 - $7. No it's not as nice looking or as good working as the JR or RB but for the money, it was no loss or risk.

I started with Keith Tanner's idea. He has a write up at his home site that lists what he did and used.

How mine differs from Keith's is that I have a stock intake (snorkel) where Keith has a conical airfilter (K&N I think) and the snorkel is gone. I also used 2" aluminum "carburator pre-heater hose" instead of Keith's 3" hose.

Click here for my installation with pictures.

Results: Well, on cold days, you can certainly tell it's there. On warmer days, not so much. Since taking the pictures, I worked with it a little more by pulling the inlet end of the hose further down into the flow of air. Also, I made a direct attachment of the end of the hose to the intake snorkel. This seemed to improve the performance a bit more.

This CAI (on a 30 F day), coupled with 14degrees BTDC timing gave a G-Tech measurement of 0-60mph of as fast as 7.6 seconds. Seems a bit fast for a mostly stock miata, but the G-Tech reading may have been off a little.

Update: After trying to check the air filter, I damaged part of the aluminum tubing in the process and decided to just remove the whole CAI thing. The turbo was going to be installed soon anyways. After removing the CAI, I only noticed a slight loss in acceleration.