Do cold air intakes and open air exhaust systems really increase gas mileage, torque and power.?

Question

I want to put a volant cold air intake with ram air and maybe an open air exhaaust on my nissan titan. I was wondering if those things put together really increase gas mileage, torque and horsepower. I was wanting to do this to offset the gas mileage i would lose if i put bigger wheels on it. Thanks for the help.

Answer 1

depends on engine size
cold air intakes (real ones not cheap ebay knock offs ) do work, but be prepared to pay $200 + for a good one, K and N or AIM
Flow masters really show signs of economy and power on V8's
on a 4 cylinder you Might see 2 to 4 HP increase, and speaking from knowledge the cool sound makes it hard to keep your foot off the gas so you end up wasting more gas then saving.

Answer 2

This is a question with different answers depending on many factors, but I can provide a general response.

If you put only a CAI or an exhuast on your truck, chances are you probably wont notice much of a difference. The reason being this: think of your motor as an air pump of sorts (this is especially true of diesels, and sorta kinds true for a gas engine, like yours). A pump, just like an engine, has an intake and an exhuast. The sum of flow out can only equal the sum of the flow in, and vice versa. Now keeping in mind that the engineers at Nissan designed your intake and exhuast systems to be matched components (or at least they should have) with flow rates properly macthed in respect to several vehicle parameters. Now if you change one, and not the other, you have affected either your flow in or your flow out while not changing the other end of the equation. Now you have created a bottle neck and most likely you wont notice much other than a lighter wallet. Now open up the oposite end as well, and given properly designed components (be careful with aftermarket exhuast and CAI manufacturers, there are a lot of them out there trying to get your money, not all of them have the engineering know how to design an exhuast or intake with proper sized piping, pipe lenghts, etc.) you should see an increase in power, and with the added breathing (aka pumping) ability (at the sacrifice of some noise, or rather lack there of, most likely) you should see an increase in effeciency as well.

Now will this increase in power and efficiency be enough to offset the added rotational weight of bigger wheels and tires. Most likely not. With wheels, most of your weight is located at the outer diamter, and this volume of steel grows at a geometirc rate in relation to a linear growth in your wheel diameter. That is, if you have a 10" wheel and 20" wheel, it isn't going to take twice the amount of power to accelerate it, it will take more like 4 times the amount to accelerate it. These numbers aren't exact obviously, I just wanted to make an example. You could look up rotational inertia if you wish. So the short answer is, it'll take a lot of power to accelerate that plus size wheel. And as a note, braking distance will increase a lot too, based on the same principle, so a brake upgrade would be something to consider as well (nothing radical, a good street performace pad should do the trick).

Buy a diesel next time, you'd have none of these issues! haha, I am just a big fan.

Hope this helps!

Answer 3

Some people think that once airflow is increased, additional fuel must be added at all times, and that would hurt fuel mileage. This is not the case during normal driving. Increasing airflow means an engine doesn't have to work as hard to overcome pumping losses. In other words, power that was previously consumed by pumping losses will be available to do work after airflow enhancements have been made. Or, looking at this from the economy standpoint, the same amount of work can now be done while consuming less power (fuel). So in effect, what really happens is that during normal driving, fuel consumption required to achieve equal acceleration or cruising speeds will be less than before the flow enhancements were made.

Answer 4

It does work. K&N is a good source for information. They are located in Tulsa, OK. One item of note is that lots of people add in the intake but try to save money by not opening the exhaust wider. As you can imagine, too much air in with not enough air out will reduce performance. Don't go cheap... Good Luck

Answer 5

Cold air intake will work for what it is designed for.
Cold air and open intake will provide more oxgen for burn,
and will increase the hp somewhat.
But hp is for topspeed, i doubt that at normal driving that you do will notice much difference, but it will allow your car to go at a higher top speed.
It will sound lounder/better, and will not give you much improvement on mileage at normal driving.
Most of time, people push their car more when it sounds lounder/better, and end up wastinng more gas.
Dont waste your money.
Keep 2 or 3 psi higher pressure in your tire, use better tune up parts, better oil,etc. makes more sense.

Answer 6

It will add a very little bit of H.P., jury is still out on the "Saving" gas claim. Just put in a re-useable "K&N panel air filter" (Direct replacement for stock air intake) and keep the car tuned up (plugs, oil changes every 3000 mi.,etc) is money better spent.

Answer 7

The theory is that a cold air intake will give the engine denser oxygen laden air which will allow more fuel to be burned in a given power stroke. If you get more power, you should IN THEORY, press lighter on the skinny pedal to reach a given speed. Now...do ya' really go lighter on it?

Answer 8

Yes, but any induction system that gives you more torque/horsepower will reduce your gas mileage

Answer 9

yes by about 5 -20 hp depending on the mech

Answer 10

I doubt there would be much improvement, the car would sound better, however..but i doubt you would offset the big tire penalty