veeinc

Hi Guys.
I installed an AEM CAI but have noticed that the car struggles to start in really hot weather.
Has anyone else experienced this?
I also feel like the car got a little slower. I'm considering changing back to the stock intake.

LeX2K

Stock setup draws air properly from outside the engine bay that cold hot air intake does not. Go back to stock.

veeinc

Thanks for the feedback. I replaced the AEM CAI with the stock intake. The car runs and starts much better now.

okami

I have the AEM intake in my car and live in Hawaii where it is always pretty hot and my car runs and starts fine.

veeinc

Hey Okami.

It worked fine for me also, until the Texas heat kicked in. Once the weather got to almost 100 degrees, the car started having problems. It wasn't worth the grief to keep it installed anymore.

I'm actually waiting for delivery of a Tanabe strut brace. Did you notice any handling improvements with it installed?

okami

Yeah it's hot here in Hawaii but not nearly that hot. I previously had the K&N intake. It uses the factory air filter box so you could look into that. The strut bar made a slight difference but I got it mostly to dress up the engine bay.

veeinc

On an interesting note, my fuel economy got worse by 3-4 MPG as soon as I went back to the stock intake.
That was one benefit of the AEM CAI.

E46CT

^that's not something you can judge that quickly. MPG to be assessed accurately has to be measured over time, over at least a few tanks. Also keep in mind the car has to readjust on top of all that.

Glad you changed it back to stock though. That's the classy and professional/proper way to go, especially for an ES. I want my ES as quiet as possible.

veeinc

I was basing the MPG off the car's reading. I'm hoping that the car will somehow readjust back to the stock intake.
Yeah. The extra noise from the intake was not something I enjoyed. I decided to focus on improving the looks of the car vs. the performance.

veeinc

By the way okami... You have one of the cleanest engine bays I've seen.

E46CT

The car's reading is even worse. that can be way off one way or the other. right now i can drive down the street and get 99.99 mpg if i wanted to. hell one time i took a 20 mile trip to the beach in my CT200h for fun and reset the indicator before leaving (i knew what was going to happen i just wanted to show my buddy look my car gets 99.9 mpg) and sure enough i got 99.9mpg on the display once i parked at the beach. The trip was on a slight downhill descent the whole way. conversely going back uphill, i reset it, and got something like 24 mpg. so again, it needs to be averaged out between several tanks in order to go "yeah XX made a difference" and even THEN that's shaky/flaky.

veeinc

I wanted to share an update in case it could help anyone else who experiences the same issue I did. After numerous visits to the dealer, they were able to find that I had a leaky fuel injector. They eventually ended up replacing all the injectors, and this finally resolved the issue.

LexFinally

To be honest, I don't believe that result would hold up over a longer or more precise comparison test.

ionian

This particular implementation shouldn't be call Cold Air Intake. It is a misnomer. The right name for it is hot air intake