Aftermarket Intake: More Power or More Problems? (Part 1)

An air intake system is a bit of hardware in the engine bay which allows oxygen to reach the engine. Oxygen is a critical ingredient in the engine combustion process, so air intakes must be appropriately engineered so that engines can produce the sweet horsepower that we all crave for.

It has come to our attention that people love to fiddle around with intakes so that they can obtain more power from the engine. The question is, will you actually gain more power with aftermarket intakes? Or are you just wasting all your precious money and damaging your engine instead? 

Stock air intakes are restrictive because it has to think of long-life engine health as well as engine bay aesthetics. It is usually restrictive due to the pipe routing as well as the air filter. Aftermarket intakes usually do give the engine more air, but it won't necessarily produce more power or have your engine's health in mind.

Simple logic will tell you that if there is more air in the engine, the more power it will produce. This is however, like we said, simple logic, because creating more power is not all down to getting more air into the engine. To produce more energy from more air, you would also need to increase the amount of fuel the engine receives and even then who you would still need the right spark amount to see an increase.

So to get more power from more air, you must also consider the injectors as well as the engine management system, and only then will an engine produce more power. If these components are not working in perfect harmony, your engine will most likely be producing less power than it originally came with.

With that in mind do you still think by simply installing an aftermarket intake your engine will produce more power? Or is it going to cost you more money than originally thought to make more power? Something to ponder...

If you're prepared to go the full nine yards and spend more money on the other bits to complete the power-up, then wait for our second part of aftermarket intakes, as we take a look at what type of aftermarket bits gets more oxygen into your engine.