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3.8L NA Intake & Intake Manifold

   

To this day, the debate rages on in every Facebook group and internet forum - fueled by ignorant n00bs and trolls, new ones arrive every hour: Cold air intake vs. Short Ram! Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! You paid for the whole seat, but you'll only need THE EDGE!

The science behind improving the air intake of your turbocharged or naturally aspirated engine revolves around two things - cool air, and lower restriction. Those two should be very self explanatory so I will lecture no further. Bear in mind your car comes equipped with a stock snorkel - this is the black plastic thing that sits on top of your radiator. It brings outside air into your engine bay directly to your OEM air filter or your short ram intake's filter. Never remove this snorkel.

You have two choices; cold air intake, or short ram intake. Cooler air is better air.

The potential downside a cold air intake offers is that a longer pipe run between the filter element and the throttle means a slight decrease in response given the distance the air must travel. Keyword here is slight. A cold air intake will not heat-soak with hot engine bay air (obvious reasons) and typically be desirable for track cars that are getting beat on.

Therefore whether you run a cold air intake pulling exterior air in at the filter, or you run a short ram intake that accepts outside air from the OEM snorkel, you are well equipped to see a noticable gain depending on the type of intake you buy and where you operate. A short ram favors response while a cold air intake favors overall power and mid-range/top-end power. To illustrate these points, our resident artist on loan from the local elementary school will sketch these two types of intakes out as they are generally understood in practical use to weigh their benefits!

*P.S. Because I'm lazy I reused these from the 2.0T section, but they still work here; just - in your imagination - replace the red turbocharger with your throttle!


Available Intake CAI/SRI Products -

Vendors - Reseller Directory


Because literally every big brand and a whole bunch of not so big brands offer intakes for your car in just about every flavor, there's no way to list every one. Simply shop from the reseller of your choice, buy the one you like, install it, and be happy. This component of the car is so simple in nature it's incredibly difficult to screw up, so no one brand is going to do you any harm vs. another. Just buy one you like, and please, never post a CAI vs. SRI thread on a forum, ever.


Intake Manifold Upgrades/Porting & Polishing

Before you get too excited, there aren't any replacement performance manifolds available. Fact of the matter is there's just no room under the hood of this car when it's got a V6 shoved in it; you could theoretically fab-up a nice down-the-valley straight-feed manifold a la Chevrolet Corvette LS motor, but that would mean cutting open your hood, and, well, thats just lame unless your car makes more horsepower than God.

The OEM manifold setup does not have any inherently fatal design issues aside from it not being a very performance-friendly layout, but a simple port-and-polish evens airflow out and is really all you need to do to fix it up.

Intake manifold thermal spacers are sweet, and cheap. Buy one.


Available Port & Polish Services -


Grimmspeed
Port & Polish Intake Manifold - MSRP $349
Grimmspeed is a well-respected name in the Subaru, Mitsubishi and Mazda world, and they've proven to be a good value in PnP services for both motors of the Genesis.
Their port & polish job takes a 10% flow discrepancy per-runner down to 2%, which is very cool. When you have GrimmSpeed PnP your IM, one side will look like it was not machined/ported. This is normal. Do not call them. They also ofer custom color ceramic coating of the IM, though this is a cool-factor upgrade only. Your IM is thermally coupled (or thermally not-so-coupled if you install a phenolic spacer) to your motor's cylinder heads, so it's gonna get warm no matter what you do. Ceramic coating does look cool though.

Verdict: Best value port & polish service with known good customer service. Excellent price, can't lose.