What is a Cold Air Intake System? What does a CAI do?

COLD AIR INTAKE BENEFITS: 6 REASONS WHY YOU NEED TO UPGRADE YOUR RIDE WITH A COLD AIR INTAKE SYSTEM

As a car enthusiast, you're likely always thinking of new ways to improve the performance of your vehicle. Whether you're behind the wheel of a muscle car, SUV or truck, your factory parts are never the be-all and end-all for performance. As one of the best performance mods you can make, a cold air intake benefits drivers and vehicles immensely — while being relatively economical and easy to install. But, are cold air intakes worth it? Keep reading to learn the top six benefits of a cold air intake and why you should think about installing one in your vehicle.

WHAT DOES A COLD AIR INTAKE DO?

Before discussing our top cold air intake benefits, we briefly need to answer the question, "What is a cold air intake?" The purpose of a cold air intake is to improve your stock intake system (which feeds hot air from under your hood directly back into the engine) and instead replace it with colder, denser air from outside the engine compartment. Cooler air can bring more oxygen into your combustion chamber, which means more power for your ride.

Moreover, cold air intake systems can help an engine breathe better and increase airflow. Not only are you getting colder, denser air packed with more oxygen and energy potential, but you're also getting more of it with every ride. Thanks to the larger and wider diameter intake tubes, a cold air intake benefits your engine with uninterrupted airflow your stock system can't compete with.

1. INCREASED HORSEPOWER

Now that you know how they work, what are the benefits of a cold air intake? We'll start with one of the most well-known – increased horsepower.

One of the biggest factors determining an engine's power output is the amount of air used in the combustion cycle. Cooler air can burn fuel better because it's packed with far more oxygen. That means cooler air allows an engine to burn fuel more evenly across the entire system, giving you a bump in power. But just how much does a cold air intake increase horsepower? While it varies from vehicle to vehicle and by company, most cold air intake systems may add around 5 to 20 additional horsepower to your vehicle.

2. IMPROVED ACCELERATION

After installation, you'll feel the benefits of a cold air intake every time you put your foot on the gas pedal. Cold air intakes help surge a vehicle's responsiveness, as it can reach its intended speed more rapidly when a larger volume of denser air is carried to the engine. If you're looking for an acceleration increase, whether on busy highways or empty backroads, aftermarket cold air intake kits can help.

3. BETTER MILEAGE

Do the benefits of a cold air intake extend to improved fuel economy? You bet they do. When your engine can't receive sufficient air, it overcompensates by burning more fuel faster. Cold air intake systems can help improve your vehicle's gas mileage thanks to the improved air-to-fuel ratio from enhanced airflow. With an optimal air/fuel mixture, you'll get noticeably better gas mileage, empowering you to drive farther with fewer trips to the gas station. Who would have thought the benefits of a cold air intake could include saving serious money?

4. IMPROVED FILTERS

Another of our favorite benefits of cold air intake systems (that can also help you save some cash) is the improvement to air filters. Listen, your stock filters aren't bad – they do a great job of catching excess debris that can cause severe damage to your internal parts. However, they require many replacements, generally around every 15,000 miles. Depending on how much you drive, you can spend around $85 every couple of months to replace a simple paper filter.

Aftermarket cold air intake filters are reusable and can be easily removed and cleaned rather than discarded and replaced. All you have to do is remove the air filter, wash it with mildly soapy water, rinse and re-oil. Depending on what type of filter comes with your aftermarket system, you'll only need to do this every 25,000 to 100,000 miles.

5. BETTER SOUND

This benefit is purely aesthetic, but it still counts for a lot to most car enthusiasts. If you relish in the sound of a roaring engine when behind the wheel, you'll be happy to know one of the top benefits of a cold air intake is improved sound quality.

How much does a cold air intake help your sound? Quite a bit. Your stock air intake is designed to be silent. We can't fault manufacturers for this, but that doesn't mean we can't try to improve it. It's simple – with more air comes a more aggressive-sounding engine as you barrel down the open road. Additionally, the whooshing sound of air flowing into your intake as you rev up and release the throttle is highly satisfying to any driver.

6. INCREASED THROTTLE

Increased throttle is the final advantage to close out our list of the top benefits of a cold air intake. You need more power to get going when you're stopped at a red light, stop sign or even driving uphill. With a stock air intake, your car sends warm air from under your hood straight into the combustion chamber, slowing your vehicle's response time. However, with cold air intake systems sending colder air for combustion, you'll be able to reach your desired speed far quicker and get an improved throttle response.

Car Air Intake Systems

In an internal combustion engine, a few ingredients are necessary to produce the explosive energy required to turn your car’s wheels. Those ingredients are fuel, a spark, and oxygen. Fortunately, our atmosphere is primarily comprised of oxygen and nitrogen. All we have to do to start a chain reaction is ensure that air and fuel are mixed before being exposed to a spark.

Car air intake systems provide this air and deliver it to your car’s engine. When working properly, air intake systems allow for continuous airflow into your engine, which offers greater, more consistent power and improved mileage for the vehicle.

What Exactly Do Air Intake Systems Do?

In the simplest terms, air intake systems bring air from outside the vehicle into your engine’s intake manifold, where it is then mixed with fuel from your gas tank. The air/fuel mixture is ignited and sent through to your car's engine cylinders to drive the explosive action that is translated to physical energy, eventually turning your car's wheels thanks to the transmission.

Without air intake systems, vehicles would not be able to rely on a continual internal combustion reaction. Any produced motion would be sporadic and unusable.

Main Parts Of Common Intake Systems

There are three primary components used in functioning air intake systems. Let’s break them down one by one, so you can better understand how this essential system works when you turn your vehicle on and engage the accelerator.

Air Filter

The air filter is the first primary component of this system. It is a metallic or plastic box that contains a dedicated filtration screen and is typically located ahead of your car’s throttle valve assembly or intake manifold.

You can locate it by popping your car’s hood and finding a boxy compartment near the throttle valve assembly. It looks very similar to commercial filters for vacuum cleaners and similar appliances.

Air filters help the system by filtering dirt and other particles from the air. In doing so, the filters prevent contaminants from clogging up the air intake system and potentially damaging your car’s engine. Purer oxygen also results in better engine performance since the resulting combustion reaction is more efficient.

Mass Flow Sensor

Your car’s air intake system also uses a mass flow sensor to detect how much air enters the engine. The internal combustion reaction must be adequately balanced to produce the correct amount of energy for your current driving needs.

Modern automotive engines use two types of mass airflow sensors: vane meters and hot wires.

Vane meters use flaps that are pushed by incoming air from the filter tube. As more air comes in, the flap is pushed back further. The flap movement is measured by the meter, which estimates how much air is flowing into the engine at one time.

The hot wire sensor type operates similarly but uses a collection of wires that are strong across the incoming air stream. The wires’ electrical resistance increases as the temperature increases, triggering a current reaction and allowing for a measurement of approximate airspeed and mass.

Throttle Body

Lastly, the intake system’s throttle body controls the air flowing past the sensor mentioned above. Throttle bodies are components characterized by hollow or bored housings that hold a throttle plate rotating on a shaft.

As your accelerator is depressed, your engine’s throttle plate opens and allows air into the engine. When you release your accelerator, the throttle plate closes and prevents airflow from reaching the combustion chamber, stopping the chain reaction. In this way, the throttle body controls the combustion rate and, therefore, your vehicle’s speed.

Cold Air Intake Systems

Cold air intake systems are advanced versions of the above basic system. As their name suggests, cold air intakes bring cooler air into your engine and combustion chamber. In doing so, cold air intakes boost engine power and efficiency.

That’s because colder air has a higher oxygen density. More oxygen is included in a given volume of cold air than a given volume of warm or hot air. Therefore, the resulting combustion reaction is more effective, producing more engine power and greater mileage.

Cold air intakes operate by replacing the regular airbox with a metallic or plastic tube that leads into a conical air filter. Heat shields are included to protect the air filter from the surrounding engine components, which can get quite hot after the engine has been running for even a short while.

In this way, the cold air intake keeps the outside air cool relative to the engine environment, allowing for better combustion reactions.

Summary

Air intake systems are vital parts of your car’s engine. Without air intake systems, your engine might not run at all, and it certainly wouldn’t be controllable to the same degree. Air intake systems allow drivers to control their vehicles’ speed by modulating the rate of internal combustion reactions, thus keeping your car cruising along on the road.