This is kinda fun reading, BUT... and I'm not doubting ya'lls technical abilities IRT fabbing up your own intake system, but one thing you have failed to take into account is the placement of the MAF sensor. Lot's of R&D went into the placement of this piece, and it's position relative to the air inlet side or the intake side can make a big difference in readings and can affect the end resulting performance gains or losses. You simply cannot just throw a pice of tubing in there with some hose clamps and a cone filter, you gotta have that MAF in there correctly, and with a good seal, or your reading will be all screwed up.

As far as getting a "ram air effect" you can forget that altogether. You will never see speeds great enough to get that effect. All you are doing is basically funneling air to your inlet in a different path than stock. You are NOT getting any more air into you engine with the piping from under, over or around the inlet (filter element). It may be cooler air than you would be getting from the stock intake, but that's the only benefit. The thinking behind an aftermarket intake is to provide a bigger inlet, smoother tubing and optimal MAF placement. You may save some money by rigging up some piping from Home Depot, but your are comparing apples to oranges if you are comparing that to a full intake setup. The restriction in the stock system is not getting air into it, the restriction is in what happens to the air once inside the intake itself. You may think you are getting results, but I can almost gaurantee you aren't getting what you would if you just broke down and bought a well thought out aftermarket kit.

As far as which aftermarket system is best... they are all pretty close in results. Price, quality and customer service is really the only deciding factor.

 

You seriously drove your truck on the highway with no filter? I assume since you removed the stock intake tube you had no filter and no MAF sensor... If I am reading this correctly you surely had to have thrown a CEL before you left your street! I've seen people run at the dragstrip with no intake but this is only a 1/4 mile and they had to reset the computer after each run, and they still had a peice of cheesecloth over the TB inlet to prevent fodding out the engine. As far as the ram-air effect, as I mentioned earlier, you will never see speeds great enough to produce this effect.

 

Is the airraid an open filter system compared to the filter being in a box? I have a volant cold air intake theres a difference in noise but not as much as an open filter.

 

No, the air filter box and mas were still in place. I just removed the air tube just before the air filter box. I meant to say that Ford removed the MAS from the air tube itself and moved it closer to the throttle body on the air filter box. Your correct in regards to a ram air system, for ram air to have even the smallest effect one would have to be moving at a minimum 100 mph.

 

Yes, it is an opened filter design. The sound is not bad driving around town, really a nice throaty sound but when I floor it, Wow! It's head turning loud. I wouldn’t mind the loud sound so much if it made my truck accelerate so fast that it made my head snap back but my truck just makes allot of noise and doesn't seem to move fast enough in relation to the sound at wot.

 

stevo410, I would prefer plastic or rubber over aluminum. Aluminum could conduct/absorb heat from the engine compartment which could result in warm air being fed to your engine. I would stick to plastic or rubber. Good Luck!

 

I guess I'm confused as to what you removed. If you are talking about the little snorkel/plenum thing before the filter element, removing that isn't gonna amount to a hill of beans other than increasing the noise it makes. Again, the restriction isn't getting air into the inlet, it's in the intake tract once the air is enroute to your engine. Try this, go open your air filter box and have someone rev your engine and place your hand or a piece of paper over the filter, it will suck air in. That being said, the engine will suck in as much air as it needs, through whatever path is available. The idea behind a less rectrictive intake is that the engine can suck more air in and make more effecient use of that air once inside the intake tract. The idea behind the box or an aftermarket shield is to prevent the hot engine air from enter the inlet. Just about anything you do before the filter isn't gonna make much of a difference, besidews maybe getting a slightly cooler air temp.