I have seen the arguments for the past two years on the AIS and the pulldown. I have one on my truck with a 4" Bully Dog exhaust. If I hammer the truck for a while, it will pull down the Minder to at least halfway. There is nothing wrong with the sensor if it does that. I did a simple test. I left the filter out and did the hammer. It pulled it down amost to the same point.

The pulldown is an indication that the system is tight (no air leaks). I have had the same filter in my truck since last summer. That is almost 14K in miles. It has not changed. I have been told that if I add the fender sleeve, the pulldown will go to about 1/4. Well, that is fine except for one reason. Who wants to put up with the extra dust coming from the wheelhousing? Not me for sure. That means extra filters when not needed. If AIS had wanted the system that way, they would have made it that way. They did not for I guess the same reason I am not cutting mine. Dust!

I did have to cut the snorkle back some, but not because it was too long, but for the reason that it would not go past the Banks Intercooler. I did block the bottom of the grille due to dust coming up from behind the bumper (danged left weel well again). That may be causing my 1/2 pulldown on hammer but AIS said no. I do have to say that the AIS is much better than the stock unit. The stock unit was going through filters every 4K miles.

 

that would keep a lot of the bugs trash etc and still get cooler air
think I still need to shorten snorkle for that
think it needs shortened to just outside engine bay
what size holes bout 1 in

 

Make sure that the snorkle passes through the core support. that way you do not suck engin heat or the heat from the intercooler into it. Just fresh air from behind the grille.

 

Ray, have you got some kind on screen deflector behind your grille? From all of the rock pock marks showing on the plastic headlamp mounting panel, if you don't that A/C Condensor is not going to last very long.

By the way, I like your idea. I am going to do that myself to allow more air behind that panel, but I am going to screen them over to keep the bugs out.

 

that was dfusers mod

 

Thanks Ray. I did not know who came up with that one.

 

I used 1" hole saw. I am about to dremel the top 2 together and the bottom together. I like the idea of a screen too. That should catch anything big!

 

The grille should deflect any water unless you go skiing with it. I also thought about opening them up a little more and completely sealing the bottom and the side against the intercooler. I have noticed that that snorkle tube get quite hot after a heavy run and I figure that the heat is heating up the air running through the snorkle. Guess I could use some of that reflective tape I pulled off of the turbo intake tube.

 

now I need to run a vacuum guage to my air cleaner to see what it is doing but thats how I monitored the air cleaners on my big trucks

 

Make sure that the vacuum guage port is close to the airbox outlet. In previous tests conducted by others than myself, it has been shown that vacuum levels vary along the length of the intake tube and that vacuum readings taken simultaneously from the turbo inlet and the airbox outlet are frequently different. According to Ford's original design specs, the test point used to guage intake system efficiency is at the airbox outlet. SO, in order for any readings you get to be accurately compared to OEM test specs, your samples need to come from the same location.

 

According to donaldson, the AIS filterminder is more sensitive than the filterminder for the stock intake. They did this because the Powercore media offers far less resistance than paper filters, even when it's dirt loaded. I ran the AIS for a couple of years, and although I would often find it pulled to 50%, i never had it trip 100% even after 30-40,000 miles on an element. So my advise is to trust the manufacturers of the system and use the filterminder that came with the AIS, or just plug the hole, because the stock one will not tell you anything worth knowing.

 

Yes, Mike. I'm getting ready to pull a camper for a long distance, just put the AIS on last weekend, and I'm a little concerned that I'm not getting enough air to the system. It would really stink to have intake-related problems on vacation. Will the filterminder pull down to a certain point and stop? Bottom line, am I going to get enough air to the engine when it is under load (1500-2000 RPM) for extended periods of time?

 

tlocklear,

You will be fine. There is really nothing to worry about for your trip.

 

Yes, you should be fine.

 

Where does one find the AIS filter system? I'm sure the dealer price can be beat.

Thanks

Frank