Help Id'ing This Cai

[Tomh1962]

OK, I've been through pages upon pages of CAI's and have utterly no idea what this one is. It was on the car when purchased... yes, I know the filter could use a bath... but thanks for noticing... LOL


Can anyone give any idea what it is??? Thanks in advance...

 

[Tomh1962]

I have stumped the pros... LOL I guess I'll have to spend money on a different one... I still have no idea what brand this one is...

 

[Tomh1962]

Well, since I've stumped the pros... what did I win??? LOL

OK, I am planning on getting a new one anyway in a tuner package... BAMA vs all others... pros, cons, indifferences???

 

[earleys94gt]

I've never seen a CAI like that before, maybe someone custom made it??

As for the Tuner question, I would be inclined to buy a tuner that comes with multiple tunes AND, possibly, tunes for life. Mostly a "best bang for buck" scenario. SCT has been around for a while, but someone like Bama might offer more power or streetability. Almost boils down to personal preference...

And for stumping the Pros...

 

[timjimmy]

What he said ^
Just make sure you get a composite CAI because aluminum intakes absorb heat significantly and with elevate your intake air temperature. Aluminum does look cool, though.

 

[Tomh1962]

I'm leaning toward the BBK Blackout/BAMA tuner combo... comes with "tunes for life" from AmericanMuscle or the JLT looks like a pretty good option also... yes, composite... not much for chrome here...

Thanks!!

 

[Tomh1962]

OK... Being that this is my first venture into the modular Mustangs... I have a few questions relating to the computer and tuning and whatnot...

 

[Noobz347]

That pretty much HAS to be a home job. What company in their right mind would neck-down a CAI before the throttle body?

Makes no sense. Very nice welds though.

Speaking of which... Where is your MAF sensor? Is it on the bottom of that necked-down piece?

 

[Tomh1962]

That pretty much HAS to be a home job. What company in their right mind would neck-down a CAI before the throttle body?

Makes no sense. Very nice welds though.

Speaking of which... Where is your MAF sensor? Is it on the bottom of that necked-down piece?

I was beginning to think that since I couldn't find one remotely close to looking like it... the MAF is the RED thing about midstream on the narrowed portion in the back...

 

[timjimmy]

What are your questions?

 

[Tomh1962]

ok... back in the days of the pushrod 5.0... if you had the speed density variants, you needed a tuner to do anything more than a K&N and cat-back... then Mass Air came along and you didn't really have to worry so much about tuning unless you went forced induction, or full race... What's different about mass air now than then?? Why does everything require a tuner?? Have we actually gone backwards to a different variant of Speed Density??

That should be enough to get the flame wars going... LOL

 

[timjimmy]

As far as the specifics of the ECM programming, I do not know the details. However, the modular 3V has a tendency to improperly "learn" changes to the engine's operation. For instance, if you install a set of headers but don't tune the engine it will progressively run worse and worse. With all the sensors and engine operating parameters these cars come with, you'd think you'd be able to slap anything on and it would properly compensate for air, fuel, load, etc.

 

[Tomh1962]

As far as the specifics of the ECM programming, I do not know the details. However, the modular 3V has a tendency to improperly "learn" changes to the engine's operation. For instance, if you install a set of headers but don't tune the engine it will progressively run worse and worse. With all the sensors and engine operating parameters these cars come with, you'd think you'd be able to slap anything on and it would properly compensate for air, fuel, load, etc.

That's what my understanding of Mass Air was/is - did/does... I'm in the process of reacquainting myself with this stuff, so if I ask a dumb question... it's not dumb to me, it's me trying to unlearn what know from OBD-1 daze...

 

[timjimmy]

That's understandable. Perhaps auto makers will someday figure out how to produce a truly self-tuning engine.

 

[dcarlson]

then Mass Air came along and you didn't really have to worry so much about tuning unless you went forced induction, or full race... What's different about mass air now than then?? Why does everything require a tuner??

As a tuner I can tell you that the full explanation of the differences between then and now would take all day to describe.

But the biggest and easiest to explain difference between now and then is that the 89-93 mustang had a very simply Wide Open Throttle spark advance (timing) table. If you were at a given rpm at full throttle you always got the same spark advance regardless of what you did with the MAF or how badly you screwed up the air intake track.

Now, on the newer cars, all of the primary spark advance calculations by the computer are load-based. The computer determines how much load the engine is under by comparing the airflow as measured by the MAF sensor with the displacement and rpm of the engine. From there it uses the calculated load to determine what spark advance to run. If you try to do the old-school trick of changing the MAF size (cold air intake tube size), or fooling the computer by "recalibrating" the MAF, you screw up the load calculation and the spark advance is wrong.

Fortunately, we have now have much better tuning capability than we did back then, so we can reshape the air intake tube (with built in MAF) any way we want for the best airflow and then adjust the tune to make everything work right again.

 

[Tomh1962]

As a tuner I can tell you that the full explanation of the differences between then and now would take all day to describe.

But the biggest and easiest to explain difference between now and then is that the 89-93 mustang had a very simply Wide Open Throttle spark advance (timing) table. If you were at a given rpm at full throttle you always got the same spark advance regardless of what you did with the MAF or how badly you screwed up the air intake track.

Now, on the newer cars, all of the primary spark advance calculations by the computer are load-based. The computer determines how much load the engine is under by comparing the airflow as measured by the MAF sensor with the displacement and rpm of the engine. From there it uses the calculated load to determine what spark advance to run. If you try to do the old-school trick of changing the MAF size (cold air intake tube size), or fooling the computer by "recalibrating" the MAF, you screw up the load calculation and the spark advance is wrong.

Fortunately, we have now have much better tuning capability than we did back then, so we can reshape the air intake tube (with built in MAF) any way we want for the best airflow and then adjust the tune to make everything work right again.

So basically, we've taken the best attributes of a speed density and mass air and thrown them into a blender... In theory, (as I recall) speed density, was a "better" way, but the lack of available devices (I think they called is a TWEKR or something like that... cut me a little slack here, I'm old) it was too cost prohibitive to tune every time you changed plug wires (exaggeration for humor and point purposes) to own one, or find someone who wouldn't gouge you... but once tuned (tweeked) it would run like a scalded dog...

( No animals were hurt or injured in the typing of this post, the dog is fine and it was actually cold water...)

 

[Noobz347]

So basically, we've taken the best attributes of a speed density and mass air and thrown them into a blender... In theory, (as I recall) speed density, was a "better" way, but the lack of available devices (I think they called is a TWEKR or something like that... cut me a little slack here, I'm old) it was too cost prohibitive to tune every time you changed plug wires (exaggeration for humor and point purposes) to own one, or find someone who wouldn't gouge you... but once tuned (tweeked) it would run like a scalded dog...

( No animals were hurt or injured in the typing of this post, the dog is fine and it was actually cold water...)

Basically, it's a completely different method all together. The similarity between the new computers, sensors, and programming and the older computers, sensors and programming, is that some of the sensors have similar names. Really, that's about it. The next layer in similarity is how these pieces and parts appear to humans through a familial interface when tuning digitally.

The TwEECer... It's a very nice piece of equipment. It's probably the nicest piece I've ever pulled my hair out over before putting the damned thing back on Ebay. The hardware is effective but limited. The software... well... I think they (the TwEECer community) did as well as possible with those limitations.

You should be able to get a much better result for less effort with your more modern system.

 

[timjimmy]

There go my aspirations of learning how to tune...