China Cobra Intake Woes!

Igofaster13

Member
Mar 9, 2006
168
3
19
San Diego
Well, I have had the bad luck with the china cobra intake.... Ordered a brand new one from "yates Performance" early January. Got the intake and started getting everything ready... Removed stocker.. cleaned all parts that go back on, and started installing the small things. First thing, the air charge sensor will not thread correctly/clean.. ends up binding/stripping half the threads and I stop in disgust. I try to send back for an exchange or refund, and its been 10 days since, no delivery yet! Its insured, and has delivery confirmation! I'm a ASE certified tech so yea... know whats up with proper install & what not. About to just purchase a used real (non china) cobra or an edelbrock. I see a few differences in the real and china intakes, one the ford racing symbol on the upper near the throttle body on the china, and a few small things here and there... DUDE.. this is turning out into an ordeal :notnice:
 
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The China intake won't work with a Kenne Bell intake either.
The top sits back about 1/4 further than a real cobra intake. Just enough to keep the belt from lining up. Just think how many people have pulled there hair and lost money trying to use these intakes. That's a shame
 
Unless you're getting a SMOKING deal on a GT40-style intake or you're just hung up on the looks/tradition of one, there are much better performing intakes out there for the money, never mind the super cheap quality of the Chinese Cobras.
 
I bought a "Cobra" intake from FORD and it was stamped "China" on it... I was so pissed... But it worked for me :shrug:

Yea I thought it would work for me as well, & I had heard of the cheap china intakes before hand.. Should have listened to people! Anyways.. bought the real cobra intake from citmov, looks pretty in the pics! Should be able to get this project wrapped up soon! Will add some pics when all done... Bad thing is the china intake is still in limbo being sent back/refund status... Hopefully yatesperformace.com refunds me no prob... already shelled out $50 to send it back to them! :nonono:
 
Yea I thought it would work for me as well, & I had heard of the cheap china intakes before hand.. Should have listened to people! Anyways.. bought the real cobra intake from citmov, looks pretty in the pics! Should be able to get this project wrapped up soon! Will add some pics when all done... Bad thing is the china intake is still in limbo being sent back/refund status... Hopefully yatesperformace.com refunds me no prob... already shelled out $50 to send it back to them! :nonono:

UPS thanks you and encourages your continued support of Chinese made products. :nice:
 
The China intake won't work with a Kenne Bell intake either.
The top sits back about 1/4 further than a real cobra intake. Just enough to keep the belt from lining up. Just think how many people have pulled there hair and lost money trying to use these intakes. That's a shame

Neither does the FRPP kit intake.

A lot of these OEM Cobra intakes are not true OEM. There were only 5000 Cobras made, so not a whole lot floating around.

The Ford Racing kit started using the F7/F8 Explorer lower intake around 1997. So before then, the kit used the F3 lower from 1993-1996. Not a big time span.

Everything from 1997 to 2003 used the Explorer lower, with the F3 Cobra upper. And a lot of guys mistake their "OEM Cobra" intake for these kits. If you don't have an F3 lower, you don't have an OEM intake.

The explorer intake is set back slightly, so it also will not work with the KB blower. You need an F3 lower...possibly F4/F5 will work
 
Looks like the picture of the lower I got from citmov has a RF-F87E on the lower, so its the 97-03 kit intake... Its cool though, as long as ford made it I'm good with that. What are the differences in the F3 to F8 lowers?
 
Looks like the picture of the lower I got from citmov has a RF-F87E on the lower, so its the 97-03 kit intake... Its cool though, as long as ford made it I'm good with that. What are the differences in the F3 to F8 lowers?


Very minor differences,

There are at least 4 different lowers for the 302 gt40 I know of.

F3
F4
F8-BA
F8-BB


Iirc the 97-03 gt-40 and cobra kit come with a f7-BA intake with the act and rear water ports tapped....but the when this intake Is put on an explorer...they are not.

The f3 intake ports at the head are slightly larger as well. Also, the upper intake is slightly set forward and works with the kb roots blower while the f8 intake will not
 
Finally done! Citmov's intake is on and installed great... The intake was packaged really good, bubble wrap and all.. thanks citmov. Get this though, delivery day comes by and the package was delivered 5 blocks down from my street, both street names had the same # address and a F starting the street name. Luckily I caught the UPS goof up, and picked it up myself with details from ups! Package had my address and all, guess the driver screwed up (late rainy delivery) :shrug: Anyways, to the refund part. Yatesperformance (actually Blue Oval Industries) got the intake, and gave me a big problem over the phone about how it was my fault. He then tried to refund only $375 of the $405 total price. I was like "hell no", and escalated the case to ebay's buyer protection. Day or two later I got my full refund decided by ebay :rolleyes: Anyways, here is some current pics... still some work to get done.. and my strut tower brace does not fit anymore!

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