I do, and I'll trade you for a "Return of the CAI"...you just gotta figure out how to get it from them

 

Sorry to hear your MINI was disabled by a deer Matt. How did the deer fair? Muley/blacktail or whitey? If it's past on I hope the meat went to good use, because venison is too good to pass up!

Anyways, whoever reports back to this forum on the Craven Speed CAI better have confidence intervals along with the stats!

Jeremy

 

BCOBB from North Carolina will be conducting our first open evaluation. I am sending him an intake today. He will be reporting back to all of us in this manner;

To start the evaluation I will get 5 good 0-60 and 1/4 mile runs with the stock intake recorded with the G-tech. Next, I will get 5 good runs with the Craven CAI the same as before with the stock intake. I will drop the highest and lowest times and this will give me 3 good runs for each. I will report all data with each run. When our dragstrip opens in March I will take it and get 3 runs each on CAI, and stock. I will give MPG reports for city and highway driving. I drive 120 miles round trip to work everyday so this will give good highway mileage. The city mileage I will have to do on the weekends. I don't have the on board computer in my MINI so these will be done accurately with the trip odometer and calculator.

So we should hear back from BCOBB in about a month. Anyone have any expectations for the results? What are some reasonable deltas?

 

Better than feared and worse than hoped!

Anyway, the deer was very small (about German Sheppard sized.) Jumped in the road in front of me and stopped, the proverbial deer caught in headlights. It went thirty yards, and the hood, rad support and parts around there took a major hit but not so hard, as the airbags didn't deploy. Car is in the shop, and should be back soon. Longer than hoped and shorter than feared! (Life tends to work this way.)

Good luck with the testing! I like to see numbers like this as opposed to the "dyno testing yielded blah blah blah" especially when something dependant on airflow is tested (like an intake or IC).

Matt

 

I would hope you'd do at least 10-15 runs per intake and only throw one outlier from the calculated mean if there is one(big time wheel peel or can't find 2nd gear). Then we can do some stats to see if the intakes are statistically different! The key is sample size! More numbers makes it easier to quantify the differences. Make sure to add a few pounds to the car after you do the intake swap after the 10-15 burns! Good luck gentlemen!

Matt I'm glad to hear your MINI is almost patched up! Sounds like you tagged a yearling or a small blacktail; if you're on the coast here.

Jeremy

 

I got the intake on friday. Planning on running the test this saturday 3/9/08. I had too much going on this past weekend to start it.

 

Well, we had rain here yesterday, so I was all set to do the testing this morning. I hooked up my G-tech and could not calibrate the rpm's. I works fine in my other car (toyota). Has anyone had any problems calibrating the G-tech in their MINI? I am going to post this question in the MCS forum.

 

you can't use the cig lighter socket. You have to run a wire from the high current post next to the air box. Some have wired other cig sockets to this, I used a relay controlled by one of the switched circuits in the driver side kick panal fuse area.

Here's how I did it... https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ad.php?t=47555

Matt

 

Thanks for the assist, Matt!

 

Not to bring a post back to life but this was almost 2 months ago. Any results, anything? Did I miss a post?

I had my Cravenspeed pulley installed yesterday by Dan @ Grassroots. Dan had many brands there and available but yet chose Cravenspeed.

I asked him why and based on his explanations, the design and quality of the pulley, I understand completely why he chose Cravenspeed.

Having said that, I'm absolutely thrilled with the design, ease of installation and quality of the pulley. Dan showed me how the bolts line up and are the exact length (which doesn't sound like a big deal until you compare it to another MAJOR brand sitting next to it)

The point of this post? If Cravenspeed put the same thought and design into a CAI as they did their pulley, I WANT ONE.

So what's the deal?

On a side note, there were a lot of "requirement/needs" listed.

I think personally, most people are concerned with a list a lot smaller.

a) quality
b)price
c)ease of installation
d)does it increase/decrease performance/mpg?

All this technical g force, 1/4 mile time, 0-60 foot times, blah, blah, blah are great for bragging rights or if you're going to the track but I think for the most of us that use our car as a daily driver, the above 4 points are answers enough.

Thanks,

Mark

 

how do you know anything about performance changes without some repeatable quantification of any type of change in performance? Please, don't say "impressions". I've been testing parts for a while and the butt dyno is pretty close to a random number generator.

Matt

 

Matt,

Oh, I agree. Having been building engines since I was 17, very rarely do I ever believe that the seat of your pants feel is enough to decide if a mod was an improvement or just "feels like it". (eg. loud exhaust always makes the car seem faster...lol)

I should have clarified enough. I agree some testing needs to be done otherwise you have no way to compare those numbers. Having said that, I honestly don't think it makes a big enough difference between filters. What are we talking about... perhaps a mile to the gallon, 2-3 HP? You know what I mean? It's such a miniscule effect that I guess it doesn't justify 1/4 mile times, etc. (IMO)

The effect a filter makes on the dyno is good enough for a "general" idea if the filter helps or hurts.

That is why my last (#4) choice is if it helps or hurts... as long as the dyno shows it doesn't hurt performance, I'm okay with that.

My proof of that is if you read a lot of these posts, SO MANY people said it didn't make a difference but it sounded cool. Anotherwards, it didn't matter if it helped HP-wise, as long as it looked and sounded cool.

Anyway, I wasn't trying to belittle the value of your tests, just unlike most major mods, the effects of one air filter doesn't seem to overpower another brand.

Mark

 

Sorry for the delay, testing is still ongoing. Weather hasn't been too good on the weekends to go to the track but I will have some numbers up soon.

 

as you are now finding. The drag is that if there are small deltas, it takes particularly good experimental techniques and statistics to know anything for certian.

I guess if the deltas are small, you could argue it's not worth the time to quantify them well.

Matt

 

So let me get this straight. According to these last three or so post, I should not see anything more than 2 or 3 HP gain over my OEM CAI, with ANY Aftermarket CAI? Yes or No?

 

No, the difference between OEM and a performance unit will be more substantial. The difference amongst aftermarket units will be more like 3-4 HP.

 

Sportmix,

I'm sorry, I was trying to make the point that the increase in probably minimal of all "mods" done to the car... 2,3 or 4 HP isn't a large HP gain and by the time it goes through the drivetrain, you can take away another 15%.

I was just making the point that any CAI will probably give an increase, I just don't think it's substantial enough to clarify "exact" HP/performance increases by doing 1/4 mile times, etc...

No disrespect to those that want those "exact" numbers... I just know it helps, I don't care how much.


Mark

 

So more than 3 months since the last post from the test subject. Did anything ever get done?

 

I expect that we will all hear back pretty soon.

 

There was a Full Review of the CAI by none other than Ryephile in Issue #2 of the NAM Alliance Magazine. Go to https://www.northamericanmotoring.com/alliance to download and read.

 

Thanks. What a great e-zine. I didn't realize this was for the R53. Still trying to figure out which CAI is best for my R56. The search goes on...

-C

 

*twiddles thumbs*....

 

Sorry for the wait guys. I am done testing. I am in the process of getting all of the info together, but I have been working 13 hr. days for the last few weeks. As soon as I get a day off I will be able to post, looks like the middle of next week.