jhowel34

I talked to a guy yesterday that had a cold air intake on his 11 5.0. He said that he has had it on for about 30k miles. He told me that ever since he put it on he has gotten roughly 2 more mpg. Has anyone else seen these results. His truck is stock other than the CAI

SteveLord

A lot of website reviews do claim they see better MPG. But some also claim no difference or just added engine noise.

Heel70

Do you know what type he has installed?? I would gladly drop the coin for a c.a.i if I knew it would get me 1.5 to 2 gallons better mpg.

ajsturtz

If I put on my engineering cap, I would find a 2mpg increase impossible to support.

Let's say his truck was getting 15mpg, and his claim is now he gets 17mpg. That would indicate that intake air restriction was responsible for a 13% loss in economy.

The intake box is designed for handling airflow to the engine at maximum conditions. When I monitor my truck going down the highway at 70mph, I am at about 30% throttle position, and isn't anywhere close to the mass air flow limits of the stock filter and intake. To get a 2mpg improvement, one would have to assume the stock intake system is restrictive even when the engine is only turning about 2000 rpms.

It doesn't pass any common sense consideration from a technical standpoint. Sure, it may be pulling in slightly colder air, but my stock air box doesn't do that bad of a job either... Certainly not 2 mpg worth of value.

tanked_darren

Tell your friend to inform Ford. Their engineers would pay well for this great find!

2MPG would be huge for their MPG claims

blueovelboy

I took mine off it was loud and it ate more gas. I lost MPG due to it!

Scarlet

A few months after I got my truck, I ordered a Volant cold air intake. I have an '11 lariat with the 6.2. When it arrived and I opened the box, I was dismayed to see a huge gapping hole in he airbox. It ran around about half of it. But, being nieve, looking for a nice sound, I put it in hoping for more power and mpg. Boy was I wrong.....Yea it was louder, but that was it. Power seemed down, which I attributed to that gapping hole sucking in hot air. And my mpg seemed lower too. Soo............I yanked that puppy but left the intake tube because it was nice. I then took my stock airbox and cut the bottom out. It gave me more fresh cool air. Afterwards I noticed that it had a nice sound, power seemed to be back to about what it was, and my mpg seemed a little better over stock, but who knows. Bottom line, I blew about 300.00 for a nice intake tube..............

Takeda

The OEM intake is a CAI! Why would anybody screw with it?

DavidKR

as pretty much everyone else in this thread has indicated, the guy you talked to is probably full of ****. the factory intake works well and by installing what most would call a "cold air intake" on these trucks, you're really just installing an open element that is more likely to take in the hot air from the engine bay than the cool air coming from the fender well.

jhowel34

He got one off of ebay for around 80 dollar. It was not a name brand one.