20 hp increase from a cold air intake?!
Cold air intakes can be helpful, but usually they provide a small improvement in efficiency more than anything else. Maybe a couple hp, maybe slightly better gas mileage. On modern cars the improvement is usually due just as much to improved flow in the tube (larger diameter, smooth bends) and reduced filter restriction as it is "cold air". But it does depend on where the air box is located to begin with and how long/restrictive the air tube is, on a car with a good airbox design they're pretty useless. It's splitting hairs to put the filter outside the engine compartment or insulate the cold air tube. The air itself spends very little time in the filter or the tube, so there isn't much time to transfer heat from the filter/tube to the air. Plus the filter and tube are usually insulating type materials to begin with, cotton filter, plastic tube etc so they aren't usually the same temp as the engine compartment air anyway. Could insulating the tube make a small difference? Again, it would depend on how long the tube is and how much time the air is spending in the tube. For a street car? Waste of time. For a race car? Maybe.
And have you bought an early A now? After all the threads whining about how hard it is to find parts for A-bodies you decided to buy the A body style that has the
LEAST amount of aftermarket support?
And on that note, who makes a cold air intake for an early A? Pretty sure it would all be generic stuff and cut to fit. You're not gonna find anything that puts the filter outside the engine compartment unless you build it. There are these, but clearly the filter is in the engine compartment (not a big deal really). Clean, cold air from behind the grille with this set up, but this is a race car (Red Brick). And at track speeds of 160 mph like the Red Brick could do an intake set up like this would be a lot more effective. Cruising around town it's just extra stuff and holes in your radiator support.
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