opinions

http://www.modbargains.com/product.a..._Intake_E46_PR

http://www.euro-spec.net/catalog/pro...3de04922519339



anyone here have this intake for their car if so.. did u like it??? would it be best to buy the intake or headers first?

Intakes do nothing but make the engine a little louder. Some make you lose power. BMW had some of the best technicians in the world design your intake and its good, it takes air from the kidneys and the brake ducts. These engines dont respond well to mods because BMW already made them as good as possible, things like mustangs on the other hand respond to a 500 dollar CAI with a 40hp boost because ford can't make engines for **** on their regular cars. That K&N one is not any different to the other intakes but it does require constant cleaning. I had one and recently threw it in the trash (didn't even bother to resell it) and reinstalled my stock airbox. All it did was gunk up my MAF with the oil and added no noticeable hp gains whatsoever, it felt like I lost hp to be honest. That can be put down to my driving style though, with a lot of sitting in traffic. You will lose HP on our cars if you sit in traffic a lot, a CAI does need cold air going into it to be able to work and if all its doing is sucking air in from your engine bay the car is going to lose power. Hell, something like a 40 degrees difference in ambient temperatures can contribute upwards of 0.5 seconds off a 0-62 time.

Your best bet with a CAI is to get one that sucks in air directly through a duct on the bumper as it will always be getting fresh air even if the car isn't moving, but this is risky as you can hydrolock your engine going through puddles and on top of that it gets dirty very quickly (imagine not washing your front bumper for a month, and then imagine that gunk on your air filter). K&N filters have a history of not being very good at filtering either. Modbargins (as with most sponsors) are blatantly lying with those hp numbers.

Headers are different - BMW has to adhere to emission and noise standards. You do, but you don't have as much riding on failing emissions as BMW does. Ebay headers will be fine and will net you a pretty decent boost in performance, anywhere from 15-20hp can be expected if you also use an aftermarket exhaust. HP out of these cars is not cheap, which is why i'd recommend other ways to improve performance (higher diff ratio or handling mods over engine mods). To be honest, you can make these engines pretty damn powerful but you need to do almost everything to it to gain respectable numbers. I'd assume without going FI you'd find it hard to break 260hp (on the 330 engine) at the crank without changing things like the cams. With FI though, the possibilities are reasonably endless. Too bad that they won't have a turbo kit out for the 325.. but a supercharger would bring you on par with stock M3's (hp wise, mind you, nothing else).

As always, these answers were readily available to you already through our search feature.

Well heres a thread on Ebay headers.

http://forum.e46fanatics.com/showthread.php?t=571990

bought some but have to find the time to install them. I bought mine from trader nas for a decent price cheaper than the link you posted. On intakes don't take the manufactures claim on HP gains. I recently bought an AFE intake. From my experience you really get no gain at all. It just makes a slightly deeper noise. Well hope this helps.

Get the headers! No need for an intake.

Originally Posted by Acarder

Intakes do nothing but make the engine a little louder. Some make you lose power. BMW had some of the best technicians in the world design your intake and its good, it takes air from the kidneys and the brake ducts. These engines dont respond well to mods because BMW already made them as good as possible, things like mustangs on the other hand respond to a 500 dollar CAI with a 40hp boost because ford can't make engines for **** on their regular cars. That K&N one is not any different to the other intakes but it does require constant cleaning. I had one and recently threw it in the trash (didn't even bother to resell it) and reinstalled my stock airbox. All it did was gunk up my MAF with the oil and added no noticeable hp gains whatsoever, it felt like I lost hp to be honest. That can be put down to my driving style though, with a lot of sitting in traffic. You will lose HP on our cars if you sit in traffic a lot, a CAI does need cold air going into it to be able to work and if all its doing is sucking air in from your engine bay the car is going to lose power. Hell, something like a 40 degrees difference in ambient temperatures can contribute upwards of 0.5 seconds off a 0-62 time.

Your best bet with a CAI is to get one that sucks in air directly through a duct on the bumper as it will always be getting fresh air even if the car isn't moving, but this is risky as you can hydrolock your engine going through puddles and on top of that it gets dirty very quickly (imagine not washing your front bumper for a month, and then imagine that gunk on your air filter). K&N filters have a history of not being very good at filtering either. Modbargins (as with most sponsors) are blatantly lying with those hp numbers.

Headers are different - BMW has to adhere to emission and noise standards. You do, but you don't have as much riding on failing emissions as BMW does. Ebay headers will be fine and will net you a pretty decent boost in performance, anywhere from 15-20hp can be expected if you also use an aftermarket exhaust. HP out of these cars is not cheap, which is why i'd recommend other ways to improve performance (higher diff ratio or handling mods over engine mods). To be honest, you can make these engines pretty damn powerful but you need to do almost everything to it to gain respectable numbers. I'd assume without going FI you'd find it hard to break 260hp (on the 330 engine) at the crank without changing things like the cams. With FI though, the possibilities are reasonably endless. Too bad that they won't have a turbo kit out for the 325.. but a supercharger would bring you on par with stock M3's (hp wise, mind you, nothing else).

As always, these answers were readily available to you already through our search feature.

ModBargains doesnt claim the HP rating - K&N does. We know that there is no way it hits those hp ratings. However does it increase HP yes - it's been proven on independent dynos over and over. Why is there always a group of people who calim that it doesn't work.

K&N, aFe, Injen, AEM etc are all around because it does. Keep in mind you don't have to keep on buying paper filters. Do they increase MPG (Miles per gallon) yes they do - about 1-2 - with gas prices these days you are paying back the intake within a year to year and half time.

K&N filtering is bad? This company has been around longer then any in the aftermarket industry more then 35years and are highly respected. There are other filters out there all with similar technology.

I personally threads like this saying intakes don't work is just a negative thing to the aftermarket scene - try it out in similar conditions on a dyno and try it yourself if you don't believe me. You can't just go off of a bmw tech telling you to stick to a paper filter when thats all he sells. Anyway, if you do a forum search there was a independent dyno test between K&N, AFE, and GruppeM intakes for the E46 M3 - was about 3/4 years ago should also be on m3forum.

Anyway both will help the OP in terms of performance, but to really notice results you will need to get your car chipped/tuned (shark injector/powerchip etc.)

There are intakes out there that are not beneficial but what you need to look for is one that has a quality filter element with a heatshield to prevent heatsoak. We have had success with the aFe Performance Intake and the Simota CF Style Intake. Both are cone filters that are fully enclosed with a heatshield to protect the filter from heat exchange.

You have to consider that the factory intake was not maximized just for performance. BMW has a variety of parameters to take into account when designing the intake system including performance, sound, emissions, ease of filter replacement, manufacturing design, various weather conditions, various environmental conditions (sand, rain etc...). As a result, the engineers are hampered by their need to fulfill all of these considerations and cannot focus strictly on performance. Even the M division has trouble fully maximizing performance given that they are constrained by emissions, sound, environmental factors etc...

ic what youre saying.
so the same would be with headers i assume.

Originally Posted by DKG

ic what youre saying.
so the same would be with headers i assume.

who was that a response to?

INTAKES do nothing more than make the car louder. Maybe improve your hp by .5-1 hp. Don't listen to the sponsors......they want to sell it. They are biased. They can talk all they want.......but I've put intakes in several different cars over the years and had them dyno'd before and after. THERE IS PRACTICALLY NO GAIN. For what you pay...... you're getting ripped of if your buying it thinking your gaining power. Your gonna pay that much money for nothing more than a louder sound. I've got friends with domestic cars with hemi's and modded out muscle cars........ they all agree to that INTAKES are a WASTE of money for what you pay.

The cost of an intake is not worth what you get out of it......... end of story.

Originally Posted by skang2535

Get the headers! No need for an intake.

what type do u have and do i need caps to pass the emissions?

Originally Posted by DKG

what type do u have and do i need caps to pass the emissions?

Cats? You will fail without them. You might even fail with them. You have to find a shop that doesn't care and will pass you anyway.

I don't think anyone is expecting a night and day change with an intake. Heck, you can't expect that with most NA modifications given that these cars come well tuned from the factory. With that said, I liken the change with an intake to the difference in your car with and without the A/C on. This is a fair assessment of the performance gain with an intake and makes your car more responsive but not necessarily a beast. You have to weigh what is important to you, I for one, could not stand my car without the intake once I had it. It felt extremely sluggish.

If you are trying to get big horsepower gains, I would say you need more then just one part. A combo of both the intake and exhaust will give you a bigger horsepower gain then both individually. Something else I would recommend is doing the intakemanifold also. I don't know what kind of bugdet you have to work with, but when it comes to tuning cars there is a lot you need to consider before you start. First thing you need to figure out, is a goal, what the car is being used for and how much power will you need. Road racing isn't all about power sometimes improving you handling is a little bit more then power, it's also possible to have to much power and that's when you close the hood at start working on suspension.

I'll admit I've never worked on BMW's and I'm just getting into because my girlfriend decided to start working on her, but with my Subaru after putting $15,000 into the engine I spend about $7,000 on suspension work.