I got the Volant and its ram air snorkle installed today. Both items together were $403.38 shipped from New Level Motor Sports.
All in all a pretty nice piece of kit. It was very complete and looks to be a quality, well made product. A couple little things that irritated me:
A.) The mounting holes for the air box itself weren't perfectly aligned with the OEM mounting holes. Nothing that 10 seconds with the Dremel couldn't fix, but worth noting.
B.) The mounting hole for the ram air snorkle was no where near aligning with the tow hook bolt hole that it was supposed to mount onto. Again, easily fixed with a drill and a 3/8" bit, but we're talking this was off by like 1.25" from side to side and 3/4" front to back. I fiddled with this thing for 40 minutes before concluding there was just no way to make the holes line up and at the same time attach it to the airbox. The intake of the snorkle wasn't shaped the same as the tow hook hole either. Not that that's a big deal, but its worth mentioning.
C.) It was a real battle to get the pipe clamps secured where the snorkel meets the air box. There is a rubber boot that gets clamped on the top of the snorkel and also clamps to the stub out on the bottom of the airbox and there is no room to work up in there. And it wouldn't even help if it was on a lift. I had to remove two trim trees from the fender well cover just to get a 1/4" drive ratchet up in there and then we're talking tiny little 1/4 turn strokes to tighten the pipe clamp down. It's all in nice and secure, but my knuckles are cut to ribbons.
The instructions that come with the kit are very terse - accurate but terse. What the instructions leave out is how to install the snorkel WITH the CAI - Volant writes their terse instructions as if they are separate products. I found the following procedure to work much better than the instructions:
1. Pull out the factory air box, airbox mounting plate, MAF, and piping.
2. Install the Volant air box using the factory air box mounting plate bolts. Volant also provides bolts, but the OEM bolts are better and easier to work with, IMO.
3. Attach the MAF and Volant filter adapter to the air box with the Volant gaskets and provided allen screws. If you put the pipe on first it will take forever to get all the gaskets lined up and screws in. The gaskets and the filter adapter only line up with the mounting holes in the MAF one way despite any appearances otherwise.
4. Attach the Volant-supplied boot and pipe clamps to the Volant tube.
5. Attach the Volant-supplied rubber ring-thing to the Volant pipe (press on to the end that connects to the throttle body) and attach the tube to the the throttle body with the supplied pipe clamp. Leave the clamp loose enough that you can rotate the tube on the throttle body.
6. Connect the pipe boot to the MAF end of the tube and snug down one pipe clamp. Fit the other one over the end loosely. Make sure both the hex heads on the pipe clamp are pointing up.
7. Connect the unsecured end of the pipe boot to the neck of the MAF, rotating the pipe up and down as needed to get everything to seat well. Tighten the last pipe clamp down over the neck of the MAF and make sure you also tighten the pipe clamp at the throttle body once everything else is in place.
8. Attach the snorkel boot to the top of the snorkel with one pipe clamp and then slide the other pipe clamp on too and leave it loose. Make sure the hex head on the pipe clamp is facing toward the front and driver's side of the vehicle when you put it on or you will not be able to access it to tighten it.
9. Remove the bottom two trim trees holding the passenger front fender well cover in place. You may want to go full monty and remove the entire fender well cover if you don't feel like smashing your hands to bits. I recommend a trim tree removal tool and that you have some replacement trim trees on hand, cuz you're gonna destroy a few getting them out. I had said tool and still destroyed 1 of 2 - the plastic just gets brittle with age.
10. Remove the passenger side tow hook (if you have them). If you don't have tow hooks you're gonna need an extra bolt as the Volant kit doesn't provide a snorkel-to-chassis mounting bolt. I don't have the hooks so I just used a stainless 1 1/4"x 3/8-24 bolt with a lock nut and two washers.
11. Working from underneath, push the snorkel up through the opening in the engine bay toward the stub-out on the bottom of the air box. Work the boot you just put on the snorkel over the stub-out by applying pressure on the bottom of the snorkel and twisting back and forth as much as the space will let you until it won't go any further.
11. With a long 8mm socket on a 1/4" drive ratchet reach up into the minuscule pocket that the snorkel pipe clamps are are now located in and tighten the ***** down. It just needs to be snug. The plastic pipe will deform if you keep tightening it beyond snug.
12. Finally, bolt the snorkel to the chassis while reinstalling your tow hook, or just bolt it to the chassis with the bolt you acquired.
In my case, since I didn't have tow hooks, I had to Dremel out the plastic where the two hooks are supposed to be. I also fabricated a little mesh grill to cover the hole to keep any FOD out of the intake. The mesh was a PITA to install and is aluminum and I'm not wild about it, so I might remake it in stainless steel.
I know,
. It was dark by the time I got done. I will try to post some tomorrow assuming it doesn't rain.
I also got the Magnaflow system on this weekend. Between the the CAI and the cat back, the 'Hoe definitely has much better throttle response and feels like it has more power - no idea how much, but even my wife noticed, so it wasn't my imagination. I believe women and their built in butt-dynamometers are the only true measure and justification of performance improvements. I'll post my thoughts on the Magnaflow in my exhaust related thread.
