upgrade air intake tube

[Marky Dissod]

For well under $80, go to Home Depot / Lowe's / Ace / whatever, make something out of plastic tube parts.
Less heat soak.

 

[iamdub]

I can never find the pic of my buddy's homemade tube...


I think his ('09 Tahoe) has an extra 45° fitting in it to aim straight at the factory filter box after arching over the rad hose. If you don't like the flared parts for the slip-fits, you could cut them off and use PVC cement to "butt weld" the joints together, then sand and paint/wrap/dip it.

Found a pic. Sort of a difficult angle to study, but you can get a good idea. It looks to be a 90, two 45s and maybe a foot total of straight pipe to join the elbows together. I would've sanded the lines and text off the flares before painting it:

 

[Sparksalot]

I wasn’t planning to buy one for thethirdtwin, but Amazon had the K2 version of the Airaid tube on sale for $129 a while back.

 

[ivin74]

Get some pvc pipe and the 90 elbow from Amazon. That's what I did, I also have the K&N filter.

 

[DaveO9]

Thanks for all the good ideas. I'm checking in to used AiRaid, but I may still go with the homebuilt option. I'm always up for a challenge like that. (I'm an engineer )

I'll post on this thread with whatever the end result is.

 

[DaveO9]

@Dave09 i have one available for sale. Used it for less then 6 months. Let me know if your still looking.

I received it today - went on no problem, looks great. Thank you.

I decided to buy the used one @crownvic31 had for sale. Very reasonable price - judging from the price of those rubber splices in the plumbing section, I don't think I would have saved much/any money by making my own. Pleased with the result. I was a little worried it'd be too noisy up front without the resonator chambers, but I barely noticed. Just at hard throttle can you hear a little more intake noise.

 

[swathdiver]

Late to the party...

 

[Fubar0715]

Dang, now I want one of those smooth tubes before I apply my tune from BBP.

 

[crownvic31]

I received it today - went on no problem, looks great. Thank you.

I decided to buy the used one @crownvic31 had for sale. Very reasonable price - judging from the price of those rubber splices in the plumbing section, I don't think I would have saved much/any money by making my own. Pleased with the result. I was a little worried it'd be too noisy up front without the resonator chambers, but I barely noticed. Just at hard throttle can you hear a little more intake noise. View attachment 402222

Looks great brother. Happy it all worked out and i was able to help you with this.

Enjoy

 

[Charlie207]

Dang, now I want one of those smooth tubes before I apply my tune from BBP.

When I talked to BBP, he said that upgrading the factory intake on a 5.3 isn't going to do much of anything as far as power gains.

A cam and/or longtube headers are the only way to open up N/A power on the 5.3. (allegedly)