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Free Intake...kinda.

calipoontappa

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First let me put this out before anything...I’m not looking for power gains or MPG, purely sound.

I like how an intake sounds on these engines I had the K&N one on my JK but that was purely MY vehicle...the JTR is not, it’s a family car. Anyway I bought my intake again for the JTR and again it sounds epic BUT this time around my wife is in the JTR and she is not feeling it. It gets really loud at a certain RPM and you can hear it at every step of the throttle, once you’re cruising not so much until you punch it. It’s LOUD.

Long story short it’s now in the market place for about 130 off retail.

I don’t like how the JTR sounds without a little rumble so I thought why not mod the intake box? It’s only like 70.00 if I EFF it up so I pulled out my Milwaukee saw and got to work.

First I cut off the big box at the very bottom of the stock intake, I used the box and cut out a hole roughly the size of the pipe, trimmed it and sanded the glossy part off. Used some JB Weld to put the pieces together I let it sit.

Next day I put the airbox back in and ran it, you can hear a slight difference but nothing major. Kind of disappointing, I was really hoping that cutting off the big price would result in a bigger sound increase. I was in too deep to give up so I decided to cut off the piece that hangs above it. The hole remaining was fairly small so I just grabbed a torch and melted it shut, while it was still hot I molded it to where it looked decent, I could fit my fingers on the inside so I molded that at the same time. I made sure nothing was loose or at risk of falling off. Once it cools its solid as a rock.

I put in my K&N filter and off I went again. This time was different it’s about half as loud as the K&N, it sounds just like like the S&B Intake. It’s not crazy loud but if you punch it you know it’s there.

Anyway for 50-60 to get a K&N filter, 2 cuts and about 30 mins you get a nice sounding intake that looks stock and I fairly sure it performs better than aftermarket.

Let my explain my theory...so the stock air box has one piece that all the aftermarket intakes failed to utilize...the small air pipe (Not sure what to call it?) that sits directly in front of the entire Jeep making it technically a cold air intake. That pipe feeds air to the airbox and from what I can tell it’s the only thing that feeds air directly to it. All the aftermarket intakes have the same hole at the top but none that I know of take into account that pipe so when you close the hood that hole on top of the airboxes is covered, not sealed but def covered and I’m sure it’s still getting plenty of air is more than likely all hot and still not as effective as having a pipe feed air to the general area. By not using that pipe to direct airflow direct to that area your probably losing power. If you look at all the claims of 10-20HP they always run the dyno hood open and fans blowing to simulate airflow problem is you don’t run your Jeep with the hood open. Someone should design an intake with that pipe in mind but from what I can tell all of them make you discard it.
Anyway that’s my theory it might be all wrong but makes sense at least in my mind.

I hope this little hack/mod helps someone save some moola, kill some time or just have another little project to work on weekend.

Stay safe everyone.

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calipoontappa

calipoontappa

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Quick video...sorry I talked too much but you can hear the “intake” lol

 

KurtP

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Maybe its because im still working through my first cup of coffee, but my head’s orientation of those pics is screwing with me.

is there now a big hole open on the bottom of your intake pipe...?
 
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calipoontappa

calipoontappa

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Maybe its because im still working through my first cup of coffee, but my head’s orientation of those pics is screwing with me.

is there now a big hole open on the bottom of your intake pipe...?
No it looks like that in that one pic I just noticed that too. I’ll change it. It’s sealed with that circle cutout I made.
 

93civej1

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theres gotta be some kind of reason they put the thing you cut off in there?

Im still kind of confused on exactly whats going on here.
 

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calipoontappa

calipoontappa

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theres gotta be some kind of reason they put the thing you cut off in there?

Im still kind of confused on exactly whats going on here.
Those are just there to muffle the sound. All intakes are basically the same they put those boxes to quiet the stock one down.
 

cecaa850

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theres gotta be some kind of reason they put the thing you cut off in there?

Im still kind of confused on exactly whats going on here.
They tame resonance at certain frequencies and help with air speed through the tube.
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