Well, I'm hearing all the talk about how terrible the AFE intake is and I'm having a really hard time believing it.

Hot air isn't great for power, but this thing shouldn't be so bad that you'd lose 25 hp on an E60 M5. Having owned several other, and admittedly lesser, vehicles with open conical filters under the hood I have never lost power. (Especially not like this.)

So, a friend made a call and I'm taking the car to a shop in West Palm Beach. (I'll get the name ASAP.)

He's offered to put on the AFE intake and dyno the car for free, simply for the sake of getting to the bottom of the claims. So, we're going to use my BONE STOCK 2006 M5 as the mule. It's an SMG car with 26000 miles on it.

For the record; when I say bone stock, I actually mean bone stock. (Not the "bone stock but I have a ca-tback and mid-pipe" some people claim.) The car doesn't have a SINGLE mod on it.

I'll report back with some video and dyno sheets as soon as we wrap it up.

Oh, and FWIW:

More to follow,
Alan

 

well, pics, vids, write-up, documents... you know - the standard myth-busting evidence. And more of it

I - and I may get banned from this forum for saying something like this - think that there is a chance that AFE's intake works. When I was purchasing my intake kit, I was relying on reviews from this forum and opted for an RPI scoop with a BMC filter. I've not dyno'd my car, but I definitely feel the improvement with the kit installed.

 

im impatient what can i say

 

Make sure to do a bunch of runs. The first run might even yield HP gains but once everything gets nice and heat soaked the numbers will go down.

 

+1

 

That's like saying, "During Russian Roulette, if the gun doesn't fire after the first trigger pull, please keep pulling it."

I don't care what mod you have on the car; whether it be a wild turbo kit, nitrous, or a "cold air" kit. If you make back to back to back to back dyno runs you will lose power. I've had heat soaked runs on a 12# blown mustang take the power from 440 RWHP down to 408.

If it makes power on the first pulls, that would safely say it'll make power on the highway or at the track.

Ideally, I'd get some track time in before and after, but the weather in south Florida this time of the year is so inconsistent I'm not sure the data would be apples to apples.

If this thing makes ANY power I'm going to leave it on the car and take it to the track. We all know an E60 M5 should run in the mid 12's. (Most I see seem to be in the 12.50 range.) That'll be the ultimate test.

 

Actually, European Car did a test on this intake and it was the opposite. The first few runs they lost power but then somehow the power finally went up and stayed there. They couldn't explain how though.

 

I thought they said it was due to "adaptation". I could be wrong tho and confusing it with another dyno...

 

They said they thought that might be the case but they weren't sure.

 

Do you mean this: http://www.europeancarweb.com/tech/epcp_09...0_whp_gain.html ?