Intake and exhaust on car?

[WKY400EX]

I've had my 2005 Cavalier since late January, and it's been a great car so far. It's my new daily driver and of course, the gas mileage is much better than the fullsize Chevy I was driving everyday.

Anyway, I've been thinking about buying a new air intake and exhaust (a nice one, not a obnoxious ricer can) for it. First off, will adding a cat-back system or aftermarket air intake void the warranty? Second, is the gain in power and fuel efficieny worth the money? Is CAI (cold air) that much better than WAI (warm air)? I want to make the car breath a little better. I just don't know how these cars react to mods, and I don't want to waste my money. I appreciate any help. Thanks.

[BlazingYamahaYz]

Colder, denser air is better for the engine. I would suggest a cloth air filter, and an intake piping of your choice. For an exhaust I would suggest Magnaflow muffler. You would have to check and see if it voids your warranty. A cat-back system would help it breath a little better if you up the size of the pipe and remove any restrictions(such as a resonator). Magnaflows sound perfect, they purr at idle and you can barely tell they are aftermarket. When you romp on the throttle you can hear the thing howl, but nothing like a rice can. Good luck.

[KH426]

The colder your air charge the better. As for exhaust , your motor can only take in as much as it can get rid of. Making those mods should not mess with your warr. but I would give your dealer a call. If you do some reseach on your intake and exhaust you sould be able to get a good idea of power gains.

[Butters]

i would not go with exhaust at all. the cold air intake would be fine. but i have yet to hear exhaust on cavaliers that sound good.

[Guy400]

On a Cavalier it's really not worth the money. Horsepower gains are going to be minimal and you'll likely not improve fuel economy. Even if you would increase your MPG it would be quite small so by the time your gas savings earned you enough money to break even on the intake and exhaust you'd have to own your Cavalier for 10 years. Save your money and buy 20 tanks of gas.

[WKY400EX]

Originally posted by BlazingYamahaYz
Colder, denser air is better for the engine. I would suggest a cloth air filter, and an intake piping of your choice. For an exhaust I would suggest Magnaflow muffler. You would have to check and see if it voids your warranty. A cat-back system would help it breath a little better if you up the size of the pipe and remove any restrictions(such as a resonator). Magnaflows sound perfect, they purr at idle and you can barely tell they are aftermarket. When you romp on the throttle you can hear the thing howl, but nothing like a rice can. Good luck. I know that the colder the air is, the denser it is, and a mixture of dense air and fuel combusts better. But I've only seen maybe 1 or 2 true cold-air intakes for the Cavaliers, and they were expensive. The CAI intakes are much more expensive than the WAI, and from tests I've read, there was a minimal difference in power. I was wondering if anyone had any first hand experience with either of the two. Do you BlazingYamahaYZ? Also, I agree with you on the Magnaflow mufflers. They don't have the "ricer" sound. Granted they don't sound as good on a Cavalier as they do on a WRX STi or EVO, they still don't sound as bad as some.

[quadrcr161]

Originally posted by Guy400
On a Cavalier it's really not worth the money. Horsepower gains are going to be minimal and you'll likely not improve fuel economy. Even if you would increase your MPG it would be quite small so by the time your gas savings earned you enough money to break even on the intake and exhaust you'd have to own your Cavalier for 10 years. Save your money and buy 20 tanks of gas.

i agree, its not really worth it. also when you get a cold air intake, one that goes into the fenderwell, you can run a risk of sucking up water and it will ruin your motor.

[BlazingYamahaYz]

I have tried a couple different set-ups in my car. HP gains are minimal if any. I had just an open filter(no airbox), CAI off ebay, Injen cold air intake and cloth filter(current setup). I deffinetly can tell that the engine runs much colder than the stock set-up. There is no difference in tone, however. My buddy has a 92 Accord and he put an ebay intake on it, along with the filter that came with it. The thing absolutly screams when you accelerate...and you can hear it when you are normally driving too. It sounds like he has an exhaust on his car. We did do 0-60 runs with both our cars stock and after the CAI's. My time went down by like .10 seconds and his was about a second or so. He's getting about 27 mpg, and I'm getting about 23, only cuz I need a tune up BAD.