i am possibly thinking about trying to build my cold air intake anyone ever done that? it is for a 05 5.3 liter

 

If you search "homemade cai" or just "cai" you'll find a lot of good reading. BlackGMC made a nice ram-air setup. Plenty of ppl on here have made their own CAI's. Good Luck!

 

yes actually... after a lot of reading and figureing out about CAI i learned that the MOST restrictive part of our intakes is the lame as intake tube followed by the sh!tty filter media... if you have ever pulled out the tube and looked at it you will know what i am talking about. ITS A PEICE OF **** However, it seems that the vollant is quite a good performer because of its inclosed box design, so i figured why pay all that $$ for exposed media (i.e. K&N fipk or AEM brute force) when i can build one that will perform for less money


So i purchased an airraid intake tube for $90 on ebay (this was probably a waste as you can make one of these for half the price), bought a K&N drop in for $60... then got to work on the box. I went to ace hardware and bought a small length of 3" PVC.

I took the air box out and removed the bottom plate for good.... then cut a 3 inch hole into the bottom of the factory air box; appoxied the 3" pvc tube to the outside of this hole. I did this so i could have something to connect the 3" flex tube. This is where it gets a little ghetto... I used 3" flex tube (not dryer hose) and routed the stuff down near the front "tow hook" I also used a shop vac filter at the box where the new air inlet is, this is to keep the large debris and H2O out of the air box. Then for some good old fassion american over kill, i drilled 4 small holes in the front of the air box (right behind the headlight) and used those little air filters for dirt bikes, i will look for a link so you know what i am talking about...

all in all i think i saved about HALF the cost of a vollant. i have never put my truck on a dyno and may never know if my intake is performing as well as it would if i bought a vollant, but it works for me!

 

I built mine years ago out of parts I got in the plumbing dept at Home Depot. It's all sewer pipe. 4" 45 degree sch 40 bends with rubber bushing in between to absorb the engine vibrations. The rubber bushing are supposed to be used to interface 4" cast iron sewer pipe to 4" pvc, but I used them to make my CAI. It's been on there for over 5 years with no problem. I put a K&N on the end of the last section of pvc.

 

i read somewhere that pvc shouldnt be used for an intake.

 

Yeah, and I heard the world is flat.

 

hahahahahahhahaha

 

i thought the world was rectanglular?

 

i built my own and it works just fine!

 

cheapo ebay one for $75. 4" tubing and a K&N!