Heres a comparison:
C7 A6 Brand Name $250 intake:
c7a6intake$250Ebay intake:
s-l1600 Looks Pretty close huh? The biggest notable difference is the port for the re-circulation valve being on the front of the pipe rather than the back. I was slightly concerned this would interfere with installation due to it hitting the valve cover but the listing said they accepted returns so i figured, at absolute worst i'm only out $35. It also didnt list the length of the pipe so i was hoping it was long enough. A bit of a gamble but it would be worth it especially if it did fit. So i ordered it. I also ordered a straight 3" silicone coupler on ebay for $5 because i realized the one that came with the kit tapered down to a smaller size and our throttle body is 3" diameter. Not bad, still only $40 out of pocket.
Upon opening the box i was surprised to see the intake pipe was actually reasonably long and had a very good chance of clearing the intake manifold. After taking everything apart and lining up the new intake i realized the re-circulation hose was not long enough to reach the front. I had some vacuum connectors and used a straight vacuum fitting, cut the hose that came with the intake kit down to size and used it to extend around to the front of the pipe. See photo below of where the fitting is:
Intake3Hardly noticeable. Now, you could use small hose clamps or zip ties if you were worried about them coming off, but i wasnt....so i just pushed them together. The oem hose was just pushed onto the port with no clamp so i figured it would be fine.
I was pretty excited about how well everything was fitting up to this point. But wait, you say. Dont you need a breather filter for the breather hose if you remove the OEM air filter? Youre god damn right you do! Which is why I dropped a few F-bombs on myself at this point for forgetting. So off to the parts store i went again. I paid the here and now tax (im here and i need it now) and paid $12 for the dumb breather filter but you benefit from my mistake by knowing to order ahead of time for cheaper! Theyre like $5 online. Now with my breath filter installed I re-installed my intake.
I initially installed the intake fitted inside of the OEM airbox to use it as sort of a heat shield. But after a day i decided to take the airbox out completely. My main goal here was sound from the supercharger and there was a little bit more, but really not terribly noticeable with the airbox in place. MUCH louder without the airbox but still subtle when not on it/in sport mode. Im guessing if youre tuned it would probably be even louder. I am eventually going to build an aluminum head shield to help with heat soak but for now, enjoy your $45 intake system(that i paid $52 for)! The brand name intakes dont look like they come with a heatshield anyway. **Note: When this filter starts getting dirty (5-10k miles) I do plan on buying either a K&N or AEM dryflow which will bring the cost closer to $90-100. but thats still only half of what the cheapest brand name intake costs(that ive seen at least).
I havnt taken videos yet, but heres some photos of the final product:
Intake2 
Intake1 And Links as promised:
Generic Acura Integra 3" Intake kit ($35):
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Performance...72.m2749.l2649
3" Silicone Coupler ($5):
https://www.ebay.com/itm/3-inch-76mm...sAAOSw74FXPCT8
Breather Filter($5):
https://www.ebay.com/itm/9MM-OIL-CAT...oAAOSwjR5c-bs1
HEATSHIELD DIY:
Ok so as i mentioned at the end of my original post, i planned on also building a heat shield for my intake kit. Well today was that day.
Supplies:
18x24" 22gauge aluminum sheet from Home Depot ($9.50)
5feet of rubber edge finisher from Amazon ($5)
Assorted screws/nuts/washers from Home Depot ($3)
Piece of scrap cardboard at least 18x18
Tools:
Tin Snips (mine were rusted so i spent $12 on a new pair at home depot)
Scissors (to cut the cardboard template)
Permanent marker
Drill to drill mounting holes
I started my morning first doing removing the intake and mocking up a cardboard template of what my heat sheild would be shaped like. Being that its my only car, I did not want to drive the car because then it would be too hot to work on. So after about 15 minutes of trial and error i finally got a cardboard mock up of the heatshield. Heres what it looked like:
Awesome! Now since i didnt plan on doing this today, off to home depot i go to get supplies. Luckily its a block away so i didnt have to wait too long for the engine to cool to keep working. Once i got the supplies from home depot i went home and traced the cardboard mock up onto the aluminum sheet and began cutting it out. I was actually surprised how easily the tin snips cut through the aluminum. About 5-10 mins and i had my aluminum stamp ready to go.
Now my design you might have noticed had a right angle "footing" to it. I wasnt quite sure how i was going to evenly bend the template. After some thought, and light pressure test runs, i decided to mark a line where i need to bend it and try to bend it around the right angle of my coffee table top.This actually worked like a charm. I spent some time test fitting it and trimming it in the places needed, measuring mounting points and drilling holes...Heres a photo for reference of where it was at before the test fitting:
But what is the purpose of bending it like that?? I knew you'd ask. If you look around the area where the airbox once lived...there is really no good mounting points. So, I'm using the factory mount bushings/clips along with another bracket made from the straight bracket that came with our intake kit!
Remember that the rubber grommets might get stuck on the bottom of your airbox legs and you just need to pop them off. Youll also need to unclip the plastic holders from the holes in the frame so you can fit them back together with the bushings. Once the bushings are in the clips, and youve made sure the bolts you got fit in the bushings, you can reinstall the clips/bushings in the car. Heres a photo test fitting the mounting bushings:
Perfect! So the bottom of the heat shield is ready to be mounted. I took the rubber edge trim i ordered and installed it around the edges of the heat shield to help give it a more finished look. I paid attention to cutting the heat shield to where it fits snug up to the air inlet from the front bumper so it partially rests on that however towards the firewall of the vehicle, there is a torx screw i used to mount another bracket to give the upper section some rigidity. As i mentioned before, this bracket was the long straight bracket that came with the intake kit. I bent it by hand to shape around the strut tower area and secured it the top of the heat shield. Here is a photo with the hoses held out of the way:
and that is all she wrote! If you dont need tin snips, youd have yourself a $63 Intake and heat shield. Im at about $83 just because i forgot a breather filter and needed tin snips.
Heres a couple finished photos:
Hope this helps you!
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by doublezero30
As others have said on this subject over the years, understandable to want to hear the supercharger more and tinker with the car, but there's no argument to be made that an open intake makes more power on a stock (or probably even stage 1) 3.0T.
) is going to provide the best performance/greatest air mass. The other thing is that that video is uh, pretty far from convincing process-wise? The car belongs to someone who owns a shop that sells IE products, there's no correction method for human or environmental factors, 2 or 3 runs isn't exactly enough to get meaningful data, and that's all on stage 1 car w/trans tune revving out to ~7200rpm, which would show more gains from a "better" intake setup than either a stock car or stage 1 car that stops at 6400rpm. Bottom line, they want people to only see the biggest possible difference, but look at the smallest difference and the IE intake made the car 0.079 seconds and 1.19 mph faster ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 
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