Cold air intakes

Then there's the other line of thinking based on physics which states that for each 10* drop in air temperature going into the motor, power will pick up by 1%. This is because when the air is colder, it is more dense and therefore contains more oxygen. Of course, a tuner would have to compensate for more oxygen by jetting fatter to get the air/fuel mixture back to correct. I don't know much about EFI, being a carburetor guy, but I would think that a computer-controlled system would sense more oxygen and automatically richen the mixture. It just makes sense that if you are pulling in engine bay air which was just pulled through the radiator at 200* and you install a system to pull in (for instance) 100* air from the outside of the car, you have a 100* drop in air temperature which should equate to a 10% increase in power. On a 400 hp motor, this would work out to 40 hp. I would think any tuner in his right mind would jump at the chance to pick up a power increase like that just for running some tubing to the outside. I see these Honda guys all the time who install an aftermarket pipe and then terminate the air filter right behind the radiator in the engine bay. This is obviously monkey-see, monkey-do without any idea of what they're doing. Just money thrown away in my opinion. If they would simply extend the tubing to the outside of the car, they could take advantage of the colder ambient air and make more power.

Then there's the other line of thinking based on physics which states that for each 10* drop in air temperature going into the motor, power will pick up by 1%. This is because when the air is colder, it is more dense and therefore contains more oxygen. Of course, a tuner would have to compensate for more oxygen by jetting fatter to get the air/fuel mixture back to correct. I don't know much about EFI, being a carburetor guy, but I would think that a computer-controlled system would sense more oxygen and automatically richen the mixture. It just makes sense that if you are pulling in engine bay air which was just pulled through the radiator at 200* and you install a system to pull in (for instance) 100* air from the outside of the car, you have a 100* drop in air temperature which should equate to a 10% increase in power. On a 400 hp motor, this would work out to 40 hp. I would think any tuner in his right mind would jump at the chance to pick up a power increase like that just for running some tubing to the outside. I see these Honda guys all the time who install an aftermarket pipe and then terminate the air filter right behind the radiator in the engine bay. This is obviously monkey-see, monkey-do without any idea of what they're doing. Just money thrown away in my opinion. If they would simply extend the tubing to the outside of the car, they could take advantage of the colder ambient air and make more power.