CamryOnBronze wrote:seriously at least post the parts up if you are thinking about using it and we could try to help you. An aftermarket intake is NOT going to "fry" your motor just because it isnt a CPE. It may not give you gains, but if the stock ECU is smart enough to compensate for a supercharger system, it isnt going to have a problem adjusting fuel to a safe level with an intake. It may not be the perfect level and you may not gain any power, but it wont blow up your motor. I have had an ebay intake on my gen 3 camry for over 40k miles and there is nothing wrong with the engine. I can also say there are no noticeable gains from it.
I respect your advice and trust your knowledge Midias, but its kind of annoying how most of the members on here act like they work for CPE. I know its a quality intake and I dont doubt that one bit, but it isnt true that any other intake product is going to blow your engine. It may be true that you will not get the same gains from another intake as you will from the tunable CPE, but it will still give you a short ram look and a different sound. For some people, thats all they care about and they dont have $500 to spend on a tunable intake.
Again I dont mean to offend anyone, thats just my two cents.
Like I said above not all ebay intake are bad but a three inch pipe causes the MAF to go haywire it is not a matter of compensating for an air difference it is a matter of the ECU not knowing what to do with the signals. When I had my scanner hooked up to my solara with an ebay intake installed my MAF would go crazy jumping from maxed out to almost nothing in terms of air flow under constant acceleration. This could cause a lean condition very easily ruin a vital engine component. As for supercharging when people on this forum do that they use 2.75 inch piping the MAF reads a constant signal based on the amount of incoming air and does not need to compensate because the ECU knows how to interpret that signal.
Trust me I tried to make my ebay intake work I really wanted a low cost solution I even cut a slit down it compressed it to 2.75 inch piping and JB welded it back together. It was a no go it was better on the scanner but with the MAF sitting so low and not in the middle of the intake the signal was still not correct and the readings were off. As far as I know I am the only one on here who had a custom CAI that worked with no problems and that was using a 2.75 inch HKS MAF adapter.
And once again like I said above not all ebay intakes are bad the one I put on my brothers Jimmy works great but the MAF has it's own housing and therefore reads the correct signal.
So I base my solara intake experience on my own purchases.
1. Ebay intake
2. Modified ebay intake
3. HKS adapter custom CAI
4. CPE intake
5. CPE intake with crispmongo filter.
So far CPE is by far the best.