I was wondering if any one has tried these cheap filters? i was lookin at gettin a new intake possibly the brute force, then i saw this for only $10 !
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/99-03-Nis...sspagenameZWDVW

what the hell is that thing! Wheres the heat sheild??The object here is to get "cold air" into the intake to increase your hp and mpg...all that one looks like is some peice of crap you get at Wal Mart...do yourself a favor and go to summitracing.com and spend the extra money and get a real cold air setup...

Why would you want to use a peice of crap like that on your $25,000 SUV?

Hey buddy, save yourself some money. Nothing wrong with asking a question though. I am all about getting the most out of my money. So with that said, I am going to tell you how to get the most out of your stock airbox.

First, clean your MAF with some MAF cleaner $5-$6 any auto store.

Next, purchase a K & N filter drop in ($50-ish but lasts the life of the car)and get your purolator filter out of there. You might want to purchase a recharge kit. To clean the filter when it gets dirty.

Third, go to the plumbing section of Home Depot and buy a 2" test plug and a 1.5" test plug. About $6 total.

OK, Check out your intake hose going from the airbox to the intake manifold. You will see 2 small hoses on one side and on the opposite side you will see another opening. This opening will lead to a resonator. You want to remove this resonator completely and plug it with the 2" test plug.

Do not start your engine while the resonator that is attached to the intake tube is out, you are going to throw a code

Now for the 1.5" test plug. There is another tube attached to the airbox. It t's off. This pipe is easily identified by the air temperature sensor.One side of it goes to the fender and the other goes mounts up to the radiator. The side that mounts to the radiator is the one that you want to remove and plug up the other hose. When plugging this hose, it is important to note that you might have to cut a little section off to properly seat the test plug in there. It is convex and concave.

Voila! there you have it!

IMHO, this setup is very comparable to the K & N FIPK. I would know because I just let my FIPK go for about $140. Damn, I am going to miss it!

OK, so let me tell you about the differences between the two. The FIPK has a cone style filter and the aforementioned heat shield. The drop in filter is flat and it is also in a sealed box.

Why did I go back to the stock box? Because I am going with a snorkel. Honestly buddy, with the setup that I just explained, I feel MAYBE a 1 HP difference from the FIPK. I would recommend this to anyone. Another question for you. Is a snorkel in your future?

There is also another way to open up the passages into the airbox. Remove the resonator that sits between the inner and outer fenders. This will free up a second air passage into the airbox.

This is what he was talking about. To get to that, you have to break your fender bolts. That will consist of 10 bolts. Have a size 10 socket wrench, a box end wrench and maybe a bit driver to make the job quick. YOu also have to take off that trim on the fender (temporarily) and the inner fender plastic stuff (temporarily) Taking the baffle as it is called is simple. the rear mount is held on by a tab of double sided tape and the front is held on by a stud. Alright stud, there you go. Good luck!-James

wtf, seriously, thats way too much work for an intake, just get a k&n or brute force, even a volant or some crap like that. that k&n drop in filter is great too, all you have to do is take out your stock filter and drop in the k&n... its an intake, not rocket science

That is not rocket science. And an intake from K & N is about $215 and the drop in filter itself cost about $50. Take off that baffle and plug the resonator holes and you have something that performs just as well as the K & N FIPK out of a stock intake. You get that all for about $60-$70. That is smart. Dude, I just got rid of my K & N FIPK. I know this from first hand experience.

Too much work? Too much work is completely removing the whole intake and replacing it all. What I stated is easier, and cheaper will the same end result.

Thanks soccerbrace, does seem like a job though gettin to the resonator between the fendors. I plan on takin sometime off work soon for camping and what not, ill see what i can do with removing that stuff then. Also for the MAF can i use alcohol to clean it?

just taking the fender off and removing all that crap takes just as long as putting in a full on intake. took all of 45 mins to pull out the stock box and install my brute force, totally worth the money, but its cool to have a "cheap" alternative such as the fipk one

A while ago I did exactly what soccerbrace described, minus plugging the small resonators after filter box.

You can actually get the fender resonator out without taking off the fender. You can just take off or loosen (I forget which) the bottom plastic piece from the fender and reach up in it.

If you look on the K&N website, they have a calculator that tells you how much filter area you need for a given hp, displacement, and rpms, and their drop in filter can flow more than enough air for our engines.

$40 filter to get nearly the same performance as a $200+ intake. And you are getting a real "cold air" setup, since it still draws air from the fender section. The only thing you dont get is smooth piping, but I'll live with that if I can save that much money.

Xterra 21, the FIPK is the CAI that K & N makes for the xterra which costs $215, and not the drop in. I am recommending the drop in, because if you use the drop in and plug the resonators, then you can get the same performance as
K & N's FIPK

And evem with your AEM, you should take the time to do that because without it, you are still not getting as much out of it as you can, however minimal.

Yeah, you do not necessarily have to take off the fenders. But you do have to take off the trim on the fender and then get the plastic mud guard thing off of there. You only have to worry about the forward bolt as you can tear the rear right off.

Jeff, plug those resonators and you will feel a world of difference!-James

That's what I did and it only took a few minutes.

I had tried taking the air box out of the fender and when I turned my truck back on afterward the MIL was on :S.... I'm assuming this happened cause i forgot to disconnect the -ve before I was messing around.. Have to give it another try doing that first.

Does anyone know if plugging the resonators affect the emissions of the vehicle? Here in Ontario we have to e-test before we can get a new renewal on our plates, mine's comin up prety soon and I don't want to have to put everything back in for the test.

Thanks
Kris

Posting how to do this in another post-Very informative.

Okay I saw the title of this forum so I had to enter and spill my guts (okay really I'm bragging). I have a K&N intake on my X and I love it. Great sound, and a noticeable boost on the high RPMs. Anyway, I was looking around on Ebay for one, and I found a used one (10,000 miles). He didn't put a minimum bid on it. I bid $0.99. No one else bid. I won. $15.00 shipping and $0.99 later, I had me a nearly new K&N. I was floored. So look around on Ebay. K&N is the way to go, dude. And their customer service kicks butt too. The intake I bought was missing one heat shield bracket. I called them and told them I bought it used, and they warrantied it and sent me out a replacement bracket for free. They even covered shipping. Sa-WEET!

I forgot to mention... also check out Amazon.com and the Buy and Sell in here. Happy hunting.

Kris the resonators are there to dampen the sound of the incoming air into the intake, they have no effect whatsoever on emissions and even if someone did a visual inspection they would never even know something was missing.