Honda Prelude Forum - PreludeDriver.com

I'm thinking about having my box reprogrammed, and maybe adding a cold air intake system. Anyone have any idea about how much horsepower that would add to my 96 VTEC?

96VTEC,

As much as I'd love to help you determine what kind of gains you'll get out of some potential mods, it's a very difficult thing to do.

For the cold air intake, I've seen some brands claiming their cold air system to add up to 15 more horsepower. In reality though, I predict that most don't add nearly that much, and I'm sure some even cause a drop in power.

Is there a particular Cold air system you've been considering? Perhaps we might be able to find more info if we knew what brand you were looking into getting. Or, are you planning on making your own?

As for your ecu being re-chipped; I can't help you much there either. The ECU controls so many variables of your engine and there are so many different results that could be achieved with a re-chip. Do you have information on the particular tune?

spiffyguido,
As you can probably tell, I'm not a mechanic by any means--I just love the car. I have nothing specific in mind for parts/brands. All I really want to do is add 30 or so horsepower and not get radical about hotrodding.

I have heard about chipping, and my understanding was that it wasn't a big deal. I really didn't know it could be complicated. I had planned to buy a unit somewhere and send it away for the work so I could keep my ride, then swap when I got it back. It sounds like I should have a chat with the programmer/tuner to make sure I'm getting what I want.

As for cold air, I installed a K&N filter in my 89 2.0 Si, and it seemed to make a difference, but was hard to tell. I will probably go back to that for the 96, but I'm not sure if there is value in getting a complete system.

I appreciate your reply.

For the cold air intake, and time you are able to laminarly flow colder air into the motor, you will make more power. It's all in the piping and the location of your cone filter, that's why systems like the one by AEM are so good, they find the cold air.

I don't think that 'Short Ram Intakes' (A silly name for them if you ask me as there is no 'ramming' happening) make much of a difference, but the longer piped systems seem to help.

My system pulls air from where my battery used to be (now in the trunk) and I feel it has helped a lot. Get smooth pipes, be tidy with the couplings and be smart about where you pull air and it will help.

I am a firm believer that an intake is an intake is an intake. I have some eBay Bomz intake on my 95 Lude and it does just fine. However it gets extremely hot and I bet after a good hard drive the temperatures far exceed 100 degrees F - thats the price you pay when converting from plastic to stainless steel.

I plan on wrapping it with a Thermo-Tec Intake Cool-Tube Heat Shield and changing the filter to a K&N though. I have a temperature scanner and I will see if I can scan it the next time I take it out for a drive to report the temperatures on the intake. Also another cheap and free mod you can do is to modify the silencer box underneath the air filter. What I did was chopped off the front of the box so that it would ram air up into the air filter.

Colder air has more oxygen. More oxygen better combustion = more power.

If you want to do intake and do it right, go through the fender well and below the wheel where you get the coolest air coming in from under the front of the car. Intakes in the engine compartment simply suck in hot engine air, regardless of what kind of shield they have, etc.

As for programming, it's going to be different with each engine, as Spiffy has stated, because there are so many variables. But if it is done right you can get a little bit more on that end as well.