- Joined
- Feb 3, 2012
- Posts
- 1,623
- Reaction score
- 175
- Ram Year
- 2013
- Engine
- 5.7 Hemi
Alright, so as some of you already know, I was picked to be a beta tester of a new intake system recently developed by S&B Filters and write a review on it to help generate awareness and feedback about their new kit.
As of today, the review I have will just be on the intake system with just the oiled filter. Because they are still in production, they haven't sent me a dry filter or a pre filter wrap yet but I should be receiving those sometime soon and when I do get them, I will be sure to include pictures and a brief review on those items as well.
Everything was individually wrapped in their own bag with twist ties and organized in the box in a manner that required no extra packing material to keep stuff from moving around in the box and bashing against each other. All necessary hardware was separated in 3 bags in a manner that made it easy to find the parts when you needed them.
The instruction sheet is pretty clear at every step and with the pictures they provide, the job can't get any easier. Another thing I liked about the instructions is that it's in color and they added arrows, circles, and lines to point out locations for key steps. After doing a lot of my own work on two trucks now, having instructions in color and actually pointing to the parts you're working on actually does make installs seem a littler easier because I can't tell you how many instruction sheets I've gotten that had plain black and white photos and don't show what you're actually looking for.
The install is pretty easy and with the instructions provided can be pretty quick. The hardest part of the install for me was removing the wheel well skirt so that I could remove the two bolts that hold the stock air box tray in place. The only reason why it was difficult was because there is a big push pin in the top of the wheel well you must remove in order to drop the skirt and that thing wouldn't budge for me no matter what I did. But I quickly found a way around it which was just pulling the top of the skirt down enough to stick my ratchet in between it and the mount bolts which allowed me to remove them pretty easily actually. Just took a little extra time because I didn't have the extra space you would if you remove the whole skirt to get good turns on the ratchet. Otherwise, once I had the oem tray out, the install went pretty smooth.
There is one problem I did find with the intake however and I will be sending them an e-mail as soon as I am done writing this review. It's very minor in my opinion seeing as how it doesn't affect how the intake performs in anyway and it can be resolved fairly quick. The problem I'm identifying is that the plastic lid you get to put on top of the air box was miss drilled. The lid is held on by 2 small screw and 2 large screws. One of the holes for a small screw was drilled for a large screw and the holes in general are off enough so that the lid wont sit in it's intended space perfectly and off enough from each other to make installing it a little trying. But like I said, I am sending them an e-mail with pictures describing this problem and I am sure they will have it fixed quickly.
Now as far as how the intake performs in the truck, the part I know ya'll care about the most, lol. I have actually noticed a small change in how the truck runs. I already had the Afe stage II intake installed on my truck and until yesterday I loved it and I did recommend it to everyone whenever we talked about CAI's but now my recommendations are going to be towards S&B. I will say it is harder to notice how a truck runs when going from one intake to another but after I got over the initial excitement of having this new intake, I was able to focus clearly on how the truck ran with this new intake. I even had a buddy of mine ride along after we installed my Afe into his 2012 Ram so we had two opinions on before and after.
I do want to say the overall performance of my truck has improved and that's thanks to the larger filter, actually having it's own air box which is a little larger than the oem, and the intake not only draws air from the fender well but it also has a scoop that goes approx a foot down along the wheel well inside the engine bay to pick up even more air cool than any aftermarket intake I've seen to date. One cool thing about that scoop by the way is that if for any reason, you don't want the intake to draw air from the scoop, they do include a plug you can install which doesn't take long to throw on at all because it's only held on by two bolts.
I did ask this by the way as I know some people would probably want to know, there are no dyno numbers on this intake because S&B does not dyno their intake kits. Quoting my contact
"We don't actually dyno our intake kits at S&B Filters because we feel that there are to many variables that cause inconstancies in results. Performance can differ depending on the modification in each truck. We do however test our products using the ISO 5011 Airflow and Efficiency process which is the industry standard. This measures the air flow and efficiency of each kit and filter and provides consistently accurate results."
And that make sense to me and got me to look to see if I could find out what the other companies say their airflow improvements are. Afe actually was the only one I saw that listed not only the dyno improvement numbers but they also included their airflow improvement numbers. Afe Stage II give you a 22% increase over the stock intake system and the S&B actually gives you a 30% with the plug install the scoop or a 36% increase with the plug removed. without contacting them or doing any real digging outside of auto anything, I cannot find what the other intakes are rated to improve your airflow by.
So after all that, overall, I am really happy with this intake and I'm sure come Monday when I can talk with S&B again, the issue with the lid will get cleared up and I'll be 100% satisfied with this intake system. I'm positive this will be the intake I run until the day comes when I will buy a supercharger which will not happen for a very long time.
I do recommend this intake, out of the 2 I've ran now, it is proving to be the better of the two and it costs the same as the others so I believe it is the best bang for your buck.
If you want to take a look at it, here is a link to the intake on their site. The intake just became available for purchase yesterday actually so I don't believe it's available on any other sites yet but should be soon.
S&B Filters 2009-2012 Dodge Ram 1500 5.7L Hemi Cold Air Intake
Update Aug 2013...Click HERE for a quick jump to the post about the additional scoop you can attach to the intake.
And now for pictures
And installed
I forgot to mention, yes the whole kit is made out of plastic but it's pretty durable plastic and I'm sure it'll withstand anything you put it through. You also get to reuse the stock crank case vent tube so that's 3 less steps you must do during the install.
And of course, feel free to ask anything. I will answer any and all questions to the best of my abilities. Let me know what ya'll think and I'm going to get out of this chair now, lol.
As of today, the review I have will just be on the intake system with just the oiled filter. Because they are still in production, they haven't sent me a dry filter or a pre filter wrap yet but I should be receiving those sometime soon and when I do get them, I will be sure to include pictures and a brief review on those items as well.
Everything was individually wrapped in their own bag with twist ties and organized in the box in a manner that required no extra packing material to keep stuff from moving around in the box and bashing against each other. All necessary hardware was separated in 3 bags in a manner that made it easy to find the parts when you needed them.
The instruction sheet is pretty clear at every step and with the pictures they provide, the job can't get any easier. Another thing I liked about the instructions is that it's in color and they added arrows, circles, and lines to point out locations for key steps. After doing a lot of my own work on two trucks now, having instructions in color and actually pointing to the parts you're working on actually does make installs seem a littler easier because I can't tell you how many instruction sheets I've gotten that had plain black and white photos and don't show what you're actually looking for.
The install is pretty easy and with the instructions provided can be pretty quick. The hardest part of the install for me was removing the wheel well skirt so that I could remove the two bolts that hold the stock air box tray in place. The only reason why it was difficult was because there is a big push pin in the top of the wheel well you must remove in order to drop the skirt and that thing wouldn't budge for me no matter what I did. But I quickly found a way around it which was just pulling the top of the skirt down enough to stick my ratchet in between it and the mount bolts which allowed me to remove them pretty easily actually. Just took a little extra time because I didn't have the extra space you would if you remove the whole skirt to get good turns on the ratchet. Otherwise, once I had the oem tray out, the install went pretty smooth.
There is one problem I did find with the intake however and I will be sending them an e-mail as soon as I am done writing this review. It's very minor in my opinion seeing as how it doesn't affect how the intake performs in anyway and it can be resolved fairly quick. The problem I'm identifying is that the plastic lid you get to put on top of the air box was miss drilled. The lid is held on by 2 small screw and 2 large screws. One of the holes for a small screw was drilled for a large screw and the holes in general are off enough so that the lid wont sit in it's intended space perfectly and off enough from each other to make installing it a little trying. But like I said, I am sending them an e-mail with pictures describing this problem and I am sure they will have it fixed quickly.
Now as far as how the intake performs in the truck, the part I know ya'll care about the most, lol. I have actually noticed a small change in how the truck runs. I already had the Afe stage II intake installed on my truck and until yesterday I loved it and I did recommend it to everyone whenever we talked about CAI's but now my recommendations are going to be towards S&B. I will say it is harder to notice how a truck runs when going from one intake to another but after I got over the initial excitement of having this new intake, I was able to focus clearly on how the truck ran with this new intake. I even had a buddy of mine ride along after we installed my Afe into his 2012 Ram so we had two opinions on before and after.
I do want to say the overall performance of my truck has improved and that's thanks to the larger filter, actually having it's own air box which is a little larger than the oem, and the intake not only draws air from the fender well but it also has a scoop that goes approx a foot down along the wheel well inside the engine bay to pick up even more air cool than any aftermarket intake I've seen to date. One cool thing about that scoop by the way is that if for any reason, you don't want the intake to draw air from the scoop, they do include a plug you can install which doesn't take long to throw on at all because it's only held on by two bolts.
I did ask this by the way as I know some people would probably want to know, there are no dyno numbers on this intake because S&B does not dyno their intake kits. Quoting my contact
"We don't actually dyno our intake kits at S&B Filters because we feel that there are to many variables that cause inconstancies in results. Performance can differ depending on the modification in each truck. We do however test our products using the ISO 5011 Airflow and Efficiency process which is the industry standard. This measures the air flow and efficiency of each kit and filter and provides consistently accurate results."
And that make sense to me and got me to look to see if I could find out what the other companies say their airflow improvements are. Afe actually was the only one I saw that listed not only the dyno improvement numbers but they also included their airflow improvement numbers. Afe Stage II give you a 22% increase over the stock intake system and the S&B actually gives you a 30% with the plug install the scoop or a 36% increase with the plug removed. without contacting them or doing any real digging outside of auto anything, I cannot find what the other intakes are rated to improve your airflow by.
So after all that, overall, I am really happy with this intake and I'm sure come Monday when I can talk with S&B again, the issue with the lid will get cleared up and I'll be 100% satisfied with this intake system. I'm positive this will be the intake I run until the day comes when I will buy a supercharger which will not happen for a very long time.
I do recommend this intake, out of the 2 I've ran now, it is proving to be the better of the two and it costs the same as the others so I believe it is the best bang for your buck.
If you want to take a look at it, here is a link to the intake on their site. The intake just became available for purchase yesterday actually so I don't believe it's available on any other sites yet but should be soon.
S&B Filters 2009-2012 Dodge Ram 1500 5.7L Hemi Cold Air Intake
Update Aug 2013...Click HERE for a quick jump to the post about the additional scoop you can attach to the intake.
And now for pictures
And installed
I forgot to mention, yes the whole kit is made out of plastic but it's pretty durable plastic and I'm sure it'll withstand anything you put it through. You also get to reuse the stock crank case vent tube so that's 3 less steps you must do during the install.
And of course, feel free to ask anything. I will answer any and all questions to the best of my abilities. Let me know what ya'll think and I'm going to get out of this chair now, lol.
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