If you are like many Jeep owners, you are always on the look out for ways to to tune your ride. It is like a sickness with some owners. Not one that needs cured, but a sickness nonetheless. One way to add a few more ponies and squeeze an extra mile or two out of every gallon is a cold air intake system.
If you are not familiar with how or why a cold air intake works, it has everything to do with density. Cold air is more dense than warm, allowing it to potentially carry more oxygen molecules. The more oxygen that is available for combustion, the more forceful each piston firing can be, while using less gasoline to achieve combustion.
Now, for the nitty-gritty of the numbers. A cold air intake system can add between 8 and 25 horsepower to your Jeep’s top end. While adding the extra ponies, the system can add as much as 15% to your fuel efficiency. Depending on the model you are driving, that can mean as many as four extra miles(6.4 km) to the gallon.
There are dozens of brands of cold air intake systems for your Jeep. Your best bet is to trust a kit from a well known company: K&N, AEM, and Edge. There are a variety of kits from each manufacturer. Do a little research so that you balance potential horsepower increases with fuel efficiency bonuses. These kits are all easy to install even for the first time do-it-yourselfer, so there is no reason to put this project off.
As a word of caution, a cold air intake can have a few potential detracting factors. The main one being that it can potentially void any warranty that you have on your Jeep. Also, there is no sound reducing material in these systems, so you will have an increased amount of noise from the intake. That shouldn’t matter to a tuner, but it is nice to know ahead of time. Good luck with your project.
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