Waste of money is subjective to the owner. If the owner buys and knows that he is getting very little performance gains out of it but buys it for the gains he will receive, or obtains the things they bought it for then it's not a waste.

Now if the buy it and expect like 5 mpg gains and 30hp or they don't obtain the things they purchased for then they may consider it a waste of money. I would agree.

But even if they gained 5hp then that is a performance gain. An accurate statement would be they offer no significant or major performance gains.

 

Where you may see or notice the performance gains would be from a CAI, exhaust, headers, and a tuner. I will agree with the guys above. It's not going to be a night and day difference or a holy shit thing. Someone did an even swap with me for my stock setup so they could put in a snorkel. That's the only reason I have mine. I may do exhaust to compliment it and really just for the sound but that's not really that important so I may not.

 

I think if I handed you a list full of facts you would still argue with them.

 

Okay, a little background from what I know about the 3.8L motor. AEV made a snorkel for the 3.8L JKs. Some dyno testing was later performed and it was discovered that the snorkel was hurting the horsepower--about a 30 HP loss. The testing was done by RIPP on a supercharged 3.8L. One could safely assume they know a thing or two about engine breathing. Here's the video of that testing ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xf5nuzHmBM RIPP recognized that some folks needed to run a snorkel because of water crossings, but obviously they didn't want to reduce their engine by 30 HP, so RIPP came up with a solution ...

2007-2011 JEEP Wrangler RIPP Cold Air Kit for all Snorkels

And, I see that they've now modified that to work on the 3.8 and 3.6. Note that their dyno testing (videos at the link) does show a modest improvement in horsepower in the mid-range with just a CAI and their air filter (which may or may not be suitable for off-road--a K&N style filter is a bad idea for dusty roads, but I don't know the specifics of RIPP's filter). However, it is dyno testing, the hood is open and the CAI has access to actual cold air from the garage. It isn't connected up to a snorkel, either, so we only know that the snorkel impacted horsepower from the first video (linked by me above). And in that video we don't have the effects of ram air on the snorkel, as one might have with it at 70 MPH and the ram scoop on the Interstate. So real world performance would likely be improved at least some.

Anyway, I digress, after seeing the horsepower loss, AEV went back to the design drawing board and redesigned their snorkel. Instead of being 3" diameter, it's now 4". I'll let you search for any possible comparison testing of the two configurations (snorkel/non-snorkeled CAI) to see what improvements there may be. But, I'd be surprised if AEV redesigned their snorkel and let it continue to hurt JK horsepower to the tune of about 15% decrease. But, I admit that is an assumption.

One final thought: I monitor my ambient air temperature and intake manifold temperature on my Jeep (Torque Pro running on a Nexus 7 connected via Bluetooth to the CAN bus). In general, ambient temperature is roughly 10° higher than the intake manifold temperature. Now that 10° temperature delta occurs because for a few seconds the air must pass through the ducting in the very hot engine compartment (which is why I criticized leaving the hood open in RIPP's testing above). In a few seconds the air temperature increases by ten degrees! I wish I had been monitoring my intake manifold temperature before I installed the snorkel, but I did not. So, I don't have actual comparison numbers. But, I'd be surprised if the "cold" air intake can draw in air that is anywhere close to the ambient temperature plus ten degrees. I won't make a guess, but would suggest that maybe you should get a temperature gauge with a remote sensor and measure your under hood air temperature and see how close it comes to air temperature plus ten degrees before you decide that a "cold" air intake is actually what you want. In fact, I have such a sensor for my multimeter--maybe just for grins one of these days I'll go out and take that measurement myself. Or, maybe someone running Torque pro and no snorkel can let us know what their temperature readings are.

 

I installed the AFE high tuck exhaust and AFE stage 2 open intake last Week. We went on our usual camping trip in the mountains this weekend. I didn't noticed any fuel milage difference but the throttle response and power where noticeable. I could get up the mountain roads with out having to go down to 4th gear I could stay in 5th and hold 75 which I couldn't even do with my Gobi rack empty. I'm still going to do gears next month so I can use 6th gear one day though!

 

Thanks for the help everyone, I got one last question.

I am most likely getting the aFe intake (link below) how would it connect to the AEV snorkel? Do i need any other extra parts or anything?

http://afepower.com/shop/details_new...6L&&brandID=53

 

Its pulling in the same hot engine air as the stock box and its now open to ingest more water, mud and dirt.

 

Sorry I posted the wrong one, this is the correct one I a m looking at

http://www.autoanything.com/air-inta...ld-air-intakes

 

I'm not seeing much of a performance gain with my Volant CAI, but the intake temp on my Bullydog tuner showed it went from 25-35 degrees hotter than ambient temperature with the stock intake to 10-15 degrees hotter than ambient temp with the Volant. It's got a Donaldson filter on it too so I'm getting better filtration with cooler air and it's a 100,000 mile filter. They make a snorkel for it too, but it goes through a hole in the hood.

 

HP is HP
i can tell there a difference and i have no tune
and my MPG has increased i have tested the before and after 1st no upgrade, 2nd just the CAI ,and 3rd with both CAI and Exhaust, each time each upgrade HP increase and MPG increase.
now just because some folks dont wish to buy the upgrades because they think it not worth the money is irrelevent.

there are probably upgrades on your jeep or others that i MIGHT feel are a waste of money too???