I've never been a big fan of CAIs. Most of them change the diameter of the inlet pipe. The MAF sensor is calibrated for a specific inlet pipe size. So with a larger inlet pipe the ECU is tricked into leaning out the A/F mixture. It measures less air than actually enters the system. This is where most of the gains on the dyno comes from (not from a more free flowing intake as most assume). The problem is that as you found out now you risk going too lean when using an off the shelf tune.

Most modern airboxes are designed pretty well and easily outflow the engines they sit on. They usually offer better water protection to boot. That's why the CAI manufacturers us the trick to lean out the air/fuel mixture to realize any gains.

When I raced 100cc piston port karts we used to run an open K&N style airfilter element on the carb. Because of noise problems the governing body mandated an airbox must be used. All the racers freaked out because they were going to lose so much performance. As it turned out a bunch of dyno testing was done and the airbox actually improved performance because it provided a large volume of non-turbulent air.

In the subaru world (fast WRXs and STis) cold air intakes do nothing but mess with tuning. It isn't until these cars are making 500 horsepower that the stock airbox starts to become a restriction. I had an 11 second WRX. I ran a cold air intake for a while and went back to the stock airbox.

My suggesting is to dump the CAI intake. The superchips tune is giving you all the benefits of a better air/fuel mixture in a much more precise controlled way. The problem with using a CAI to change your air/fuel mixture is that it when is gets very cold and dry or very hot and humid the amount of difference between what the ECU is measuring entering the engine and what actually enters the engine changes quite a bit.

 

The AEM CAI was the first mod I made to my 2008 Rubi Unlimited - I had maybe 1k mile when I did it. I didn't really notice any difference other than the nice roar it makes

I bought the Superchips tuner about a month ago with about 25k miles and did the 87 tune. I also noticed pinging under hard throttle. The good news is that the throttle was much more responsive and I definitely noticed more power (even with the CAI).

After two tanks of 87, I decided to try 91 octane and the Superchips 91 tune. The good news here is that the ping is totally gone even until full throttle. The not so good news is that I really didn't notice any additional power. FYI that I'm in Denver so altitude may be a factor here...

At this point, I'm not sure I'll stick with the 91 tune, but I'm concerned with the pinging on 87 octane.

 

I agree the benefits of a "cold air" intake are questionable.

But....

Look at the highlighted stuff above.
Wouldn't the absence of a MAF sensor on the JK negate all that theory?
Regarding mixture control, isn't that what the O2 sensors are for?

 

Doh! To be honest I just assumed the Jeep was using a MAF sensor as I haven't pulled my intake apart and most newer vehicles seem to be using Mass Air systems instead of Speed Density.

If it isn't using a MAF sensor then it's using a speed-density system (i.e. MAP and intake temp sensor). This is even a worse situation. In this type of system the amount of air entering the system isn't actually measured directly like it is with a MAF sensor. It's calculated based on the known volumetric efficiency of the stock parts. So in this case even if the aftermarket intake tube is the same diameter, if it flows any better than stock it will lean out the air/fuel mixture. That's because the ECU is using volumetric efficiency tables based on the stock intake to calculate how much air is entering the cylinders.

Either way a cold air intake is leaning out your air/fuel mixture which is going to probably cause a problem when you install a tune that was not designed for it.

 

Doesn't work at all, or have you downloaded the update to actually remove the TPMS and 'e-sign' the waver?

 

I believe the mixture is controlled by what passes the O2 sensor. It reads the O2 content of the exhaust and injects more or less fuel to keep the intake ratio close to 14.7:1 by mass.
It should be independent of the small differences in the efficiency of various intakes. All the air still passes through the same throttle body.

 

That's not true in open loop. You're in open loop until the O2 sensors come up to temp. You're also in open loop under heavy acceleration. Modern ECU's use some very complex strategies to determine when to enter open loop mode. But in general if you foot is more than 50% of the way into the throttle you're probably in open loop and the O2 sensors are being ignored.

 

The open loop part is true.
I don't know at what throttle setting it comes in though. Seems like I read it was close to WOT.
The throttle body has the biggest influence on air flow.
Anyway, I don't think people with "cold air" intakes are seeing evidence of leanness of the mixture.

 

We can bench race all day. If you get an opportunity, talk to a tuner who runs cars on dynos all day long about it. The bottom line is that most (not all) cold air intakes are designed in such a way as they deliver more air than the ECU measures entering the system or calculates enters the systems. This effectively leans out the factory's conservative A/F mixture providing a gain in power. That's usually safe by itself (although not the best way to get a better A/F mixture). But when you then install other things that also lean out the A/F mixture (such as an off the shelf tuner) you can expect to be lean.

You can also google "cold air intake"+lean and see that it's a pretty common occurence. Google returns 47,600 matches for "cold air intake"+lean. Often it's because they combine the cold air intake with other things that lean out the factory's conservative A/F mixture such as an off the shelf tuner.

 

Yeah, my last sentence was my way of bringing it off the bench:
"Anyway, I don't think people with "cold air" intakes are seeing evidence of leanness of the mixture."