2.0L Turbo cold air intake kits... do they REPLACE or do they ADD cold-air intake functionality?

[jmccorm]

I think I'm getting hung up on some of the language here, so what the heck, let me just ask.

I'm looking at the intake on my 2.0L turbo and I see how it's gullet opens up on the far passenger side of the vehicle. Perhaps I'm missing something obvious, but doesn't the stock 2.0L turbo engine already come with a cold air intake? Or does it not pull in very much fresh air?

Or rephrased another way, these aftermarket cold air intake kits... are they're not so much to ADD a cold air intake onto the engine as they are to REPLACE the existing cold air intake with a bigger filter and pipe? But they're both pulling in significantly ambient air, regardless?

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[GATORB8]

Correct. With the potential side effect of lowering the height of potential water intake.

 

[mjaga]

CAI is the first mod I've done to all my cars since I was 16. Here, I've read to many negative things about aftermarket CAI's on these 2.0T's so I've held off. Sorry, that doesn't answer your question, but I'm certainly interested in the answers you receive.

 

[GATORB8]

A couple more things turbo specific.

Remember you're superheating the air already when the hot turbo compresses it, five degrees at the filter isn't going to change anything. That same turbo is sucking the air through the pipe already, so unless it's super restrictive or your running high RPM + high boost, you won't see much benefit to freeing it up anyway.

I used to have an N54 turbo BMW that was hopped up. The dyno sheets showed the most effective air "intake" was the least restrictive regardless of air temp, It was better to use 2" of pipe/coupling and a cone filter directly in place of the factory air box right by the motor, or even eliminating all the intake piping and putting them directly on the turbo inlets. It's because you simply wanted to let the turbo get all the air it could want.

In the use case of the Wrangler, it's unlikely you care much about high RPM anything, you want low down torque. Also, if you're taking it off road, you want something that can deal with dust and not suck up water an hydrolock your engine.

Unfortunately on the performance side, the engine intake mounted intercooler isn't replaceable, and there is a pretty short charge pipe, so there's not a lot to be done on the flow side of intake. AFE has a charge pipe, but the dyno chart isn't really impressive for the cost. Downpipe replacement may help with exhaust flow, but I'm not seeing any solid data.

You can turn up the boost with something like a JB4 that should get you a pretty big jump in power.

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