Ceramic coating AEM CAI findings.
 

My engine bay is stripped. No batt, no intake box.

I recently bought the AEM CAI for use in my vehicle. The intake sits directly over the radiator and so it gets heated up by the radiator air that is 185-200 F.

With this setup, the intake temps (measured at the MAF) is typically close to ambient while cruising. However at idle (traffic lights) the temps increase immediately, and slowly climb till the AIT reads about +30 F over ambient. So 95 F ambient becomes 130 F when stopped. When I take off from the traffic light, the temps decrease, but do not decrease quickly. It takes about a mile to level off back to ambient.

When I had my intake pipes out to be ceramic coated, I used the greddy maf housing in it's place. So the car had the intake in the engine bay directly over the radiator fans. At cruising, the AIT would read 130-140 F range, and at traffic lights it would read 150-160F!

This weekend I reinstalled the AEM CAI. My findings are this:

At cruising, the AIT still reads close to ambient, same as before the coating. At traffic lights, the temps go up approx 5F. That's it. However if the vehicle is stopped for 5+ minutes, the temps have gone up another 10F. The bigger change is that the moment I take off from the traffic light, the temps immediately go back to ambient.

Because of this, I believe the intake sensor is not reading a "ghost" temp that takes time to cool down from earlier, but rather the temps remain high with the non coated intake piping because the pipe itself remains hot for a short while, which in turn makes the air hot till it's all cooled down. With the ceramic, the piping doesn't retain the heat and so we get instant cool, in addition to the decreased AIT.

Not bad for $45 including tax.

This is the shop that has been doing the work:

http://www.allamericanpowdercoating....o_Gallery.html

They do a lot of show car stuff, so the items turn out immaculate. I'll post some pics tonight when I get home.

edit: pics at https://www.rx8club.com/showpost.php...&postcount=232

Do you still have the air box tray in place? Those reading are very similar to what my AEM does in the same situations.

No airbox tray. There's nothing in the engine bay besides the engine!

I do recall a time when I had the undertray in place, and the intake piping still gets red hot because the air around it is hot regardless. So overall I'm quite pleased with the results.

Well glad to see the ceramic coating worked for you. I'd like to do that to mine. But I don't think the have the Candy Colors down pat yet.

If they could do this color then I'd like to do it,,,

the kind of ceramic used would be either a dullish silver, or a matte black. I went with the black.

Nice info. Too bad they're too far for me. Lol im gonna try to find a shop around here that does ceramic coating jobs for my MS CAI.

DEI makes a heat reflective cover for CAIs.
Anybody tried it out?

yeah, I picked up some and wrapped the piping around the maf sensor. It didn't do squat. Maybe if I wrapped the entire thing, but the DEI wrap cost more than ceramic coating, so hardly worth the effort.

I wrapped from in front bumper all the way to TB a while back. After a long drive, when the rubber/metal holding the piping together is hot, the wrap is cool. Looks kind of funny, my friends like to poke fun at my "mummy spec" intake. The piece of mind helps knowing I don't have the hot air directly going onto the intake tube though.

Was a fair amount cheaper however effected aesthetics quite a bit more.

Thanks for the update on this one. I guess I was wrong about this being overkill :)

for the overall health of the car, I don't think it matters. When you're driving, the temps are about the same. So I think in that sense, it is overkill. But it is definitely a positive change.

mysql, I thought the AEM CAI is for NA. Have you taken off your FI setup?

you can use it for either.

there are any number of ways to insulate it, makes a big difference in certain situations, not so much in others