Just to let you guys know so you don't waste your money...
I recently thought it would be a great idea to get a "cold air" intake for my benz, so i bought one off of ebay. As I was installing it, I couldn'tfigure out why it was a "cold air" intake because all it did was take a suction closer to the ground still in the engine compartment. The factory intake takes air in from right behind the grill, which is a true cold air intake, sort of acts like a ram air intake. Guess that's why they are so hard to find! Don't waste your money, their is no sound or power difference, plus, pointing the intake towards the ground without an air dam means that you could possibly get water in their alot easier than you normally could.
But what about exhaust?....

 

Right!

Here are some elements of a cool-air intake that would make a difference. 1. Increase size of snorkel and ducting to outside air. (Perhaps place a second snorkel and intake into the air box) 2. Use heat resistent ducting with super smooth interior walls and remove all "accordin" ducting ( ruff interior walls and according ducting cause friction-heating- and drag-more energy expended to intake air) 3. and perhaps most important, use a high-flow air filter such as K&N.

 

I bought a real CAI made by B&B after I got one of those ebay junks, and then made my own. Rock solid is correct on all points of what a CAI should be, The B&B one was $150 and took about 20 miuntes to install. In the direction the company tells to diconnect your negative ground cable for 30 minutes, which resets the CPU, and allows the MAS to adjust to the higher air volume. Also, doing the battery disconnect, several glitches I was having with the car. But remember you have to rest you eletronic key, your one touch window feature, your ESP and your sunroof. the procedure is outlined in the owners manual. Got here http://www.globalautoshop.com/, this is were I bought mine and I am impressed. One thing to considered, these CAI don't give you off the line power, they work best at the beginning of the torgue peak. in my 99 C280 once you hit 3K RPM and up to red line the car flies. Also patients it take a while for the air/fuel to adjust. When I took off the OEM box I aimed the CAI to a frame open that is below the OEM air box and all the air you want come up from the grilles that cool the brakes, You can buy an add on tube at PEP and run it down there, but you want to be really careful of getting water into the engine, you really have problems then

 

It just takes a few seconds for OBDII. If you don't have that kind of patience you need to get some chill pills. There's no specific goal for the air/fuel mix even though there's a "hovering" point around the stoichiometric mixture. The mix is constantly being adjusted at about 2 or 3 times per second, if I remember right. It's never steady unless the the car is at full-throttle. Disconnecting the battery won't speed things up more than a fraction of a second at best because it takes practically as long to adjust from any air/fuel mix value to a more ideal value, even zero/zero.

Don't forget that there's more to the air intake system than just the airbox. If you want to increase airflow into the engine you need to make sure there are no bottlenecks in the system. Increasing airflow volume and reducing turbulence won't do any good if the MAS or throttle body can't accept the extra air. Then after you get the extra air into the engine you have to get it out. You have to remove obstructions in the exhaust system. If you don't, the air intake system won't work at peak efficiency. Your car will be constipated.

 

Your correct lugnut, my next project is a time valve or Borla exhaust free flow of course. Buit I will admit, a lot of glitches I had with the car disappeared when I disconnected the battery. I check with a local dealer and he did confirm that will set the CPU back to default, and most of the time they do the same thing for nagging problems and 8 out 10 times it works, as mine did.

 

Yeah, disconnecting the battery will reset the ECU memory. If I implied it wouldn't, sorry. I didn't mean that. My point was that it isn't necessary to disconnect the battery and reset the ECU to get a corrected air/fuel mix because it happens so fast that it makes no measurable difference in human terms. It happens just as fast if you do the battery thing or not.

I'll disconnect the battery to reset the CEL or to take the ECU out of limp mode. Stuff like that. But not to reset the air/fuel ratios. There's no need.

 

Probably not, but the instructions did say the MAS would adjust quicker if reset back to default. Also, like I said it fixed a few quirks. Like the no hold key start feature, which never really worked correctly, now I just turn the electonic key until it engages the detent and let it go and the motor starts right up. I had it at the dealer 3 times and they never got it right, but disconnecting the battery did. Your correct the MAS will eventually adjust itself. In fact I am buying a larger diameter cone filter as the heat shields are adjustable. The more air the more power. At least that is what I hear on these shows on SPEED TV. Have you every seen the air cleaner (K&N) by the way. on the DTM tour? they take up the almost the entire area between the engine and the radiator and have pipes on either side that go back to the TB's and the intake tubes are in the grille and under the airbox. I would love to get my hands on one of those, plug the extra in and out for the second TB and see what HP I would gain. I assume these are AMG V8's these days and not the AMG, was it the C32, with the Kompressor V6?

Monday, I am going down to Stanford, Ct to a BMW dealer no less. But they have a dyno, the kind that measures HP at the real wheels, $50.00 for two runs, and if want a pro to do the runs it is an extra $25.00. The first run is to establish a base line and the second is for the HP gain. They give you a copy of the chart, for both runs. So, I will post them when I get back. or next Tuesday.

 

Thanks Lugnut, if nothing else, as I said it did reset some of the now and then glitches in my car.