With Summer just around the corner and the hot and humid air associated with it, it has me thinking about IATs again. There are those on both sides of the fence over CAI's so I don't want to get into an intense debate over the benefits or lack thereof a CAI.

My question is this. Even though the intake tubes of both CAI and stock airbox are becoming heatsoaked. How much is the air actually warming up from the time it hits the air filter to the time it reaches the throttle body? Someone must have a guess about the total time it takes for the air to travel this short distance. And secondly, how fast is the air charge moving through the intake tubes?

The reason I ask is this. Any intake, whether stock or aftermarket is going to become heatsoaked. Is there actually enough time for that intake to transfer the energy as heat to the incoming air charge? I know it's asking a lot and yes it is splitting hairs but I am very interested in this subject. I'd love to have 2 sensors in the intake stream. One at the filter and one at the TB. I'd also like to have some sort of sensor at the TB that would show cfm or velocity of intake air at the TB. That way it would be easy to show if the stock box or aftermarket intake shows greater flow.

Thanks for listening to my ramble. Your thoughts? :D

Man you just asked the big one, I still think the only time you will get heatsoak is at idle and even then not that much worse over stock unless your are stuck in a s load of traffic but once you start moving that should drop fast but I think only a real world test would prove this. The one thing I do know is that a metal intake tube is not the way to go, it's been proven to retain heat over just the plastic. That's all I got