Pros
First of I would like to thank Ryan Takashima for a chance to review this great Intake from a company I’ve never heard of. Reviewing this intake really opened my eyes up to a new company for intakes and I’m very impressed with everything this intake provided.
I woke up one day and went outside to check my mail I noticed that I got the intake.
At first I expect it to be a big box because of the design of the intake and stuff it came with but the box was about half the size of K&Ns. I brought it into the house and immediately opened it up.
I’ve got to say that the packaging is very nice, convenient, and everything inside was snugged by bags of air and not the 100000xxxxx pieces of foam. First thing I pulled out was the silver polished intake to check out the unique looking design. I noticed that the intake tube had 3 different size design so I was eager to install it right there and then. But before I move on, I got to let you guys in on what else comes with the intake. YES, extra stuff!!!! YAYYYYYYY.
As usual, the Intake comes with the filter and installation kit. They also give you a nice keychain (I rock this keychain with my FOB! =) ), license plate frame, Takeda sticker and a discount card for future purchases from Takeda website. Moving on…. Compared to the K&N Intake filter, Takeda’s filter was actually small which got me feeling like it was not going to give me much of a gain in HP. Besides the size of the filter, I really like the dry flow design which doesn’t require you to oil it up after cleaning.
Installation was very easy due to the fact I already had my K&N intake installed, all I did was just removed the K&N intake (except the heat shield) and replaced it with the Takeda. Another different thing about the Takeda was the mount to the side of the car and not to the throttle body, which I really liked a lot (I’ll get back to that in a bit). Installation for me only took 10 minutes. After everything was put back together, I took the car out for a test run. Immediately I felt a difference from the K&N. The Takeda intake was actually more responsive and smooth and I think this is because of the mounting location. Its mounted to a rubber mount (included with the kit) and the rubber mount was mounted to the side of the car. The K&N was mounted to the throttle body by a metal bracket (everything was metal to metal causing more vibrations in the car). It also feels like my torque has increased, I barely step on the gas and my rpm jumps up faster than before.
Cons
I looked inside the intake tube and noticed that it had jagged welding spots and was scared that it might chip off in the future and go inside my engine. After speaking to Takeda about this, it was explained to me that because of the different bend diameters, it is necessary to cut and weld. In order for the welds to hold, the joints are welded all the way through and sanded and polished on the surface. In testing the kit on the flow bench, there was no loss in flow. K&N had a smooth surface on the inside but then again, K&N is only using one diameter. The other thing I’m not too pleased with was the sound it produced. It has a growl but not an aggressive growl. I’m guessing this is due to the size of the filter. For HP/Torque and nice cosmetics, you sacrifice sound. That’s not bad of a trade 3>1. If this is your first intake for your car then you wouldn’t notice too much of this, but since I had the K&N, I can tell a lot of difference between the 2. I really think you guys should start making heat shield for every intake so that the customer would have a slicker cleaner looking engine bay. If it costs more to produce then I’m sure the buyer is willing to spend more for a better looking engine bay.
Thank You Ryan Takashima for a great opportunity to review this wonderful intake
