My father used to have this ford truck, and he had this insolation plastic thing lying around from when he had it. Anyways he gave it to me and we cut it according to the space in the engine bay and the hood, and it insulates perfectly. If youll notice my tubes are only runiing until the filter, i am still looking for black tubes to run down to the bottom grille. What fo you think i should mod nect (cheap is best no?) also what are some of the advantaged to having a cold air intake?? i have a basic idea but im sure you know better then me.

 

From my personal experience. The air temp under the hood because of the rad fan is a lot hotter than outside air. I believe taking in this extra hot air from under the hood causes something that the enginedoesn't like (like maybe knock sensor retarding timing) and a less power is the result. I remember driving around before my engine baffle on hot days and the thing was a lemon, low power. Since my engine baffle, more Zoom Zoom. Also the shorter the intake the better. You must also isolate your intake to outside air. Your intake must be sealed off from hot air from engine and rad fan and sealed up to hood for it to be optimal.
With CAI (cold air intake) they are generally longer but do a good job at getting at outside colder air. One major flaw with CAI is it is usually prone to Water. On some Mazdas, we have an opening in front of driver side wheel and this is usually the location for a CAI filter. The first time you go thru a puddle or car wash your filter will be full of water and not good for your MAF Sensor or engine. On my Mazda 6 I have installed a water shield to prevent water from splashing up on to filter yet air can still pass by because the shield is on an angle! Also with mine being a 2006 model it also gets plenty of fresh air from lower grille. On the 2003-2005 models of the Mazda 6 this was not the case. In this situation you could cut out some holes where your fog lights are to let fresh outside air from in front of your car (kind of like ram air).

 

thank you for the great answer! i have noticed a huge improve in power and sound since i installed, suspended, and insulated the CAI. Now, my car also has a bottom grille opening (and fog lights) what im thinking of doing is running a tube down to the lower grille to collect air.